New England Aquarium Whale Watch

The Deal:  New England Aquarium Whale Watch - $22.00. 


 So, this deal didn’t really work out as well as anticipated.  It’s not entirely Living Social’s Fault, or the  New England Aquarium Whale Watch, but I still don’t feel that I necessarily got the benefit of my bargain.  We did have a lovely time, though.

First of all, you are supposed to be able to show the voucher to redeem the deal.  What no one tells you is that you need to give the Aquarium the number off your voucher to schedule your reservation.  As soon as you do that, the voucher is marked as “used”… and you can neither print it to bring it with you nor use the app to pull it up on your phone.  This was a problem, because no one mentioned it before we made our reservations.  So, if you want to use a similar deal in the future, do yourself a favor and print the voucher in advance.

Second…. in retrospect, perhaps I should not have purchased a deal that was 100% dependent on having nice weather in New England.  The vouchers expired June 15.  We scheduled a whale watch for June 2.  It poured all day.  The weather was terrible.  We got a call, after we were about halfway there, that the watch had been cancelled.  (All was not lost, though, because we had free passes to the Aquarium.)  At that point, there was only 13 days left to use the voucher, and I was scheduled to be out of town for the only intervening weekend.  Luckily, they told us that we could have until the end of June to use the vouchers.  So, we schedule another watch for June 16.  Annnnnnnnnnnnnd - the weather sucked on June 16.  We couldn’t go.  

Most people who had scheduled whale watches for that day were issued refunds.  We couldn’t get a full refund, obviously, because we hadn’t paid full price.  We also couldn’t reschedule because, well, it’s summer, and we’re busy people.  We won’t both be in town again between June 15 - June 30, which is the absolute last day we could use the vouchers for $22.  So, they gave us the option of doing the Harbor Tour instead.  But not at half price.  We didn’t have to pay for it, but the Harbor Tour usually only costs about $24.  So, we saved $2 each.  Not really the deal I was hoping to get.

Don’t get me wrong.  The Harbor Tour was lovely.  We had a really nice time.   Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any whales.  And it wasn’t quite the awesome deal I expected.  So, if you want to ever do a deal that depends on nice weather, make sure all necessary parties will be in town to actually use it before it expires.  (Or maybe considering not living in New England…)

Cost:  $22
Estimated Value: $24
Estimated Savings:  $2
Total Estimated Deal Savings, to Date:  $1,048.92.