The boat that does not lean. Now pick the day.
Which cats anchor long enough to actually swim. What an open bar covers once you are aboard. Whether a shared trampoline net beats paying for the whole boat. Every catamaran day worth booking, from Cancun to the Whitsundays.
Four catamaran days the rest of the trip gets planned around.
The sailings people book first, what a seat costs, and what the deck is really like once you are on it.
- 01The swim dayCatamaran Cruise with Swimming and SnorkellingAnchored twice off the Mallorcan cliffs, masks handed out at the ladder. The net at the bow is the seat everyone fights for.
02The Caribbean runCatamaran with Open Bar, Snorkeling and LunchCancun to Isla Mujeres and back with the bar open from the first mooring. Lunch is served on deck, not ashore.
03The caldera nightCatamaran Tour with BBQ Dinner, Drinks, and MusicSantorini under sail while the crew grill on the stern, and the sun goes down from the water instead of a wall in Oia.
04The city escapeLuxury Catamaran Cruise from Athens with Traditional Greek Meal and BBQOut of the Athens marina into flat water, a long lunch and a swim stop nobody hurries you out of.
Sails up, engines on, or the whole boat to yourselves.
Compare every kind of catamaran day →Three quite different days out get sold under the same word. The hull decides how fast you move, how far you get and how many people share the deck with you.
Canvas up, engine off
A sailing catamaran moves at the pace of the breeze and heels barely at all, which is the whole argument for two hulls. Slower to the anchorage, better once you are there, and the crew will motor the last mile if the wind dies.
Two engines, more sea covered
A power catamaran keeps the flat deck and drops the mast, so it holds a timetable and reaches reefs and islands a sailing boat cannot fit into a day. Louder underway, and you spend less of the trip waiting for wind.
Nobody else aboard
Charter the hull and the itinerary is yours: your swim stops, your music, your lunch hour. Priced for the boat rather than the seat, so it turns cheap somewhere around six people and expensive below four.
Spain runs more catamarans than anywhere else on this site.
Balearic coves, the Costa del Sol at sunset, Canary crossings with the whales underneath. Five Spanish coastlines, what a seat costs on each, and the boat that carries the most travellers.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5-Hour Catamaran Cruise with Lunch & Swim
MallorcaHalf days out of Palma, buffet aboard, two anchorages.
BarcelonaTwo hours off the city beaches, jazz or a DJ on deck.
MalagaThe cheapest sunset sailings in Europe, most nights of the year.
TenerifeWhale water an hour offshore, engines cut, no chasing.
IbizaCala runs with the music up and a ladder into clear water.
All 118 Spanish catamaran days →
Six coastlines that keep a catamaran fleet busy all year.
Mediterranean half days, Caribbean open-bar crossings, Atlantic cave runs and the Aegean caldera. Six places to start, and the boat most people book in each.
The grill on the stern is why the day runs six hours.
More catamaran days sell on the meal than on the route. What arrives on the plate ranges from a paella cooked while you swim to a plastic tray of cold chicken, and the price rarely tells you which. These carry the most travellers, and the deck lunch is the reason.
- 15-Hour Catamaran Cruise with Lunch & Swimfrom $69
- 2Catamaran Tour with BBQ Dinner, Drinks, and Musicfrom $93
- 3Premium Small-Group Catamaran Cruise with BBQ, Open Bar, Transferfrom $151
The catamaran days travellers keep choosing.
Every catamaran review on the site →Eight sailings that carry more passengers than anything else here, and the reason each one keeps filling.
1
5-Hour Catamaran Cruise with Lunch & Swim
Spend five hours aboard Magic Catamarans from Palma, sailing toward Portals Vells or Cala Vella. You’ll stop twice for swimming and snorkeling, enjoy grilled meats, salads, cake, wine, and sangria, and return with views of Palma’s cathedral. Captain Perez and his crew have helped make this a lively, easygoing outing.
From · $69
Read our review →
2
Catamaran Sailing Trip with Sunset Option
from $16
3
Ecological Catamaran Dolphin Whale Watching
from $41
4
Daytime or Sunset Catamaran Cruise with Music
from $15
5
Catamaran Tour with BBQ Dinner, Drinks, and Music
from $93
6
Dolphin and Whale Watching Catamaran Cruise
from $41
7
Blue Lagoon, Beaches & Bays Trip by Catamaran
from $62
8
Catamaran Dolphin Watch Cruise with Snorkeling
from $44
Sunset is the sailing that sells out first.
