Discover Banff Tours review — the Evening Wildlife Safari

The short verdict

The Evening Wildlife Safari is one of the cheapest guided ways to go looking for elk, deer and bighorn sheep around Banff at dusk, and it picks you up at your hotel. For a first evening in town, especially with children, it does the job.

It is not a Lake Minnewanka tour. The guide chooses the route each evening according to where animals have been seen, so the Minnewanka Loop may or may not be on it, and no wildlife is guaranteed. With up to 24 guests per guide it is also closer to a coach outing than a small-group van tour, and its GetYourGuide rating, about 4.0 from 640 reviews, is the lowest among the evening tours we follow.

At the time of writing the safari is not bookable on GetYourGuide. The listing may come back later, and Discover Banff Tours runs the safari from April to October, so check again closer to your dates. Until then this page carries no booking link for it.

We have not been paid by Discover Banff Tours or by any operator mentioned here. This review is based on the company's published tour details and prices, the GetYourGuide listing and its guest ratings; how we review is explained on the operators page.

Who Discover Banff Tours are

Discover Banff Tours is a family-owned Banff company with an office in the Sundance Mall at 215 Banff Avenue, and it says it has been running tours for more than 25 years. Its website is banfftours.com (the similar-looking discoverbanfftours.com doesn't lead anywhere).

The range is wide for a local firm: Lake Louise and Moraine Lake trips, Columbia Icefield days, winter icewalks, horseback rides, rafting and a helicopter flight, plus resale of a Lake Minnewanka fishing trip. Its hikes and icewalks run with smaller groups than the safari, up to 12 per guide according to its booking pages.

You may also meet the company under someone else's name. Pursuit's website, for example, sells a Discover Banff Tours product called "Discover Banff & Its Wildlife": a 3-hour daytime loop that includes a stop at Lake Minnewanka but no cruise. It is a Discover Banff Tours trip, not a Pursuit or Brewster one, and the Minnewanka visit is a lakeside stop.

The Evening Wildlife Safari, step by step

The safari lasts about two hours and starts with a hotel pickup in Banff. It is open to all ages, which matters if you are travelling with young children who can't manage a long walk at dusk.

From there the guide drives the roads around town where animals have been seen recently, stopping when something turns up. The commentary centres on the animals themselves and on the challenge of protecting them in a busy national park. Evenings are a sensible time for it: wildlife around Banff is likeliest early and late in the day.

What you might see is the usual Banff evening cast: elk, mule deer and bighorn sheep, with bears, wolves and coyotes possible but much less likely. Parks Canada asks everyone to stay at least 30 m from deer, elk and sheep and at least 100 m from bears, wolves and coyotes, so expect to watch from a distance, not to get close-ups.

Lake Minnewanka: possible, not promised

Plenty of people find this safari while searching for an evening at Lake Minnewanka, and it is easy to see why: the Minnewanka Loop is one of the best roads near Banff for bighorn sheep, which are often on the slopes above Two Jack Lake. But Discover Banff Tours picks each evening's route by current wildlife activity, so a night when the elk are down by the town may never reach the lake.

If the lake itself is the point, use a tool built for it:

• Drive the loop yourself. Lake Minnewanka is 15–20 minutes from downtown Banff and parking is free. The loop road is about 13 km; its western (Bankhead) side is closed to cars from November to May, but the lake stays reachable from the east. See getting there.
• Take the cruise in season. From early or mid-May to Thanksgiving Monday in October the Lake Minnewanka cruise gives you an hour on the water with commentary, and bighorn sheep and bald eagles are possible sightings, never guaranteed.
• Book an evening tour that names the lake. Our evening guide and the helicopter and stargazing page compare tours that build a Minnewanka stop into the itinerary rather than leaving it to chance.

Group size and the 4.0 rating

"Up to 24 guests per guide" is the figure that most separates this safari from its competitors. Several small-group wildlife and evening tours around Banff cap numbers at 12 or 13, which means fewer heads at the window when a sheep appears and a guide who can answer everyone's questions. Some of them cost more than the safari, some about the same, so compare group sizes on the evening guide before you settle on price alone.

The rating tells a similar story. About 4.0 from 640 reviews is a large, stable sample, and it says most guests are content while a meaningful minority are not. The score alone can't tell you what disappointed them, so read the most recent reviews on the listing when it is bookable again, and set your expectations at "a pleasant evening drive with a commentary", not "a guaranteed bear".

Price, booking and timing

The safari currently costs from about $73 (CAD) booked direct and about $76 on GetYourGuide, a gap of only a few dollars. Neither figure says clearly whether GST is added, so check the total at checkout.

The difference that matters is cancellation. GetYourGuide's listing has shown free cancellation up to a set time before the tour, as most tours on the platform do; check the listing's terms. Resellers of the direct booking have quoted a much longer notice period, so read Discover Banff Tours' own terms before paying them.

As for timing: the safari runs from April to October, which is wider than the Lake Minnewanka cruise season (early or mid-May to Thanksgiving Monday in October). In April and early May, before the boats start sailing, a guided wildlife evening is one of the few organised things to do around Banff at dusk. Outside April to October, check the operator's own schedule; the things to do page covers what runs at the lake year-round.

Our score