★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · Ponta da Piedade Caves Kayak Tour from Catamaran
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · Blue Lagoon, Beaches & Bays Trip by Catamaran
Every catamaran worth boarding, from Palma to Punta Cana.
Which cruise stops long enough to actually swim. What the open bar really pours. Whether lunch is grilled on the stern or handed over in a box. Reviews of the catamaran days you can book, coast by coast.
Palma, Santorini, Punta Cana, Funchal: four decks to start from.
The four catamaran days more travellers book than any others, and what each morning actually looks like once the lines are off.
01The Mediterranean standard5-Hour Catamaran Cruise with Lunch & SwimFive hours out of Palma with lunch cooked on board and one long swim stop in a Balearic bay. The template every other Med boat copies.
02The caldera eveningCatamaran Tour with BBQ Dinner, Drinks, and MusicSantorini from inside the flooded volcano, with dinner off the barbecue as the light goes. Sails up on the leg back to Ammoudi.
03The Caribbean dayCatamaran Boat to Saona Island with Buffet LunchCatamaran out to Saona Island, speedboat home through the mangroves, buffet lunch under the palms in between.
04The one with animalsEcological Catamaran Dolphin Whale WatchingOff Funchal the dolphins are resident and the operator cuts the engines to drift rather than chase. Two hours, and the sea is usually glass.
Eight coasts that run catamarans every morning of the season.
Balearic lunch cruises, a flooded Greek volcano, the crossing to Isla Mujeres, Saona Island by permit, the Benagil caves, Hawaiian snorkel sails, the Andaman islands and a lagoon in Mauritius flat enough to eat on.
Spain runs more catamarans than anywhere else. Pick the coast first.
Balearic bays, Canary whale water, a city harbour with a sound system on the foredeck. Three Spanish coasts, what boarding each one costs, and which island it belongs to.
A catamaran does not roll, and that changes the whole day.
Two hulls sit flat, so the deck stays level, the nets at the bow stay dry and lunch stays on the plate. That is why the catamaran took over the day-trip harbour in Palma, Cancun, Phuket and Santorini.
Lunch, open bar or a snorkel stop: the inclusions decide the catamaran day.
Every lunch cruise →
A five-hour catamaran with lunch grilled on the stern is a different day out from a two-hour sunset sail and a plastic cup of sangria. Sort by what is on board first, then argue about the coastline.
Grilled on the stern, eaten at anchor
The full-day format: out to a bay, engines off, food off the barbecue while the boat swings on its anchor. Ask whether the swim stop comes before or after lunch, because the good boats put it before.
What a free bar actually pours
Open bar on a catamaran means the house rum, the local beer and a jug of something sweet. Bottled wine and anything off a cocktail list is almost always charged separately, and the bar shuts when the boat ties up.
Reef stops, and how long you get in
The mask and fins come with the fare. What varies is water time: a half-day boat gives you twenty minutes on one reef, a full day gives you two stops and lunch anchored between them.
The catamaran days more travellers take than any others.
Every catamaran review →The boats that fill first, from a five-hour lunch cruise out of Palma to the Saona Island crossing in the Dominican Republic.
1
5-Hour Catamaran Cruise with Lunch & Swim
Review of Mallorca’s 5-hour Magic Catamaran cruise, with two swim stops, onboard barbecue, drinks, snorkeling, music, and sunset views.
From · $69
Read our review →
2
Catamaran Sailing Trip with Sunset Option
from $16
3
Ecological Catamaran Dolphin Whale Watching
from $41
4
Daytime or Sunset Catamaran Cruise with Music
from $15
5
Catamaran Tour with BBQ Dinner, Drinks, and Music
from $93
6
Dolphin and Whale Watching Catamaran Cruise
from $41
7
Blue Lagoon, Beaches & Bays Trip by Catamaran
from $62
8
Catamaran Dolphin Watch Cruise with Snorkeling
from $44
In Cancun the catamaran is the ferry, the bar and the snorkel boat.
Isla Mujeres is the crossing everyone makes: open bar as the hotel zone drops behind, masks on over El Farito reef, a few hours on an island where golf carts outnumber cars, a slower deck coming home. Cozumel, Playa del Carmen and Los Cabos run the same shape in different water.
Every Mexican catamaran day →
Santorini sells the caldera by boat because the caldera is the boat trip.
