The five days, shortest first
Here is the honest comparison, so you can see exactly what you are choosing between:
- Kumköy — 6 hours, €43. Departs Kumköy, right on the Side hotel belt. Our shortest day.
- Side Underwater Museum — 7 hours, €45. Departs Side, built around roughly 110 sunken sculptures at about 12 metres.
- Kemer — 8 hours, €43. The clearest water on this coast, and the stretch where the wrecks lie.
- Antalya — 8 hours, €50. Reefs, caves and shoals on the city coast.
- Alanya — 8 hours, €43. Caves and rocky reefs in the Cleopatra Beach waters.
The two extra hours on the eight-hour days are not extra dives. They are distance. Kemer, Antalya and Alanya sit further along the coast from the Side hotel belt, so the road leg at each end is longer and the boat covers more water once you are aboard. If you are staying in or around Side, the Kumköy diving trip gets you to the boat quickest and back to your hotel first. If you would rather see all five side by side before deciding, they are laid out on our tours page.
Who a six-hour day genuinely suits
A shorter day is not a consolation prize. For a good number of our guests it is simply the better day:
- Families with young children. Six hours is about as long as most children stay happy on a boat, and the non-diving members of the family come along at a reduced rate.
- Anyone whose day is already half spoken for. A morning pickup and a mid-afternoon return leaves the rest of the day intact.
- Guests who find long days at sea tiring. Heat, sun and motion add up; two hours less of them changes how you feel by the end.
- Tight schedules. If you are working around a cruise call or a short city break, six hours is the version that fits.
One planning point worth knowing before you slot it in: you must not fly within 24 hours of diving, so the short day is not a departure-day filler. Put it on your second-to-last day instead. If you are wondering what a six-hour day leaves you time for afterwards, we answer that in detail in can I dive and still have my afternoon free.
Nothing is trimmed from the diving itself
The hours come off the boat's cruising, not off your dives. Every trip we run — the six-hour one included — covers two guided dives, all equipment (tank, regulator, BCD, wetsuit, mask, fins and weights), free two-way hotel transfer, a fresh lunch cooked on board, passenger and diving insurance, and a full safety briefing before you get wet.
The depth model is identical too. If you have never dived, your morning dive is a shallow one at 5–8 metres with an instructor within arm's reach, and the second goes to about 13 metres at most. If you are certified, the same boat dives the real profiles — around 30 metres on a standard certified dive, and to 60 metres on the deep sites when your qualification allows — and your logbook is signed on board. Beginners need no licence at all.
One honest caveat. If you came to Side specifically for the sunken sculptures, the short day is not the one to book. The statues belong to the Side Underwater Museum trip: one hour longer, €2 more, and only 3–4 divers per instructor. Take that day and enjoy the extra hour. All five prices sit on a single page if you want to check the numbers yourself.
