Dolphin Guarantee

The great thing about viewing or swimming with dolphins is that you are doing it in their natural habitat completely on their terms, and so of course we cannot absolutely ‘guarantee’ dolphins on every single trip, and nor can any other operator.

Sometimes dolphins may have calves with them, or are feeding, mating or just resting. It’s important for us not to interact with dolphins when they don’t want to.

But you may be interested to know that in the last 12 months we saw dolphins on 97% of our cruises, so you have to be a bit unlucky to miss out!

We understand that a dolphin experience is important to our customers so we have devised a guarantee of sorts which is as follows:

Akaroa Harbour Nature Cruises

If you don’t get to see dolphins (average 3% of cruises) then you get to come back and do our cruise another day.

Swimming with dolphins

Although we see dolphins 97% of the time, sometimes we are not able to get you in the water or the dolphins disappear quickly.  If we are unable to complete a successful swim on your trip, you will be entitled to a 30% refund of your ticket price.

Remember this is not a guarantee to see/swim with dolphins on all our trips but it is a guarantee that if you don’t – you get to come again another day (cruise) or get a partial refund (swimmers only).

About us

The award-winning Black Cat Cruises is not only an acclaimed success in New Zealand’s tourism industry but also internationally recognized as an eco-tourism pioneer. We hold the honour of being the first to introduce cruises in Akaroa, and we're proud to be acknowledged as New Zealand’s very first eco-tourism operator.

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WHERE WE ARE

Our Nature Cruises and Dolphin Swimming experience depart from Akaroa which is only a 90 minute scenic drive from Christchurch. The Diamond Harbour, Quail Island and Ripapa ferry depart from Lyttelton in Christchurch.

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