What a Capri boat tour from Sorrento costs

Read every figure as a “from” price

The prices below are the starting fares at the time I wrote this, in US dollars, and the booking widget re-prices itself on load for your date and party size. August is not July and a party of six is not a couple. So treat these as the shape of the market rather than a quote, and read the live number in the widget before you decide anything. One more thing worth saying twice: five of the six are per person, and the private charter is per group.

The six boats, cheapest first

Two boats share the bottom of the range. The day trip with transfer runs five to seven hours, sails right around the island, stops to swim, feeds you snacks and drinks with a limoncello tasting, collects you from your hotel and rates 4.9 from 1,882 reviews — the best rating of anything here with real volume behind it. The guided tour costs the same and runs seven hours with a guide as well as a skipper on board, at 4.6 from 165 reviews; reviewers keep naming the guide as the reason the day worked, which is what you are paying the same money for.

The flagship sits a step above them, five to eight hours in a group capped at twelve, with snorkelling, about four hours ashore and the Blue Grotto named in its own title as optional. It carries 4.8 from 4,997 reviews, more than the other five combined several times over. The snorkelling boat costs a little more again for six hours at 4.9 from 444 reviews, with three hours ashore rather than four and a listing that states no extra landing fees. The full-day small group tour is the dearest per head and the longest day at eight hours, rated 4.6 from 257 reviews — you are buying hours there, not polish. The private charter is priced for the boat rather than the seat, about $1,200 for the whole boat with up to five aboard, which works out at about $240 a head with five and a very different number for two. All six are laid out side by side on the comparison page, and the charter maths is worked through on private boat tours.

The extras, itemised

The Blue Grotto is about €20, most of it the rowing boat and the rest admission, paid at a floating booth in its own queue that your skipper does not control. Under-6s go free, EU citizens under 18 pay the rowing fee only, and 18 to 25-year-olds pay a token admission plus the rowing fee. It buys about five minutes inside the cave, and in high season the wait reaches two hours. I have written the whole thing out on the Blue Grotto page because it is the single most misunderstood line on any Capri bill.

The landing tax, the tassa di sbarco, runs roughly €2.50–€5 depending on season, at the top of that from 1 April to 31 October and the bottom from 1 November to 31 March. Every non-resident who steps onto the island pays it, and on a ferry ticket it is already inside the fare. Then there is lunch, which costs what lunch costs in a resort town in August, and the Anacapri chairlift, which is its own ticket and which reviewers mention more often than anything else they did with their free hours.

Against the ferry, so the gap is legible

Five companies run the crossing and a one-way ticket is roughly €20 to €30, with Caremar usually the cheapest and the landing tax already inside it. Return is twice that, plus a small supplement for each bag beyond a day bag. A shared boat tour is several times that. It is the right price if you want the day and a poor one if you want the crossing, which is the whole argument I set out on the ferry page.

Check what your date actually costs

The most-reviewed boat on this route is the one most people end up on, and its live pricing for your dates is below.

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