I found out about Jill's walking tour from a friend. She took me to a spot with the best views in…read moreDana Point that I had never seen before, even from visiting here many times. Her tour was interesting, fun, and very educational. Dana Point has a remarkably colorful past! The best part was Jill herself; she is a fun and engaging guide who will keep you laughing and smiling. I highly recommend this tour for anyone who wants a fun few hours to see, hear and experience this beautiful and unique city, Dana Point.

We went on a walking tour of Dana Point and we were so impressed by our tour guide's (Jill)…read moreknowledge and the beauty of the harbor and headlands. We've lived here for 10 years and I had no idea of the history of the place. Pirates, priests, sailors and surfers! So much fun! Highly recommend this tour.

Beautiful piece of history! The staff was very friendly, and you're provided with a handheld audio…read moreguide that gives you fascinating, in depth historical details about the grounds. Everything is beautiful and extremely well maintained. The chapel is absolutely stunning, with so much incredible detail, and it's such a peaceful place of worship. The gift shop has a great selection of unique gifts, along with sacred pieces from holy places around the world. Definitely worth spending a few hours here. A beautiful, peaceful, and fascinating place to visit!

We had a wonderful time! We made it a point to stop here when driving from Temecula as we had never…read morebeen to a mission before, and we are so glad that we did. When getting the tickets, the lady helping us was so nice! We got our audio tour and started along the way. It really was beautiful and full of history! It's as old as the country! The audio tour and plaques along the way provided a lot of information and we spent at least 2 hours here wandering around and taking everything in, you could easily spend more time than that here. Beautiful grounds and it was amazing to see the original and uncovered structures that existed so long ago. You end up at the gift shop at the end and we left with a postcard and a magnet for home. Very reasonable prices in there and some cute things! Overall we had an amazing time and would love to visit other missions. Give this one a go!

Love, love this area of Dana Point. This has been my families spot to learn about the ocean and to…read moreenjoy sea life. We have always come to the Marine protected area when the tide is low and walked along the beach and sand outside the Institute to see all sorts of sea life. It is amazing what you can see, even saw an octopus one time. Just make sure that you know when the tide is rolling in and out to not get caught out on the rocks! On the backside of the Institute there are also benches to sit at and listen to the ocean. The Institute itself is filled with wonderful sea life and is a great learning experience no matter your age. Outside, there is a calm bay area where paddle boarders are all over as well as the educational ships filled with history. There is nothing that you cannot do in this area!

We came to the Ocean Institute for a homeschool field trip and was it ever worth it for waking up…read moreat 6am! The initial lesson part was split into groups and we were assigned to Sydney. She was absolutely delightful! Very knowledgeable and receptive to the questions the kids have! After the lesson, we headed out to the open sea. To our delight we got to see dolphins, sea lions, and even spotter a whale! Overall it was a great experience and would highly recommend it to anyone wanting a lesson on ocean mammals!

Best bike rental shop in town! Great customer service and bike selection. They deliver and pick-up…read morethe bike, which is super convenient.

My wife and I had an amazing afternoon with Shawn's ebike. He was super helpful getting her set…read moreup, and even fixed a problem with my (own) bike before we headed out. The scenery around here is spectacular, my wife said it's one of her top few California experiences!

Located at the Dana Point Harbor, Capt Dave has dedicated parking lot. No bathrooms in the building…read morebut 2 bathrooms a skip away. They depart from the building towards the boat 15 mins beforehand so they want you to check in 30mins before (and on weekends/holidays, check in 45mins before). The boat departs on time at the scheduled time, so make sure you are here in the building 15-30mins before your booked time. We booked at 1pm and that's when the boat left the dock. We were gathered at the office at 12:45 to head towards the boat and unfortunately a couple missed their slot because they were not even in the parking lot at 1pm when the boat sailed. Don't make their mistake, just make sure you are parked at least 15mins before the booked time. They were willing to wait 5 mins, but not 30 mins, so timeliness from guests is important as we had almost 30 people on board. As you are led from the building to the boat, they have a pit stop at the bathroom as they warned that the boat's bathroom that can't take toilet paper and can easily clog. Unfortunately the ocean waters was unusually warm when we booked on 7/03 for whale/dolphin sighting so we didn't see any but they have a sighting guarantee so they gave us all a voucher to come back again for free. They gave out a delicious brownie at the end too, so I'm excited to come back for the brownie!

