Eager for a tropical honeymoon, the sexually active adult whales are the first to travel past the Hunter's coast on their 10,000 kilometre trip to mate in waters off northern Queensland.

There have been sightings of the mammals already off Newcastle and Port Stephens, which pointed to a good season, operators said.

Cruises will begin out of Newcastle and Port Stephens this weekend.

Two cruise operators, CareCat Cruising and Nova Cruises, will begin their second whale-watching season from Honeysuckle each weekend.

"The whales are on their way and right on cue," Newcastle's N'Joy skipper Bruce Hodgkinson said.

Newcastle's debut season netted 1200 whale sightings across 98 cruises with 2750 passengers spending an estimated $250,000 in and around Honeysuckle.

This year's cruise inquiries were coming in daily from Sydney, the Upper Hunter and as far north as Port Macquarie, Mr Hodgkinson said.

Nelson Bay's Moonshadow Cruises will begin this season with a new generation of skippers for their popular whale watching cruises.

Captain Chris Annable, 23 and his brother Michael, 20, have just completed their training and are the second generation of the Annable family to be involved in Moonshadow Cruises, with parents Peter and Dianne Annable, owner operators of the company since 1981.