Dalyan by Boat From Sarigerme: A Day That Works With Children

Families come over from Sarigerme for this day more than anybody else does, and they arrive with a question the leaflets rarely answer. Not what the boat visits, but whether a toddler, a seven-year-old and a grandmother can get through the same eight hours without somebody in tears.

So here is the river day taken apart from the family's side of it: which stop each age enjoys, the four points where the whole thing wobbles, and the decisions made the night before that settle the afternoon. The road over from Sarigerme is the short part, and the least interesting thing about the day.

Where the day is easy, and where it gets long

A shape rather than a timetable. Boats differ, the order moves about, and the only fixed point is the hour the skipper wants to be back at the quay.

Age by age, since that is what really decides it

Under two, the boat is a long pram with a better view. It is flat and shaded, and the risks are sun and heat rather than water, but there is nowhere to put a sleeping baby that is not a lap. We would steer that family to a private boat or a shorter run, because the day only works if the youngest can sleep somewhere cool at the hour the youngest chooses.

Two to four is the awkward bracket. The mud is a gamble, the sulphur smell puts a fair number off, and the lake crossing is a long stretch of nothing to look at. The beach is the entire reason they were born, and everything before it is a queue.

Five to nine is where this day is at its best: every stop lands, and they would do the whole thing again tomorrow. Ten to thirteen do well given water and somebody to be in it with, and badly if the afternoon turns into a walking tour. Grandparents are usually fine, and the deciding factor is never the boat. It is the boarding ladder, the wet stone steps at the pool and the soft sand, so say so when you book rather than on the jetty.

The four moments a family day tends to unravel

• The changeover after the mud. Everybody is wet and grey at the same minute and the showers are cold. A child gets chilly, a towel disappears, somebody starts on the subject of lunch. Send half the party to rinse off early and let the rest take the photographs.
• The flat hour after eating. The boat is moving, the deck is warm and nobody has anything to do. It is the one stretch worth carrying something for: cards, a book, anything that is not a phone on eight per cent.
• The last forty minutes on the sand. Children judge a day out by how it ended, and being marched off a beach is a poor ending. Start the towels and shoes early rather than at the whistle.
• The gap between the boat and the minibus, where sunglasses and single shoes are lost for good. Count the bags on the quay, not in the vehicle.

None of these is any boat's fault, and none is fixed by choosing a different one. They are the thin places in the day, and knowing where they are is most of the answer.

Our view on the mud pool

To our mind the mud stop is the most oversold part of this day for families, and we would rather say so than sell it harder. For a child of about five to eleven it genuinely is the high point: warm, filthy, and the only hour of the year in which an adult tells them to put more of it on. For a toddler it is a strong smell, a cold rinse and a crowd of strangers, and a good number decline.

Declining costs nothing. The hour passes whether you are in the pool or under the awning with a camera, and no child should be argued into it because the family paid for the day. One practical note: whatever they go into the mud wearing is what they will wear all afternoon, unless the change bag came aboard rather than staying in the minibus.

Feeding everybody once the wristband stops counting

Breakfast decides the morning. A long Turkish table by the river is one of the better things about this coast and a questionable idea an hour before a boat. Something plain, and early, travels better.

Lunch is usually cooked aboard and eaten at anchor, which is the only dependable way to get a child to sit still for twenty minutes. It is home cooking rather than a menu, so a child who eats three things will find one of them. A real allergy belongs in the booking, not in a conversation over the serving dish. At Iztuzu there are kiosks at the river end and nothing along the rest of it, so bring water for the family and carry cash: nothing you are wearing on your wrist from the hotel counts once you leave the grounds.

Iztuzu with children, and the rules that are not suggestions

Boats land at the river end, which is the end you want with small children: shallow sheltered water, kiosks, lavatories and umbrella hire. The road end is four and a half kilometres off through soft sand, so if half your party is coming by car, agree the end before anybody sets off.

There is no natural shade on that sandbar at all, which in July is the problem to solve before you arrive rather than after. On turtles: you may see a loggerhead surface near the river mouth and you may not. We will not promise a child one, because the animal has not agreed to it.

• During the nesting season the beach is closed between 20:00 and 08:00.
• Nests are staked and signed. Nobody walks inside a marked area, and that includes a five-year-old going after a ball.
• No umbrella and no sunbed on or beside a marked nest.
• No powered speedboats within one kilometre of the beach.
• No torches and no flash photography on the sand after dark.

Wardens enforce these and the signs on the sand carry the current dates, because the season shifts a little year to year. Children break these rules by accident rather than on purpose, which is an argument for explaining them on the boat instead of at the stake.

What the older ones do while the small ones dig

A thirteen-year-old is the hardest passenger aboard to please, and the answer is to give them the water rather than the commentary. The swim ladder off the back, the empty stretch of beach nobody else has walked, the wander up to the rescue centre at the river end: these work. An account of a Carian city does not, however well told.

Conceding something in advance helps too. If the arrangement is that they choose the evening, the afternoon tends to go better. That is not a boat tip and we make no claim that it is.

Coming back a second time, without the tour attached

Families who do the full day early in the week very often want the beach again, and the second visit need not be another excursion. The shuttle boat runs down to Iztuzu and comes back for you later, which hands the beach a whole day instead of a scheduled slice of one.

It is also the trip we would put a family with a toddler on instead of the full day, rather than as well as it, if the youngest is under about three. Sand, shallow water and a boat ride at either end is the whole holiday at that age, and the tombs will still be in the cliff in ten years. One thing to check: the last boat back is a real hour rather than an approximate one, so ask the driver what it is as you step off.

Asking for the right boat

Boats out of Dalyan vary more than the photographs suggest, and for a family the differences that count are shade, deck layout and how many are aboard when it is full. Ask what the boat takes at capacity rather than how many are booked so far, and ask where the shaded seating sits, because on some decks it is a strip at one end that the first families aboard hold for the day.

Then tell whoever you book with the ages of your children. It is the single piece of information that changes which boat you are put on, and the one most people leave out. Dalyan Boat Trips would rather move you the week before than watch a day go wrong for want of an awning.

There are no figures anywhere on this page, deliberately. What a day costs moves with the season, the size of your party and whether you are buying seats or the whole boat. The current prices, and the booking, sit with the trips on our sister site.