What Sets the Price

There are no figures on this page. Prices move with the season, the boat and the size of the group, and a number written here in one month would be misleading by the next, so the current ones sit with the trips themselves on our sister site.

What is useful, and what this page is for, is understanding what you are being quoted for. Two boats on the same quay on the same morning can be quoting for quite different days out.

What moves the number

• Shared or private. A seat on a day boat and the whole boat are different products, not the same one in two sizes.
• How many of you there are. On a private boat you are paying for the boat, so the figure per head falls as the group grows and the boat does not care either way.
• The date. High summer, weekends and the days either side of a public holiday are not the quiet end of the year.
• The route. A trip that lands at Kaunos, waits, and carries on is a longer day than one that photographs the tombs from the water and keeps going.
• The hours. Early starts, sunset runs and anything that keeps a crew out late are priced differently from a standard day.
• The boat itself. Size, shade, a lavatory that works, an engine that is not older than the crew: this is what you are actually comparing when two quotes differ.
• Lunch. Whether there is any, and whether it is included, is the commonest single reason two quotes for the same trip disagree.

What is normally paid separately on the day

• Site entry at Kaunos, where the ticket belongs to the ministry rather than to the boat.
• Entry to the mud pools and the thermal water.
• Sunbeds and umbrellas at the beach.
• Food and drink at the kiosks, and anything from the boat's cool box that is not part of the deal.
• Anything bought at a stop, which is generally cash.

None of this is hidden, but it does mean the sum you booked at and the sum you spend on the day are two different figures. Establish which is which before you agree to anything.

Comparing quotes without being had

1. Ask whether you are buying a seat or the boat.
2. Ask how many the boat takes when it is full, not how many are booked so far.
3. Ask whether it lands at Kaunos or passes underneath it.
4. Ask what is included at the mud baths and what is not.
5. Ask what time it gets back, because a cheap trip that returns two hours early is not cheap.
6. Ask whether lunch is in the price, and what lunch means.

A boat that answers all six plainly is usually the right boat, whatever its answer to the seventh question turns out to be.

Why there are no figures on this site

These pages are written in six languages and read by people booking eleven months ahead and by people booking tonight. A price list here would be wrong for one of those groups almost immediately.

It would also be a second set of numbers to keep in step with the booking site, and two sets of numbers eventually disagree. When they do, the visitor is the one who finds out, usually at the quay.

So the trips, the current prices and the booking sit together in one place on our sister site, and the buttons on this page go to the relevant page there rather than to its front door.

Signs a quote is too good

A day trip that undercuts every other boat on the quay is usually shorter, fuller, or has left out something the others include. That is not automatically a problem: if you want four hours on the water and do not care about lunch, the cheap boat may be exactly right.

It becomes a problem only when nobody told you, which is why the six questions above are worth asking of anyone, including us.

Deposits are the other signal. Nothing is paid before the day here, and a request for money up front from a stranger on a messaging app deserves a long pause and a second opinion.