Swimming with Dolphins
Black Cat Cruises
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Swimming with Dolphins
Swim in a sheltered harbour with the rare and friendly Hector's Dolphin, just 90 minutes from Christchurch in picturesque Akaroa, a quaint French inspired sea-side village.
With Black Cat Cruises you will enjoy a once in a lifetime experience, supported by experienced local crew with world class facilities. Our experience and dedication to our local environment delivers a New Zealand must do activity here in Akaroa.
It’s the ultimate dolphin experience as you will be swimming with the endangered Hector’s Dolphin, the world’s rarest and smallest oceanic dolphin.
Hector’s dolphins are protected in Akaroa Harbour by a marine mammal sanctuary and our dolphin cruise gives you the chance to see and swim with these beautiful marine mammals close up in the wild in their natural habitat.
Hector’s dolphins are endemic to New Zealand, meaning that you will not find them anywhere else in the world, and Akaroa is the only place you can take a trip out to swim with them.
An encounter with a Hector’s dolphin in the wild is truly a once in a lifetime experience.
Black Cat Cruises donate a portion of all ticket sales back to the education and research of the endangered Hector’s dolphin, and we offer a fantastic dolphin guarantee policy due to our high swim success rate. This is possibly why Black Cat Cruises dolphin swim experience is listed in the Lonely Planet guide as on of the ‘Top 10 Marine Mammal Experiences in The World’!
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Black Cat CruisesCommercial organisation |
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South Island ▷ Canterbury ▷ Akaroa |
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Marine Animals
Dolphin Watching
Reviews
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5.0/5
It was a small boat, we were only there with 10.
We saw and swam with a lot of dolphins, IN-CRE-DI-BLE!!
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4.0/5
Very nice place, cordial and well prepared staff.
Little bit expensive $150, for what it is. If you want to stay and really enjoy the dolphins, just rent a kayak.
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3.5/5
The water is really cold, but we swam with dolphins so we forgot the cold really fast!!
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2.0/5
A bit disappointing.
The view under the water was really bad, so it was hard to see the dolphins. Not many dolphins at all.
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4.0/5
Dolphin watching and swimming cruise in Akaroa - beautiful place!
Unfortunately the dolphin did not decide to swim with us but the company gave us a refund. Nice!
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3.5/5
It was nice to swim with the dolphins but we searched a long time for them.
The tour guide did not do any good photos.
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5.0/5
It was a small boat, we were only there with 10.
We saw and swam with a lot of dolphins, IN-CRE-DI-BLE!!
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2.0/5
A bit disappointing.
The view under the water was really bad, so it was hard to see the dolphins. Not many dolphins at all.
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3.5/5
The water is really cold, but we swam with dolphins so we forgot the cold really fast!!
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4.0/5
Very nice place, cordial and well prepared staff.
Little bit expensive $150, for what it is. If you want to stay and really enjoy the dolphins, just rent a kayak.
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3.5/5
It was nice to swim with the dolphins but we searched a long time for them.
The tour guide did not do any good photos.
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4.0/5
Dolphin watching and swimming cruise in Akaroa - beautiful place!
Unfortunately the dolphin did not decide to swim with us but the company gave us a refund. Nice!
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3.5/5
Awesome experience, the hot chocolate after the swim was really a good idea.
The only thing I don't like is that they put 'fake' dolphins in the picture.
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4.5/5
Go swim with the dolphins!
Friendly staff who try to make the most of the trip. Hot chocolate on board! Hot showers afterwards!
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4.0/5
Nice guides, well organised, got a refund for not being able to swim with the dolphins ($140pp).
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4.0/5
Water was very cold (14c), even in summer, organisation was very good.
Dolphins were not overly interested in swimming with us and black cat gave us a refund even when we did feel we swam with the dolphins.
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5.0/5
great trip with the guys and had a wonderful experience swimming with hectors dolphins off akaroa Chris pope
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4.5/5
Good organisation, swimsuit snorkel and mask are provided.
Staff were nice and funny. Water was really really cold. Once we saw dolphins cruising around us we forgot the cold water and enjoyed the Hector dolphins.
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5.0/5
The Trip was outstanding.
Tyhere was myself my husband and our niece from the UK on the trip yes we were the only ones and it was awesome. We swam with 2 pods of Dolphins with about 7 in each pod which apparently is unusual and in total we were in the water for 1 hour. I highly recommend this trip to any one.
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3.0/5
Swimming with dolphins.
It's a pity that a dolphin were lazy and did not want to swim with us. If we had swim with the dolphins the ranking would of been higher.
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4.5/5
Absolutely amazing.
Wicked spot nice sea and the dolphins came again and again... but... check the weather, if sensitive to coldness, it can be too cold.
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4.0/5
Didn't get the opportunity to actually swim with the dolphins, but saw a lot, trip was cool too.
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5.0/5
two words ...
dry suits!! AWESOME!!! such cute animals, found relatively quickly, whilst seeing a whole range of other animals! Swam with about 9 or 10 of the little dolphins, crew gave excellent advice on how to attract them - clapping stones underwater, singing through your snorkle etc!
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3.5/5
We were disappointed with this as we had a rough trip on the boat out to the dolphins and felt that we were thrown into the water at the last minute to avoid deserving a refund.
In the end, we were somewhat satisfied as we were given a discount after requesting one, though this took a while.
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4.5/5
Very good.
Although we swam with dolphins, they gave us a refund as they thought it wasn't good enough. Excellent.
