Southern California Vacation 2026 - Day 6 - Whale Watching

This is all about the 6th day of our vacation. This is also the day the deviated the most from the original plan for this trip that I'd sketched out on Christmas Day. 

According to the original plan we we were going to go to Universal on Monday and Tuesday and then sight see around Los Angeles on Wednesday. My plan for us on Wednesday night had us staying in a hotel near the ocean at a hotel near Dana Point which is about 60 miles south of Los Angeles proper. 

Then on Thursday I had us driving from Dana Point to San Elijo State Park which was another 40 miles south. 

About a two weeks before our trip I went over the plans for where we were staying each night. I realized that we didn't have much planned for Thursday. It felt weird to have our entire Thursday revolve around driving 40 miles from one beach to another. 

Also we were going to Universal Studios on Wednesday. And I didn't want to drive all the way down to Dana Point from Studio City. 

So I got on hotels.com and found a similarly priced hotel room in Long Beach for Wednesday night. We'd only have to drive about 45 minutes from Universal Studios to Long Beach. And I figured we could find something fun to do in Long Beach on Thursday. 

At some point about a week before our trip I had the wonderful idea to see if there was a whale watching tour near Long Beach. We'd been talking about going to Sea World in San Diego, but I wasn't quite sold on that idea. It would be expensive to add another theme park to our trip. And I worried we'd be too tired. Plus there were the ethical issues surrounding Sea World. I was like, "Maybe we should just see whales in the ocean?"  

So I looked up whale watching tours and discovered that there was a very highly rated one in Long Beach AND it would be half the price of Sea World. 

I ordered the tickets and then every single member of the family told me how excited they were to go whale watching. Charlotte told me it made her so happy every time she thought about it. 

So on Wednesday night we stayed at a motel near the beach in Long Beach. It was another three beds in one room situation. I'd been a little nervous about how this would go, but everyone was fine. I think it helped that there was some loud droning motor type noise going on all night. It made it so we couldn't hear all the little noises we each made. Most of us slept really well. 

Brandon and I were up before any of the other kids. We went out on the walkway outside to talk. We were trying to decide if we needed to make a grocery shopping run that morning. We decided that we had enough food to make it through the day. 

Breakfast was a very random affair. It was a lot of left overs. There were fruit cups, yogurt, two muffins (left over from our first morning in Ely), pop tarts, apples, pudding, yogurt covered strawberries, and two pieces of pizza for Derrick because he'd fallen asleep before Brandon showed up with the pizza the night before.  

I went through other left over food and made up snack packs for lunch. We had sliced cheese and lunch meat and crackers. I made lunchable type snacks for everyone. We also had a few more cookies that I divided up. 

We packed up our clothes and other things and took them down the three flights of stairs to the car - we didn't need the elevator this time. Charlotte joked about just throwing her bags down to the parking lot. 

After the car was all packed up we drove over to the aquarium parking lot just a few blocks away. As we drove there were bleachers on the sides of the road. Later we found out it they were getting ready for a Grand Prix race. 

We parked at the Aquarium Parking lot. (I'd looked into going to the aquairum, but it was $45 a person and that seemed too steep for an aquarium, even though it was the same price for the Whale watching.)

Our tickets were for the 12:00 tour. And we were there before 10:00. So we had a lot of time to hang around. We went for a walk on the board walk area. 


There were boats tied up at the docks.


This picture of Derrick on this board walk is kind of funny looking to me. Something about the perspective makes him look like a little boy. 

Here's one of the Harbor Breeze boats. I can't remember if this is the one that we would go on anymore. 

Here it is going out for that morning's Harbor Tour. 

We walked around toward a lighthouse. 

This is a pretty awesome picture. In the distance you can see the Queen Mary and a cruise ship off in the distance. 

The older kids went down to play on the rocks, but Veronica was having balance issues. So she came and sat with me. 

We moved along the shore and Charlotte and Lydia ended up in a tree. 

And later they came and sat on the grass and looked at the water. 

Veronica made an art piece out of leaves. 

Here are some really tall palm trees. 

Brandon told the kids he'd give the kids $50 if they could lift the big chain on this anchor to the top of the link area. The kids couldn't do it. 

Closer to 12:00 we moved over to the pier where our boat would meet us. 

Here's the Harbor Breeze boat that we would go on. It had seats on the front and top back. There was also a place to sit on the inside on the lower level.

When we were let onto the boat we found a spot in the back. There were six chairs around a table. We sat there and really had every intention of sitting there the whole time. 

