What You'll Get
Tours are an ideal way for anyone to learn more about a new locale without resorting to drastic measures such as running for mayor. Get acquainted with the California coastline the easy way with today's Groupon: for $8, you get an adult ticket to a 90-minute narrated harbor tour of Newport Bay from Fun Zone Boat Company in Balboa (a $19 value). Fun Zone Boat Company regularly discounts tickets for children ages 5–11 ($7) and seniors older than 55 ($14). Children 4 and younger are free.
In business more than 60 years, Fun Zone Boat Company shepherds passengers along a lively narrated Pacific Ocean voyage that caresses the California coastline while passing colonies of sea lions and the houses of Hollywood celebrities. The 90-minute tour sets sail seven days a week, on the hour, from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. One mile off shore, at the Bell Buoy, resident sea lions cluster around the navigational beacon, where they leisurely sun themselves, playfully flap their flippers, and honkily bark Elizabethan sonnets. While at the buoy, the captain swings the galley wide, hoping to spy a passing whale or famous actor concealing a previous life as a merman. After returning to the dock for a 15-minute intermission, the boat returns to the water, trolling along the scenic shoreline to view the former homes of celebrities such as Shirley Temple and George Burns. While easing through the harbor, customers can hear yarns spun about John Wayne’s offscreen adventures or Jimmy Cagney’s poker exploits, such as the time he won an island by bluffing Prospero with a pair of fours.
The Fine Print
Promotional value expires Mar 30, 2012. Amount paid never expires. Limit 1 per person, may buy multiple as gifts. Reservation required, subject to availability. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Merchant is solely responsible to purchasers for the care and quality of the advertised goods and services.
About Fun Zone Boat Company
In 1948, Fun Zone Boat Company’s predecessors began to whisk passengers on speedboat rides and lend out boats and paddleboards to visitors and locals in Newport Beach. Today, the business’s fleet of red, white, and blue vessels chugs up and down California’s coastline on guided tours and charter trips. Plush benches and open-air decks afford unobstructed views of sea lions lounging on Bell Buoy and Catalina Island in the distance. The boats’ captains also serve as guides, and pepper tours with anecdotes about celebrities’ mansions and diamond-studded sand castles. Charter trips double as an entertaining setting for catered corporate functions and birthday parties for 49–149 guests.