Affiliate disclosure
The short version: some links here earn us a commission, you pay the same either way, and nobody pays to be featured.
Which links are affiliate links
Every "Check availability" button, and every in-text link that goes to a cruise listing, points to GetYourGuide or Viator and carries our affiliate tag. If you book after clicking one, the platform pays us a share of its own commission. Your price is identical to the price you would see going straight to the listing.
Those are the only two affiliate networks on this site. There are no hotel links, no display ads and no sponsored posts. If we ever add a third network, this page and the footer disclosure will name it before the first link goes live, not after.
What it does not change
- Ordering. Every category page sorts by review count, highest first. No operator can buy a position and none has been offered one.
- Inclusion. All 14 cruises we could find genuinely bookable on the two platforms are here, including the ones with 21 reviews and the ones we think are priced for the view rather than the voyage. The SEAL tour sells on both platforms under two separate listings; we count it once rather than pad the number with the same amphibious bus twice.
- What we say about them. The sunset cruise that loops Mission Bay is labelled as Mission Bay everywhere it appears, not folded into the harbor. The 30-minute jet boat is described as 30 minutes. No page implies a whale sighting is guaranteed, because none of them is.
- Things we earn nothing from. The Coronado ferry, the walk along the Embarcadero, the sea lions barking on the harbor buoys and the view out toward Cabrillo pay us nothing, and they still get their say in the guides wherever they beat a paid ticket.
Ratings, review counts and prices
Every rating and review count on this site is the platform's own number, read off the live listing on 18 August 2026. We do not average them, round them up or hide the small ones: the 14 listings carry 8,703 traveller reviews between them, and that figure is the sum of the real ones. Fares are a different matter. They move with the date, the day of the week, the option you pick and the country you book from, so this site publishes no price table. Where a page quotes a range it says so, and the live listing is always the authority on what you will actually be charged.
If you would rather not use our links
Search the operator's name on GetYourGuide or Viator directly, or go to the operator's own site, and book there. We would genuinely rather you got out on the water. The category pages, the FAQ and the guides work perfectly well as research whether or not you click anything.
Questions about any of this: email us.