The volcano, the hot springs at Palea Kameni and the cliffs of Thirassia all sit inside the flooded crater, so the whole thing is one afternoon under sail. Crete, Milos and the Athens riviera run longer, emptier versions of the same day.
- 1Catamaran Tour with BBQ Dinner, Drinks, and Musicfrom $93
- 2Luxury Catamaran Day Trip with Meal and Open Barfrom $129
- 3Half-Day Exclusive Catamaran Cruise in Santorini with Meal and Open Barfrom $133
Three catamaran crossings the world books by name.
Most catamaran days are a coastline and a swim stop. These three are the destination themselves, they run to a fixed rhythm, and they sell out before anything else on their coast.
Isla Mujeres
The crossing out of Cancun runs the same rhythm every morning: the bar opens as the hotel zone drops behind, masks go on over El Farito reef, then a few hours on an island where golf carts outnumber cars. Boats leave from Playa Tortugas and the marinas at Puerto Juarez. The early ones get the reef while the water is still clear.
- 1Catamaran with Open Bar, Snorkeling and Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 2,848 reviews
- 2All Inclusive Isla Mujeres Catamaran★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,232 reviews
- 3Isla Mujeres Catamaran Tour with Snorkel, Open bar and Transport★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,275 reviews
Saona Island
Saona sits inside a national park off the south-east coast, and the standard day is a catamaran out and a speedboat back through the mangroves. Halfway across, the boats tie up together over a waist-deep sandbar that everybody calls the natural pool. Buffet lunch under the palms is part of the fare almost everywhere.
- 1Catamaran Boat to Saona Island with Buffet Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 3,822 reviews
- 2Saona Island small group and relax – luxury catamaran★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 605 reviews
- 3Saona Island Catamaran Tour with Food & Open Bar★★★★★★★★★★ 3.5 · 380 reviews
Ile aux Cerfs
The sail down the east lagoon from Trou d Eau Douce takes most of the morning, with a stop at the Grand River South East waterfall on the way. Lunch is a barbecue on the beach at Ile aux Cerfs itself. The lagoon is shallow and flat, which is why the catamarans here run so wide and so slow.
- 1Catamaran Cruise to Ile Aux Cerfs with BBQ Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 925 reviews
- 2Full-Day Catamaran Cruise to Île aux Cerfs with BBQ Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 455 reviews
- 3Catamaran Day Cruise to lle aux Cerfs with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 438 reviews
What a day on two hulls actually costs.
Every priced cruise on the site, in three bands. A sunset sail out of Malaga costs less than lunch ashore. A private charter costs more than the flight.
Two-hour sunset sails, harbour cruises and the short hops out to one island and back.
The full-day standard: lunch grilled on board, an open bar and one or two snorkel stops.
Private charters, the reef boats out of Cairns, and the decks that carry twelve people instead of eighty.
The sunset sail is the cheapest catamaran ticket anywhere, and the most oversold.
Two hours, a drink and the sun going down over the water. What separates a good one from a bad one is the boat: a proper sailing catamaran cuts the engine and leans into it, a party barge keeps it running and turns the music up.
What cancels a catamaran, and what the small print really says.
Wind is the only thing that reliably stops these boats. Above roughly force five the day trip is called off and moved, usually the evening before, and no operator argues about the refund. The rest is small print: most set a minimum age of five or six on the open decks, most ask that you can swim before you use the stern ladder, and the open bar counts from the moment the lines are off rather than from the moment you board.
Four catamaran days that sell out before you land.
Most of this can be arranged from a beach bar the night before. These four run on permits, one daily sailing or a season that closes, and they are gone weeks ahead.
- 01Great Barrier Reef Cruise by Premium CatamaranReef operators run to a permit that caps passenger numbers, and there is one sailing a day. In the Queensland school holidays the boats are full weeks out.
- 02Phi Phi Islands Day-Trip by Speed CatamaranThe Andaman season runs roughly November to April. Outside it the crossing is called off more often than it sails, so the good weeks book out first.
- 03Penguin Watching Tour by CatamaranThe colony sits on Martillo Island only from about October to March, and the boats that land rather than circle work to a permit with a daily cap.
- 04Blue Lagoon, Beaches & Bays Trip by CatamaranComino is tiny and the Blue Lagoon fills by mid-morning through July and August. Only the first boats out of Malta see it empty.
By kind of day
The catamaran season moves round the year. Follow it.
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