Locals call it The Indian! Beautiful day. Low tide. On the other side of the jetty was the Sand Bar. Nice pace to relax and breath some fresh ocean air!

I took some pictures of good skill surfer. But i do not know they are. I’d like to give these original photos to them. Please let me know email.Nice view, nice surfing. Thank you

As a local, this is one of my favorite spots to stroll, chill and breathe. I always plop down on a boulder but there are benches to sit on. Enjoy the low tide in the small Cove. The original Killer Dana Surf spot before the jetty was built

Ocean Institute is a wealth of information and is a great resource for youth and adults. Located in picturesque Dana Point Harbor, it’s a great place to visit when you are in the area.

Small but informative oceanographic center. Great for the whole family.

Great educational experience and hands on displays. We also throughly enjoyed the Tall Ships Festival!

Great place to visit and check out sealife. Nice gift shop with thoughtful books and clothing. The beach behind it is a nice place to chill too.

Their management sank their ship Pilgrim. And still uses the picture of the grand and historic ship in their advertising. Negligence has continued to lower their performance. This organization needs improvement and new management.

We participated in the Bioluminescence night cruise. 2 hours was a perfect amount of time for this. My daughter and i took a turn riding the front and it was magical...like riding a mythical sea creature with the waves out front and the lights down low. Two dolphins joined is-more than we bargained for. We got lucky on our trip. I wish the same to you future traveler.I love that this is a non profit with a goal to educate underprivileged children, igniting their hunger for knowledge. Highly Recommend.

Kids had so much fun exploring! We check the low tide time online and come 30 minutes before low tide. Tons of hermit crabs! They also found sea slugs that were huge! We walked on a trail around the cliffs and found a cave. It took about 25 minutes of walking though. We didn’t do any of the inside activities. We stayed outside and enjoyed everything for free. This was our second time coming and we will definitely be back.

We fully enjoyed this place for several days. My 3 year old and we; parents learned a lot here and really appreciated very informative and kind staffs who works the best here!Thanks a lot for good memories! My daughter will remember this lovely place and the nice people here! We Recommend Dana ship tour and whale watching as well~

Wonderful Place!This place is great for families, individuals, couples, or anyone really! The Ocean Institute is very clean, accessible, and fun. The picture of the dock shows where the Tall Ships are berthed. My wife and I saw these a few days ago, and watched them shoot canons a little ways off-shore. So cool! We loved it here so much that we got married at this very spot. Great place!

My favorite place

Stopped by to donate a $100 gift card in the name of Truist Bank. Paying it forward as we all should ️️

We came to visit the tide pools but since it was high tide we had to find a different activity. Lucky for us the Ocean Institute was open! The kids enjoyed seeing the ocean creatures and exploring the Pilgrim.

Dated and on the decline. A few dirty fish tanks and touch tanks (star fish, rays and small reef sharks). Lots of educational displays but we were finished in under 30 minutes. Half of the place was closed when we attended 12/30/19 and was not explained when we purchased our admission $62 for 7 of us. Would not recommend.

Beautiful walk 0n the harbour

Excellent education in marine ecology and maritime history.

I have so many memories coming here when i was in 4th grade, wish to go back, love it

Paddleboarding with my daughter was great!

Awesome place with a baby beach right next to it

Perfect for toddlers. Mine loved the tide pool play area and the ship tour. They loved seeing the animals and the parents learned more about our oceans too. The staff was friendly, knowledgeable, and fun! One staff member took the time to read a picture book to our kids! We had an amazing time.

The ocean institute is wonderful. It is fun for the entire family. There was beautiful waves and a beach for the kids. There was two pirate ships there as well.

Educational and fun for the whole family...

Very good

Perfect place to go. We did a homeschool field trip here! There were so many things for the kids to explore and touch!

Great place for the kids to learn. Nice gift shop.

Great Dana Point Harbor destination!

Great place for kids, I use to love going here when I was younger, especially for the squid dissections.

I was waiting until the Seafood festival at S.B. Harbor to finally fulfill my dream of going back to my roots on the ocean. Very disappointed that I could not go down below, and even more disappointed that you are charging $50.00 a ticket for the sail. This is not the Spirit of Dana Point.

Very nice location, picturesque... helpful and friendly volunteers... But, one complaint was that the tanks dont have a lot of information on them. Hard to always know what fish youre looking at.

This was so fun. My girlfriend and I came here to check it out and have some fun. Very awesome. Grand and Leo were a great help to us, they knew a lot and showed us around. Very friendly people

I had prom here, it was pretty chill

Great place to stop in for a few minutes. I felt like it would be nice to have more to see and learn there, but its small and not meant to be a full day trip. Excellent learning center of youre strolling the area

Nice

Tanay Das broke a ruler ;(

Last year I went out on one of their boats. We saw a hump back whaleVery impressive. The Institute itself offers such wonderful education for kids.

