Catamaran Cruise or Volcano Boat Trip: Which Santorini Greece Tour Suits You

Both are boats. Both go into the caldera. On a booking page they sit next to each other with a photograph of blue water, and that is where most people stop reading. A Santorini catamaran tour and a volcano day boat are not the same purchase, and here is what separates them.

The two days, side by side

The case for the catamaran

It is the better afternoon. Five hours is long enough to feel like a day on the water and short enough that you still have an evening. The fare covers the food, the wine and the beer, the boat carries no more than 22, and a minibus does the collecting at both ends.

What you are buying is water you cannot otherwise reach. Mesa Pigadia has no road to it, and the Red and White beaches are passed from an angle no coach stop can give. You swim off the boat rather than off a beach.

The case for the volcano boat trip

It is the bigger day, and it is the only one here that puts you on the crater. Fourteen hours takes in Nea Kameni, the hot springs off Palea Kameni, two hours ashore on Thirasia, and then a bus to Oia with about three hours free before the sunset.

It is also the cheaper of the two, and that is not an accident: lunch is not included, the EUR 5 park fee is not included, and the day is long enough that reviewers long enough that it is genuinely tiring, and worth it anyway.

What decides it

• Do you want to stand on the volcano? Only one of them lands. If that is the point of the trip, the choice is made.
• How many days do you have? Fourteen hours out of a three-day trip is a big share. Five hours is not.
• Do you want the day fed? The catamaran fare covers lunch and drinks; the boat trip leaves both to you.
• Do you want Oia on foot? The boat trip gives you three hours there. The catamaran gives you Oia from the sea.

What the reviews agree on

Two things come up on both products, from people who enjoyed them. The first is the pickup round: on any trip with hotel transfers included, the minibus collects other passengers before it collects you, and that loop can run close to two hours on a busy morning. It is not wasted time exactly, but it is time.

The second is the water. On a rough day the crossings on either trip are genuinely uncomfortable, and one traveller in her seventies felt her sunset crossing should have been called off and still rated the crew highly. If open water in a stiff northerly worries you, take a morning departure and take it early in your stay.

Can you do both?

You can, on separate days, and there is more overlap than the itineraries suggest: both stop at the hot springs. If you are doing two boat days, make the second one the sunset catamaran. You get the caldera lit, rather than the same water twice.

Booking either one from a cruise ship

Neither of these is built for a port call, and that shows in the fine print. The catamaran picks up from hotels, so a ship passenger has to get up the cliff, find the operator and get back down again inside the call. The volcano boat trip runs fourteen hours, which almost no ship gives you.

If you are on a ship and you want the caldera, the honest answer is a shore excursion built for one, or a private driver who will take your timings. Both are compared on the cruise excursions page.

And if the wind is up

Both get rerouted, and in July and August that is a live possibility: three days in four blow from the north. Both refund in full if the operator cancels. The advice is the same for either one. Put your boat day early in the stay, so there is room to move it.

What each one costs once you are on it

The headline fares are not the whole picture, and they move in opposite directions. The catamaran fare is close to the final number: lunch, wine, beer, soft drinks, towels and snorkelling gear are all inside it, and the transfers at both ends are too. You could get off that boat having spent nothing extra at all.

The volcano boat trip is the cheaper ticket and the more open-ended day. Lunch is yours, drinks from the on-board bar are yours, and the EUR 5 park fee is yours in cash at the landing. Add a meal on Thirasia and something in Oia and the gap narrows a good deal.

Who each one is really for

The catamaran suits people who want a comfortable day on the water with the logistics removed, and who would rather swim well than walk far. It suits couples, and it suits anyone whose holiday is four days long and cannot give fourteen hours to one item.

The volcano boat trip suits people who want to have stood on the thing, who do not mind a long day, and who like the idea of finishing on foot in Oia with the sun going down. It also suits a tighter budget, provided you go in knowing what is not in the fare.

The stop they share, and why it surprises people

Both anchor at the hot springs off Palea Kameni, and both handle it the same way: the boat moors about fifty metres out because it cannot go closer, and you swim in. The water is a few degrees above the sea rather than hot, and the iron in it stains light fabric permanently. Wear something dark.

The wind is measured properly on the weather page, the islets are described on the volcano page, and every boat option is compared on the boat tours page. To see them next to the land days, the Santorini Greece Tours home page has all of them.