A catamaran is the right boat for the last two hours of light: flat enough to carry a glass across the deck, wide enough that everyone gets the horizon, and slow enough that nobody is looking at a wake. Departures move with the season, so the time on the ticket in August is not the time in April.
What a day on a catamaran actually costs.
Every sailing on the site, grouped by the per-head price. The gap between the bands is almost always the meal, the bar and how many other people share the trampoline with you.
Two hours off a European city beach, a sunset lap, or a short crossing with one drink included.
The standard day out: two anchorages, snorkel gear, lunch cooked aboard and an open bar on the way home.
Small-group luxury sailings, whole-boat charters and the reef trips that run a full day offshore.
The ladder at the stern is the point of the whole boat.
Two hulls sit shallow, so a catamaran anchors closer in than anything with a keel and drops you straight over sand instead of a mooring field. Masks and fins come aboard on most sailings; wetsuits rarely do, and the water is colder in May than the brochure suggests.
Every snorkelling catamaran →
Shared or private, what is included, and the day the wind wins.
Three things decide whether a catamaran day is the one you remember. How many people the boat takes, because forty on a hull built for twenty is a different trip. What "all inclusive" covers, because on some boats it stops at the second drink. And the sea state, because two hulls handle chop better than a monohull but a small-craft warning still cancels the sailing, usually the morning of.
Four catamaran days that will not wait for you.
Most of this can be sorted from a beach bar the evening before. These four cannot: one anchorage, one departure, a permit system, or a swell window that closes without notice.
- 01Catamaran Boat to Saona Island with Buffet LunchOne morning departure out of Bayahibe, and the buffet sandbar is full by the time the second wave arrives.
- 02Catamaran with Open Bar, Snorkeling and LunchThe Cancun boats leave together mid-morning. In high season the open-bar hulls are gone days ahead.
- 03Great Barrier Reef Cruise by Premium CatamaranReef operators run a capped number of passengers per vessel, and the outer-reef cats fill weeks out in the dry season.
- 04Coastline and Benagil Caves Tour by CatamaranThe Algarve caves are entered only when the swell allows, and the calm hour is the first sailing of the day.
Three places a catamaran reaches and almost nothing else does.
Shallow draft, a wide deck and no keel to worry about. That combination opens sandbars, lagoons and islets that a monohull anchors half a mile away from.
Isla Mujeres
The crossing from Cancun is nine miles of open Caribbean and the fleet leaves within an hour of each other. Cats moor off the west side where the sand shelves gently, so the swim stop is chest-deep for a long way out. Most boats include the reef at El Farito on the way over and open the bar on the way back.
- 1Catamaran with Open Bar, Snorkeling and Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 2,848 reviews
- 2All Inclusive Isla Mujeres Catamaran★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,232 reviews
- 3Isla Mujeres Catamaran Tour with Snorkel, Open bar and Transport★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,275 reviews
Saona Island
Saona sits inside a national park, so numbers are managed and the boats run to a set morning departure from Bayahibe. The catamaran does the slow leg with the music on and a speedboat brings you back; in between there is a natural pool where the water stays waist-deep a long way from any shore.
- 1Catamaran Boat to Saona Island with Buffet Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 3,822 reviews
- 2Saona Island small group and relax – luxury catamaran★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 605 reviews
- 3Saona Island Catamaran Tour with Food & Open Bar★★★★★★★★★★ 3.5 · 380 reviews
Ile aux Cerfs
The east-coast lagoon is shallow enough that draft decides everything, which is why the day is sold on catamarans and not on anything with a keel. Lunch is grilled ashore, the Grande Riviere Sud-Est waterfall is a short detour, and the boats leave Trou d’Eau Douce rather than the hotel jetty.
- 1Ile Aux Cerfs Catamaran Trip w/ Lunch & Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 1,922 reviews
- 2Catamaran Cruise to Ile Aux Cerfs with BBQ Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 925 reviews
- 3Full-Day Catamaran Cruise to Île aux Cerfs with BBQ Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 455 reviews
By coastline
The catamaran days we looked at most recently.
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