Blue Heron Cruises

Tobermory is a beautiful place for a family to enjoy, recomand 1 to 3 day visit. Its a very long ride from heart of Toronto only due to the fact that there are no highway routes to the location. If you do speed to get there and back then be ware of tickets, never speed on the route to tobermory! Now once you are there you would likely want to purchase a boat ticket(prefer to purchase before hand) on blue herion or the other cruise company to go to bruce island and 2 wrecks. If you are docking on the island you do have to pay a canada park fee which gets you access to many other locations on tobermory area. If you have a great deal of time to wait for the cruise ride then from blue herion parking lot back track 10 min drive on the left side there is a camp ground park in there(cyprus lake), there is a beautiful clif park for photos and trail takes estimated 2 hours total walk time. There is a closer area singing beach which is a beach with frogs, butterflies and good place to bathe, the trail there should take 30 min. Another option is stay at the dock have a grub at the priate looking restaurant, give a try on the 2 piece whitefish with fries, personally dont like the haddock that much(compared to white fish), no need for all you can eat because 2 piece of fish is more than enough. Now lets say you are departing, once you are on the cruise you will visit the first wreck, i suggest you sit on top to get the great view of georgian bay, once you are at the first wreck you can take photos from top floor or first floor glass window from the boat, afterwards you will have a 20min ride to get to bruce island where you can walk a 20min trail to visit 2 flower pots and a cave with light house keeper house. To take photos and visit you should make sure your pickup cruise is atleast 1:30hours away from dropping you off. If you deside to swim or enjoy the rock view/pictures i do suggest 3 hours on the island. You need to know timing due to the round trip ticket you would need to purchase prior to getting in the cruise. Once you are back from the cruise you can go to the harbour upper area for the ice cream, the alfogato is very good they use Nescafe coffee. Im from gta area we left around 8, came home around 11, total drive time approx 4 hours per trip, with light traffice, with limited speed limit. Plan your day or get a hotel room, cottage when you head out. Blue herion also have hotel rooms which is right at the harbour. There are also private boat/jet ski/kayak/scuba diving rentals on the spot. There are also helicopters trips but need to schedule in advance. Hope this helps for first time visitors. Cheers. Ps. I have gotten ticket before in route to visit, do not speed!

They have got a nice see through glass boat. The ride was fast and nice. Takes roughly half an hour to get to the flowerpot island. Staff was nice as well. Due to Covid there was no commentary on the boat. Also there was no showing of ship wreck. The part That I did not like about the ride was that I didn’t think Blue heron took Covid related safety measures seriously. First off the boat seemed crowded as per Covid safety standards, People were allowed to mix, people from different groups were sitting together as well without leaving gap. There was too much activity on the boat as people were trying to take pictures and not following safety protocols at all. Yes masks were mandatory on the boat but Blue Heron could have gone one step further and ensure safety of everyone by instructing people on board to keep distance and don’t sit next to a person from a different group. They only opened 2 days ago I think; so I hope they will learn and mprove!

We got there late and all the glass bottom tours were booked but the lovely booking lady got us on the Flowerpot Island tour And we had a wonderful time. The boatride over was fun and the staff were friendly and informative about the Fathom Five Bio Preserve. We got on the early return boat and sat on the glass bottom all the way back to Tobermory. Fun experience. Highly recommend.

PROS: Beautiful scenic tour of Tobermorey shorelines including sunken ships and Flower Pot Island, the boat is clean and stable, there’s cool glass bottom floor, boat crew were friendly, and prices were reasonable ($40 per adult). CONS: When lined up for boarding, one of the staff asked my family “to spray our hands” and whether we have “experienced an Covid symptoms”. For the record, I am okay with such questioning during a pandemic, HOWEVER, I do take offence to being the only people (in a line of 100 ticket holders) being asked such questions. Sadly, we were singled out as a “risk” because we are visible minorities - and despite enjoying the boat ride, I cannot justify a rating higher than 1 star for Blue Heron.

Good service. The boat bring us to flowerpot island. We pass by a shipwreck. It's possible to see it via glass on the floor of the boat

We had great cruise to shipwrecks and Flowerpot island. Blue heron cruises has a wonderful team, everyone was super friendly, yet experienced. And many thanks for the complimentary parking!

Easy to follow instructions when ordering tickets. Pull up to office in the temporary parking area and Free parking once you check in. You get 1 hour of parking after the boat arrives back at dock which is often a decent amount of time to tour the strip and grab candy / ice cream at one of the many shops. Boat instructions were well defined before boarding, boat was visibly being sanitized for covid stuff. Allowed to move around once boat was in motion, and we did the sunken ships prior to leaving for flower pot island.

Wonderful staff. Likely due to weather, we were unfortunately only able to see one ship wreck which comes ups ten min from departure. Stopped off at flowerpot island - so incredibly beautiful ? The last cruise time with drop off at the island was 230 - get dropped off around 330pm, you have the option of staying on the island until the last pickup at 5pm. Enough time to do the walk over to the flowerpots but you'd def enjoy the lighthouse and water in warmer weather with more time. For three house on the island, opt for the earlier cruise times.