Amazing! - Amazing, saw a huge pod of Hector’s dolphins and a ton of seals! Unbelievable experience, would highly recommend.

Fantastic Harbour tour not to be missed! - What a fantastic experience! From the welcome by Ben at Reception, to the brilliant sightings of Hector dolphins, to the fur seals and their pups, to the variety of bird life, to the stunning scenery and, finally, to the wonderful crew of Karl, Izzy and Harriet. We wouldn't change a thing!

A Must Do South Island Experience - A few spare days after the Test match in Christchurch (that we won convincingly 😉) and we hired a car and drove to beautiful Akaroa where we booked this experience. Captain Thomas was ably assisted by crew members Charlie and Helen. They advertise one is 95% certain to see the rare Hector's dolphins and we weren't disappointed. We also saw plenty of fur seals and birdlife. Thomas was very knowledgeable and articulately communicated relevant information as we went out and returned. A thoroughly recommended tourist experience. The Black Cat organisation made our day and helped create lifelong memories - a big thank you from the Stratford family (UK) 💥

An amazing tour of Akaroa harbour. Do not miss this incredible adventure. - An amazing tour that included seals and dolphins. Well described by Skipper Thomas during the tour. Very informative history and nature discovery. Shout out to Ben and Helen who were very professional and friendly crew.

Dolphins and dolphins everywhere - Cruise of 2 hours seeing wildlife and cute dolphins was an amazing experience. Thank team Blackcat for all the hospitality and great commentary

Amazing nature cruise - We were so lucky with the day, not a breath of wind. Was smooth sailing the whole two hours. Saw Hector's dolphins they are incredibly fast, also saw a couple of fur seals and absolutely stunning scenery. The crew and skipper were both fantastic answering all questions put to them in a warm and friendly manner. We used leisure tours via trip advisor. Whole day was awesome

World Class Boat Cruise (on par with Milford Sound) - INCREDIBLE. What a place. Within a short 2 hour period we saw Dolphins, seals and learnt heeps about the local geological heritage from our devilishly handsome young captain, Thomas. If you need a nice relaxing morning with peeks of excitement , this is the thing for you

Well worth the money and I definitely recommend - Great time today onboard with Thomas, Harriet, and Helen. Thomas was extremely knowledgeable about what we saw on land or sea. If you’re wanting to learn about dolphins and/or Akaroa and it’s history, this is a must do!

Nature at her best - We arrived in Akaroa to wind and rain in the morning . Our cruise was in the afternoon . Thankfully the rain cleared by the time we boarded. We were lucky to see lots of pods of the Hector dolphin . They all came out to play . Such beautiful creatures . Passed by Cathedral Cave on the way to see the seals. Lounging in the afternoon sun on the rocks , they have the perfect life . This cruise is well worth the time and money . Crew are pleasant to deal with. A commentary about the animals and area was very informative . Highly recommend this to everybody .

Limited chance of actually swimming with dolphins, deceiving advertisement pictures. - We did the ‘swim with dolphins’ trip. The advertisements show dolphins jumping out of the water while when the trip starts we learned that unlike some other dolphins, those here are actually not that playful, and most of the time they are busy finding food as opposed to having time to interact with humans. This makes me feel the pictures on the advertisements are a bit deceiving. We did indeed find two or three groups of a few dolphins, and we could see them from the boat. However, none were showing interest in interacting according to the crew. Nevertheless in the end we entered the water (I got the idea this was more a futile attempt by the crew to say that at least we did go swimming). From in the water, there was less to see than from the boat. Just according to what we learnt at the start, we didn’t see any dolphins emerging out of the water, so don’t expect this also if you do the tour where you stay on the boat. Don’t get me wrong, I do understand these are wild animals and it’s not a zoo. However given what the crew told us, I suspect the chances of interacting or seeing dolphins from close by in the water are not that high.