Paid by card online. Capt. Dave's is located by the harbor and offers a lot of parking. I was…read moreeasily able to book online for the 2.5 hour 8 am tour, for my child and me. When we arrived at the harbor, we went upstairs to check in and got the passes to get on the boat. The staff was super friendly at check-in and on the boat (Capt. Matt, 1st mate, Mike, and photographer, Andy.) Everything about the experience was well-organized. The boat was clean and comfortable so it was an enjoyable ride. We saw about 400 dolphins and 1 humpback whale! It was such an enjoyable excursion! I would recommend you bring your own snacks and/or drinks on board if you don't have a chance to eat beforehand, since snacks and drinks are not provided on the 2.5 hour 8 am tour. There is a small snack shack upstairs where you check in if you forget to bring things to eat and drink. I would recommend this tour and would go back.

What a great tour! I was the only person to book the Sustainable Laguna Beach tour that morning and…read moreMike took me on a personalized adventure! Mike was very friendly, knowledgeable, professional, and safety minded. It was an absolute pleasure walking/driving around town and chatting with him all morning. I feel like I've made a new friend. Would highly recommend.

From the owner: An Urban Adventures tour of Orange County is a unique way to get to know the area by foot from a…read morelocal's perspective. Our guides show you off the beaten path places and advise you on how to get around on your own. The experience can be as short as a couple of hours, or as long as a whole day, but in every case, our Urban Adventures tours take travelers to interesting places to experience local culture and see what makes a place unique. Join us for the Best. Day. Ever.

NFY and Joel Robinson , the head Naturalist there brings fun and educational level service to the…read morelocal mountains. They offer tons of different hikes and walks to lots of the OC's last open or wild spaces. You'll learn something, laugh, touch grass and see all the wildlife around you and then learn something more. Go, you won't regret it!

Attended a night time walk in Irvine Regional Park. It's easy to learn with them + they have a…read moremission to protect and create a strong ecological corridor for Orange County. Very well rounded team and good people attending. Just do it.

Absolutely amazing on how they upgraded all the surrounding areas…read more Lots of new parking with a new multilevel parking structure and new bathrooms and showers for the boaters that have a permit for boat parking to launch their Crafts from Dana Point harbor. Automatically given 4 hours of free parking with quick access to any of the numerous restaurants and gift shops right on the water. This is the spot if you want to go offshore fishing on a charter or whale watching which I did on a couple hour tour it was outstanding. Not to mention all the whales dolphins and other mammals that were seen offshore. Tuesdays they still do half off. If you have not been give it a try it's so much better now with the easy access and plenty of free 4 hour parking. Don't overlook the stunning safe day beaches without the big Surf issues