Amazing Ocean exploration programs for kids offered. Interesting expositions with marine life.

Had a great time at The Ocean Institute! Love the interactive exhibits!

Good for school field trips, luxury building mostly used to walk around and look at small area of ocean front

Great place for kids 5-13 to do camps, a lot of fun, great place.

This place is just awesome located at a beautiful location

Erica, one of the instructors, berated us when we restarted our project. 1/10, would not do again.

Public restrooms and Ocean fun.

It was so beautiful and we had amazing meal

The Ocean Institute just jired the most fantastic new executive director, Dori Moorehead. Dori was formerly with The California Museum in Sacramento, where she brought new life to the Museum.Sacramentos loss is Dana Points gain. She will be sorely missed, but we congratulate her on her new journey.

I love this place because its so cool that we go on a boat to find creatures in the sand from Vista bel valle

I have so many memories coming here when i was in 4th grade, wish to go back, love it

This place is amazing for families the small gift shop is awesome but in the afternoon Love the Sunsets

It is a great place to bring toddlers it teach them about our oceans and learn about the different animals

Small town institute in picturesque Dana Point. Great for small children or just a weekend stroll. Loved it.

This place is great and educational for all. The best place in Dana my opinion

Very cool went twice second time right now

I am a fith grader and i went there on a trip yesterday, and the science experiemnts and stuff were fun, but when it got to the ship, (i got to expereience how a saior works) it was the most horrible part. My hands got rope burn, my feet hurt, i was wet head to toe, and it was raining. I dont like the ocean institute at all. Plus the ship reinactors also were very mean and strict. i dont like the trip. i advise yu not to go there. ಥ_ಥ

The Cruises on the RV Explorer boat are the best! We did a Sunday morning in October Marine Mammal Cruise and saw; Blue whale with a baby, 2 species of dolphins, sea lions, a giant mola mola fish that the captain knew where to find, and lots of diving birds.It was like a dolphin superhighway, huge pods of dolphins were jumping and cruising along under the boat almost the whole time. We got just a few feet from them in the bow of the boat where you can see underneath you. The dolphins rolled on their side to look at us and we could hear them talking.Going on the Ocean Institute cruise is so much better than a commercial whale watching tour because the biologists really know so much more about the behavior of the animals and they are so enthusiastic about their work. They were all so excited to see as many things as we did in one day.We asked a million questions and they even pulled up some plankton from down deep to show us under the microscopes on board. I felt like everyone was there for the mutual love and to learn about the ocean.You also get free admission in the Ocean Institute the day of your cruise, bonus! We are planning on doing the nighttime Bioluminescence cruise next =]

So couple things:Its not a museum or aquarium, but rather a maritime education center, so they dont have a ton of tanks/exhibits. They do, however, have a number of interactive exhibits, plus a few tanks throughout the grounds that houses some neat local marine life - sharks, coral, etc.There is also a path on either side of the Insitute that leads to a really cool look-out point with benches and a jetty that you can walk along. It is free to the public and the institute generally has regularly scheduled tours throughout the day.It gets very busy during the week as they have lots of programs for children such as summer camps and sleepovers. Not all the exhibits are always available during the week as the campers have dibs on them! So best to call beforehand if you have something specific you want to see.. Everything is generally available on the weekends.They also maintain two tall ships (exact replicas of 1800s tall ships) and an exploration vessel that makes frequent departures (bio-luminescence evening cruises, whale watching cruises, etc.).Additionally, there is an annual fundraising raffle where you can win a million dollar laguna beach home - the tickets are $150 but they include a free individual membership with a single ticket and a free family membership with the purchase of more than one raffle ticket. There are also bonus prizes the earlier you buy your ticket, and you qualify for more prizes with purchasing more than 1 ticket. So definitely worth doing if your going to be buying a membership anyway.Finally, Baby Beach is right near the institute as well; which is a protected, netted, white-sand beach in the corner Dana Point Harbor that is great for young ones.

The staff has problems in their communication work relation. I dont know the really aim of this institution ??? Real or fake ?

Looks great

Dana Point is awesome.

They provide interesting exploration programs to the public

Great classrooms, practical application learning...

Fun place to explore.

Very good

Worth an hour of time.

Great summer programs for kids.

Great rocky beach hangout area

Great place to visit!!!

Beautiful trail to Dana Point Sea Cave

It the best

Awesome place for kids!

Coo fam

Great research for the Kids

Learn about the ocean.

Very good hearted person

I went there for a field trip in 6th grade

We are going there on 2-23-16 I em in 5th grade

Educational and not expensive

Food here is nice