Soon the boat started moving into the harbor. The kids turned around in their chairs to get a good look. 

Here's the wake of the boat as we moved farther away from the city. 

After while we got more used to moving around the boat. Here's Derrick balancing. 

And here's everyone standing up and looking out at the water. 

The city was farther and farther away. Eventually we passed the Breakwater. It was a low wall made of rocks. It helped keep the water in Long Beach Harbor calmer. After we passed the Breakwater we were on the open ocean.  

Here I am. 

And me again. You can see the kids were starting to sit at the table next to us. 

We were scheduled to be out on the tour for 3 hours. There was a volunteer from the Museum on the boat to answer our questions. There was another aquarium person who was on the boats communication system. He was giving facts about the ocean. Both men said that there was no guarantee that we would see a whale, but we'd probably see some sea life. 

There was a lot of just staring out at the ocean. One thing that surprised me was how we didn't have to wear life jackets. I kept having little moments of panic where I pictured the kids falling over the edge. But then I reminded myself that they weren't five anymore. 

I was starting to think that maybe we wouldn't see any whales when suddenly the boat slowed down and it seemed like someone had seen something. Soon we were all looking intently to try to see if there really was a whale. 

And then we started to see some spouts from a whale blowing out its blow hole. 

Then there was a lot of activity of watching the whale on one side of the boat. Then it ended up on the other side of the boat. It was all really exciting to watch. The marine biologist explained that it was a humpback whale. 

Brandon was taking lots of pictures and got this one of the whale's tail.

At first I was content to watch. I was kind of in the back of a crowd and any pictures I took would have had a lot of people in them. But then the whale moved back to our side of the boat. AND we realized these were TWO whales. 

I pulled out my camera and ended up taking a really cool video. It gets really interesting at about the minute and a half point. But I didn't cut it because the waiting is what makes the cool moments even better. 

We followed those two whales for a long time. But eventually we had to turn around to head back to the harbor. 

The trip back was nice, but we were all pretty tired. It was nice to just be rocked by the boat as it cut through the water. Honestly, I was so happy we were sitting down for most of the day's activities. 

We came back to Long Beach. When we left the boat I made sure to leave a tip in the jar for the crew. They'd done a good job finding the whales and keeping us level with them for so long. 

We stopped for a little while at some souvenir stands. I bought another fridge magnet. Brandon bought a shark tooth necklace. 

We went back to the parking lot and paid at the exit. Then we started driving out of town. We drove to the I-5 and then drove south for a while. 

We were nearly out of snack food and I didn't want to set up our tent and then cook dinner at our campsite on empty stomachs. So we stopped at a Wendy's near the interstate. I can't remember out exact conversation, but there was a lot of laughter at our dinner.  

Then we kept driving and we arrived at San Elijo state park. This is where Brandon and I camped 17 years ago. I was excited to bring the kids here. We were directed to our campsite. We set up our tents. My memory of this campground was that it was right next to a rough-ish looking city. But there must have been some gentrification going on in Encinitas over the last 17 years because it did not look at rough as I remember it. 

I'd been a little unsure about letting Charlotte and Lydia sleep in their own tent, but after driving through Encinitas and then seeing how well separated we were from the highway I decided it was fine. 

We set up our two tents and the canopy. We blew up the air mattresses and put the sleeping bags and other bags inside the tents. And then we were ready to go down to the beach. 

One thing I love about this campground is how its on a cliff overlooking the ocean. We went down a big wooden staircase to get to the beach. 

The kids were near the water right away.

Soon they were in the water. They were a little worried that I'd be mad about them getting wet. But I was pretty much expecting this. 

It honestly reminded me of Deception Pass State Park on our Washington Trip. The kids had ended up in the water that evening too. And I'd mentioned to Brandon that we should plan a trip to California beaches someday. And here we were on a beach in California. 

Brandon and I were content to hang out on the sand. 

Here are the kids playing in the water. 

The sun went down and we went back up to our campsite. The kids changed into pajamas. The low for the night was supposed to be in the high 50s so I wasn't worried about anyone sleeping with wet hair. But everyone was really happy to be in dry clothes. 

The sky was surprisingly clear. I was able to take this picture of the moon and some stars. 

Brandon and Derrick went on a grocery shopping trip to a Walmart about 15 minutes away. When they came back I was nearly asleep. They weren't tired so they went on a walk along the whole length of the campground. They found that it actually sloped down to a point where the cliff was no longer there. 

By the time they came back I was asleep.