They Look Similar From the Harbour
Both days start the same way. You are collected from your hotel in the morning, you board a boat, you sail out along the coast, you eat lunch on the water and you come back sun-tired in the afternoon. From the quayside it is hard to tell the two apart.
Underneath, they are built for different purposes. A boat trip is designed around the surface: swimming stops, sunbathing, the view of the coast, a slow lunch. A diving day is designed around what happens twelve metres below it, and every part of the schedule serves those two guided dives. Choosing wrong is the most common way people waste a holiday day, so here is the honest breakdown.
What a Diving Day Actually Is
Our five full-day trips run roughly six to eight hours door to door, and the shape of the day never changes. There is a full briefing before you get wet. The morning dive is shallow, five to eight metres for fifteen to twenty-five minutes, so your body and your ears can settle. Lunch is cooked fresh on board. The afternoon dive goes deeper, twelve to thirteen metres, and that is usually the one people talk about afterwards, whether it is the sculptures of the Side Underwater Museum or the rock and caves on the Alanya day.
All equipment, the free two-way hotel transfer, passenger and diving insurance and the meal are included. Beginners need no licence, we sign logbooks afterwards and CMAS courses can be arranged on request. Try-dives are possible from around age ten.
What a Boat Trip Is
A classic boat trip is a relaxed day on the water with swimming stops, music, sunshine and coastline. Nobody briefs you, nobody fits a regulator on you, and the schedule bends around whoever wants another swim. If your holiday plan is a lazy day with a cold drink and a view, that is a perfectly good day and we will not pretend otherwise.
Side by Side
- Purpose: diving day is built around two guided dives, boat trip is built around the surface
- Effort: diving asks for attention during the briefing and calm breathing underwater, a boat trip asks nothing
- What you remember: a dive is a first-time experience, a boat trip is a mood
- Health rules: diving is not possible when pregnant or with severe asthma, heart or respiratory conditions; those guests can still enjoy the boat
- After the day: no flying within 24 hours of diving, which matters if you leave soon
- Group friendly: a boat trip suits everyone; a dive boat can too, and here is how
The Mixed-Group Solution Nobody Tells You About
Most families and couples split on this question. One person wants to dive, another has no interest at all, or cannot dive for health reasons, and the assumption is that the group must give up one of the two days.
It does not. Non-divers and snorkelers are welcome on our dive boats as boat visitors at a reduced rate. You sail together, you get the same coastline, the same fresh lunch on board and the same free two-way hotel transfer. While the divers are down, visitors swim, snorkel over the same water or simply stay on deck. When the divers surface, everyone is back together with a lot to talk about. Ask us for the current visitor rate when you book, since it is not a fixed published figure.
This also solves the classic problem of one nervous adult and one very keen teenager. The keen one dives, the cautious one watches from the surface, and nobody spends the day alone at the hotel pool.
Who Should Pick Which
- Pick diving if you have always wanted to try it, if you want a story rather than a suntan, or if you are curious about the Underwater Museum, which exists nowhere else on this coast
- Pick a boat trip if you mainly want to swim, sunbathe and switch off, or if your group has small children who would not enjoy waiting through dive stops
- Pick a dive boat with visitor seats if your group is mixed, which is more common than you think
- Pick both, on separate days, if your holiday is long enough, keeping your last dive at least 24 hours before your flight
How to Decide Today
Look at the five trips on the tours page, check the rates on the prices page, and see what we run from your resort on the diving from your hotel page. If you are still weighing it up, our guide comparing snorkeling and scuba diving is a useful next read for the non-diver in your group.
Booking is free online with payment on the day and free cancellation up to 24 hours before, so reserving costs you nothing while you decide. Pickup is in the morning and we confirm your exact pickup time the evening before, once we know your hotel. Tell us how many are diving and how many are joining as visitors, and we will put the whole group on one boat.
