Hoonah whale tours reviews: what 158, 105, 69, 10, 3 and 0 actually tell you

This is the deepest evidence base on the site. At that volume an average has been pushed around by a lot of different days, different sea states and different expectations, and it has settled at 4.9. It is also the listing whose extra — drone footage of the whales — is easy to check for yourself: either the film arrives or it does not, which is a cleaner thing to review than a sighting.

A hundred reviews is well past the point where one unhappy day moves the average, so 4.8 here is a stable figure rather than a fragile one. This is also the lowest whale fare on the site and the listing whose labels include free cancellation, which is worth weighing alongside the rating rather than after it.

A lower average on a solid count. Read it in context: this is a land tour that searches for brown bears, and a search has outcomes a boat tour does not. The listing argues from the density of bears on Chichagof Island, not from a promise, and a rating of 4.2 across 69 reviews looks like exactly what that honesty costs.

Ten is a real number but a thin one. At this count a single three-star review moves the average by more than a tenth of a point, so treat 4.4 as a rough indication rather than a measurement. What the count does confirm is that the tour runs and that people have come back from it and written something.

A perfect average from three reviews. It is the highest rating on the site and the least informative one, because three people agreeing is a thing that happens often and by accident. Nothing here suggests the charter is poor — it suggests nobody has tested it in public yet.

Four hours, the highest price on the site, and no rating at all. Its listing is labelled a new activity. There is no score to quote and we are not going to estimate one: a blank is a blank, and pretending otherwise is how these pages go wrong.

The number of reviews sets how much the average is worth. On this site the counts run from 158 down to none, so the same 4.9 and 5.0 typeface is carrying wildly different amounts of evidence.

The four-hour river trip has no reviews because its listing is new, not because people came back unhappy. A missing rating is an absence of information and should be read as one.

A tour that searches for brown bears is being judged partly on whether bears appeared. The 4.2 across 69 reviews on the bear bus is a plausible outcome for an honest listing, not a warning.

The most reviewed listing here is also the one that includes drone footage of the whales. A deliverable you can hold afterwards is easier to review well than a wildlife sighting, and that probably shows in the score.

The bear bus, the village tour with the crab feast and the whale trips are different purchases. Ranking them in one league table by star rating puts a crab meal and a three-hour boat trip in the same column, which helps nobody.

Review counts say nothing about cancellation terms. The whale cruise carries free cancellation in its listing labels and asks for a booking at least four hours ahead; for the rest, read the listing rather than assume.