whale operator · Madalena
CW Azores operates from Cais da Madalena, on the quay across from the ferry terminal on Pico's west coast. It is a licensed Azorean whale watching operator, an SSI dive centre and a registered travel agency, so it runs diving and snorkelling alongside the cetacean trips.
| At a glance | Source | |
|---|---|---|
| Where | Madalena | |
| Address | Cais da Madalena, 9950-305 Madalena do Pico | source ↗ |
| Coordinates | 38.5349° N, 28.5290° W | source ↗ |
| Phone | +351 292 622 622 | source ↗ |
| Website | https://www.cwazores.com/ | source ↗ |
Best for A day trip from Horta, since it is a short walk from where the ferry berths.
CW Azores works from Cais da Madalena, the quay on Pico's west coast, directly across from the ferry terminal. For a visitor crossing from Horta on Faial for the day, that is the single most useful fact about it: you can walk off the ferry and be at the operator's door without arranging transport, which is not true of anything on the far side of the island.
The company states on its own site that it is a licensed Azorean whale watching operator under licence 3/2008, an SSI dive centre, and a registered Portuguese travel and tourism agency under RNAVT 7277. Those three registrations cover three different activities, and they are the reason it can sell diving, snorkelling and cetacean watching from the same counter. Its listed activities include whale watching, swimming with dolphins, snorkelling, scuba diving, shark diving, and diving at the Princess Alice seamount.
Madalena is also the island's main arrival town and a base in its own right, with the UNESCO vineyard landscape and the island cooperative Picowines both within reach on foot or a short drive.
Like every operator in Azorean waters, CW Azores works under the rules set out on the whale watching hub: a 50 metre minimum approach, and no more than three boats near a group at a time.
No prices, no departure times, no trip duration and no group sizes. None is checked against a primary source and all of them change with the season, so they are left out. The Princess Alice trip in particular is a long offshore day with its own conditions, and nothing here should be read as a description of it.