Tenerife: Whale Watching Catamaran Cruise with Buffet & Pickup

4.82

(545 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

We stepped onto the catamaran at Puerto Colón just as the morning sun was getting serious — not hot yet, but you could smell sunscreen and sea salt in the air. The crew greeted us with easy smiles (I think one of them was humming something Spanish under his breath), and we found a spot on the sundeck where the breeze felt just right. I didn’t expect to feel nervous, but there’s something about heading out from Tenerife’s coast that gets your heart going a bit.

Our guide — I think her name was Marta — started pointing toward these dark shapes moving in the water, and suddenly everyone went quiet except for a little kid who kept saying “delfín!” over and over. The whales were closer than I thought they’d be. You could hear them exhale, this deep puffing sound, and it made me grin like an idiot. Dolphins popped up too, almost showing off. Someone passed around plates of fruit and little tapas from the buffet (the olives were salty-sweet, still thinking about those), and there was cava if you wanted it. I tried to say “gracias” with my mouth full — not my best look.

I wandered up to the fly-bridge after that, just to get a better view of the mountains behind us. The light changed every few minutes — sometimes gold, sometimes almost blue — and people just lounged or chatted quietly. At some point Marta offered snorkeling gear but honestly I was happy just soaking up the sun and watching clouds drift by. There’s this feeling you get when you’re out there: calm but also sort of awake in a new way. Hard to explain unless you’ve done it.