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Ticket sold for a half-day (4 to 6 hours). They did the minimum, as we found orcas, I would have prefer stayed longer with them ( even if they were far from the boat). No more stop in San Juan ( gas too expensive!). 150 dollars is much too expensive for an experience like this. Une sortie pratique ( départ du pier 69), confortable, mais avec un si gros bateau on ne risque pas de pouvoir approcher les animaux… C’est très cher pour ce que c’est, et vraiment décevant……
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Date of experience: May 2022
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Response from ClipperVacations, Guest Relations Manager at FRS Clipper
Responded 3 days ago
Hi Caroline, we're sorry to hear you were disappointed with the tour. This tour did see transient orca whales, which was excellent! This tour does not market as going to San Juan Island.
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Saw this boat down in Tacoma today chasing around humpbacks. They were way to close and seemed to be chasing them. Do not support this company as they harass the whales.
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Date of experience: May 2022
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Response from ClipperVacations, Guest Relations Manager at FRS Clipper
Responded 1 week ago
Hi Kyle, actually our captains and crew abide by all regulatory viewing measures during our whale and sealife tour as we educate guests about the species being observed. As a member of the Pacific Whale Watching Association, we hold to the highest standards of responsible wildlife viewing. Whales can have unpredictable swimming patterns and in these cases we take all precautions necessary to ensure the safety of the whales. Thanks.
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Just found out that my trip from Friday Harbour to downtown Seattle has been cancelled-only because I noticed the price of the ticket had been refunded to my credit card. The 'explanatory email' from Clipper was sent late, only after I complained to them directly. I am now stranded on Friday Island and am now scrambling around to find alternative transport back to Seattle in the peak season as there are no other firms running this route. They claim that capacity has been reduced from 200-150 passengers and thus unsustainable-so why not change the price? PPl have already made accommodation commitments-they clearly do not care about this. Do NOT use this firm-they have completely ruined my holiday plans and their claim in their email to 'offer further assistance' after the cancellation is totally without grounds unless they intend to offer coach transport to downtown Seattle from the ferry port (which I think would be highly unlikely).…
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Date of experience: April 2022
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Response from ClipperVacations, VP Marketing at FRS Clipper
Responded 2 weeks ago
Hi Jackie, first we do deeply apologize again for the disruption to your travel plans. All booked guests on the Seattle-Friday Harbor route were immediately refunded. The notice of cancellation email that was sent to all booked guests initially did not reach guests who had only booked transportation and not our full-day whale watching tour. We caught this error on May 2nd and after resolving the technical issue, we re-issued the email on May 2nd to transportation only guests. Thus, guests who had only booked transportation did have their refund processed prior to receiving the cancellation email and we apologize for the technical error in email delivery. As explained in other follow up communications with you, the business decision to cancel the Seattle-Friday Harbor route is due to the following: 1. The U.S. Coast Guard limited our San Juan Clipper vessel capacity to 150 (full capacity is 200). Despite our extensive cooperation to restore the vessel to a capacity of 200, we were limited to 150 our vessel would need to undergo significant modifications to be considered for restoring a 200 passenger capacity. 2. The Seattle-Friday Harbor route is a state regulated service route that is under the jurisdiction of the WA Utilities and Transportation Commission. This means that the rates we are able to charge are regulated by WUTC and it is an annual process to have rates renewed which was not feasible for our 2022 season due to the timing of item #1 above. In short, our business would have suffered a great loss operating the Seattle-Friday Harbor route in 2022, which would not make business sense and is certainly not possible for a company that has been greatly impacted by the pandemic. We most certainly love the San Juan Island community and plan to find a path forward to restore service between Seattle and Friday Harbor in 2023. Again, apologies for the disruption to your travel plans but as you can see, items were out of our control and we did the best we could for our guests to issue full refunds to all guests immediately. Thanks.
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Easy booking this morning. The last couple of days trying to book was a bust, but today it was smooth sailing, user friendly site actually.
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Date of experience: April 2022
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My efforts to contact this outfit via telephone AND email from their own website have yielded zero results. The telephone calls to their # 800-888-2535 remain unanswered despite wait times of half an hour and more, the promise to reply to messages left on their website is worthless as it elicits in no reply at all (after several days). If this is how they run the pre-trip routine I dread to think how they run their seagoing fleet. Totally unprofessional.…
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Date of experience: April 2022
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Response from ClipperVacations, Guest Relations Manager at FRS Clipper
Responded 3 weeks ago
Hi, apologies that you had trouble reaching our call center. We have been experiencing very high call volume and unfortunately not enough agents to handle the calls. Like so many in the travel industry, we are working to staff up as quickly as possible! Thanks.
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