We went on a family trip together for this Independence Day weekend. My dad suffered a stroke in…read moremid-December last year, and luckily he has recovered quite a bit since then. However, since he still can't travel too far, we decided to visit somewhere close by. So, we booked a hotel in Dana Point and had a wonderful two-night trip. On Saturday, July 4th, we all booked tickets for a whale/dolphin-watching cruise. When I booked the tickets, I asked how long the tour would be, and they said it would be two hours. The ticket prices were $78 for adults and $68 for seniors. At first, my brother accidentally bought all five tickets at the adult rate when three of them should have been seniors. I noticed this on the receipt, so I managed to get a refund for the price difference for the three senior tickets. We bought five tickets for the 12:00 PM cruise and were told to wait at Dock 6 starting from 11:45 AM, but the boat arrived a bit late. Once we got on board, the wind was blowing incredibly hard, and the waves were quite high, causing the boat to rock violently. After boarding, a friendly female crew member gave us a briefing at the front. She kindly advised everyone on board not to run, and said that if anyone felt seasick, it would be better to stay towards the back of the boat rather than the front. She also mentioned that if the motion sickness got too bad, they could provide peppermint or ginger candies, and added that there was a bar and snack counter inside the boat. Come to think of it, I once went sailing on a yacht with my friends a long time ago. For the first 30 minutes, I was clapping, taking photos, and having a great time, but then I got so severely seasick that I had a truly miserable time (the same thing happened to me on a cruise trip before). Still, when I rode a boat at Lake Arrowhead last year, I didn't experience any seasickness at all, so I thought I would be fine this time too--though looking back, that was probably because the lake was so calm. But during this cruise on July 4th, I ended up getting so incredibly seasick that I felt like I was dying. About 10 minutes before we docked, the seasickness got so severe that I even started dry-heaving, and it was just awful. I was dizzy, and my stomach kept churning. Even so, it was really wonderful to see so many dolphins during the cruise, and the crew members were all so kind. When I was struggling with severe seasickness, my brother went to inform the crew. A crew member came over and asked if I wanted a peppermint, ginger, or ginger ale candy. I asked for a peppermint candy, and they handed it to me, saying it was free. When I asked, "Does it work?" she assured me it would. I sucked on the candy while sitting at the back of the boat and fell asleep, but later on, the seasickness became so overwhelmingly intense that I ended up throwing up everything and had a horrible time. Anyone who gets easily seasick should definitely take this into consideration before going on a cruise. Still, seeing so many dolphins was a huge highlight.

Four of us booked a wine country experience to celebrate turning 70!…read moreHunter and his partner (sorry, forgot his name) were absolutely awesome. The tour was fun and adventurous, off-roading and all. We enjoyed the wineries as well. Learned some about the grape growing and wine making too! I highly recommend this tour.

Simply a splendid way to tour the Temecula wine country! Riding around in an open motorcycle…read moresidecar, beautiful blue skies above with hawks and turkey vultures, wind whipping around to keep you cool and amazing vistas of hills, valleys and vineyards. My friend had a Groupon but missed pulling the trigger on an online reservation. Luckily she called the company and they were kind enough to get us scheduled in for that same day. My friend and I appreciated being given a choice as to which to focus on - wine or wine country. Our vote was a little more country.  The tour took us through grapevines where we sampled grapes at different stages of ripening.  We sipped some great wine and had a delicious Neapolitan pizza from Pizza Bina at Chapin Family Vineyards. Our guide Bryan was truly a professional - engaging, thoughtful, enthusiastic and a wealth of knowledge about not only the wineries but the history of the region.  He even took pro photos of our excellent adventure!

I have cuzzin's here from New Mexico who really wanted to see the whales and dolphins. So I got us…read moretix with Capt. Dave's. We traveled out to sea for awhile and I was really getting discouraged 'cause there was no action, when all of a sudden the oceans God's arrived and we were sitting amongst 1000s of dolphin. They were flying in the air, spinning, breaching abreast 4 at a time. Almost like they knew they were there to entertain our boat. It lasted for long time too. Then as we started to return to the harbor, we spotted the biggest sunfish ever. About 1000 lbs, who just laid right next to the boat the entire time. Never left us. We got back to the harbor a little late because we were all so entertained. The crew was so kind and accommodating and we even got a brownie as we all disembarked. I live very nearby, and I have to admit that hearing all the tourist getting excited with their "oohs, ahh, sqeeels and laughter" was heartwarming for me. The way the world should be. I only remember Capt. Matt's name but wish I remember the rest of the deck members. Truly a Blessed afternoon. Will return soon.

This was an AMAZING experience. I wasn't expecting to see anything, and then there were dolphins…read more Once we got farther out. We saw a few blue always. Amazing! First time for me and my sister. We also saw a Fin whale briefly. All in all, the event was spectacular. I highly recommend it. The Captain and the crew were super and helpful with answering questions. I will be going back when I visit my sister in SoCal! Woot!