The one line nobody compares
Choose a boat day and you will compare four things: the price, the hours, the resort it leaves from, and whether there is a foam party. All four are printed. The fifth thing — what you will be handed to drink for eight hours in the Turkish sun — is printed too, but it sits in the inclusions list where nobody reads it, and it moves the real cost of a day more than any of the other four.
The reason is simple arithmetic with only one side of it published. A ticket price is a number. A bar tab is not: nothing in our records states what a bottle of water or a beer costs on any of these boats, because the bar belongs to the operator and its prices are not part of what we sell. So the ticket is knowable and the tab is not, and a day that puts the drinks inside the knowable half is doing something for you that a cheaper day is not.
Sorted honestly, the catalogue falls into three groups, and they are very unevenly sized.
- Seven boats include drinks in the ticket itself — five day boats with soft drinks, one day boat with soft and alcoholic, and one night yacht with drinks unlimited.
- Two boats list an optional unlimited drinks package beside their bar; on one of them the record says the crew add it on board.
- Twenty-five boats leave drinks outside the ticket; twelve of them name a bar on board, the other thirteen simply list drinks among the exclusions.
Where a boat trip with drinks included actually exists on the Antalya coast
Six shared day boats put non-alcoholic drinks in the ticket and say so outright, and five of them stop there. The Side island day includes unlimited soft drinks throughout the day. The Side Starcraft cruise includes unlimited non-alcoholic drinks all day. The relax day with waterfall views does the same. The Green Canyon catamaran from Side includes unlimited soft drinks on board, with one condition worth its own paragraph below. And the Little Pirates day from Side lists lunch and soft drinks served on board among its highlights, with extra beverages outside the price.
One boat goes further than any other in the catalogue: the Side relax day puts soft drinks and alcohol alike inside the ticket, the only shared boat here whose record spells that out. It is also the priciest shared boat we sell, and if you have been filing it next to the cheap bay cruises and calling it several times the price, this is the line that makes that comparison unfair — you are not buying the same product with a nicer deck.
The night boat is a separate case. The Side disco yacht includes unlimited drinks and snacks for its four hours after dark, which is the shape most evening venues take anyway; the Alanya night cruise explicitly does the opposite, listing bar service on board with drinks paid separately.
| What the ticket does about drinks | How many boats | Examples | What you still pay for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soft drinks in the ticket | 5 day boats | Side island day, Side Starcraft, the Green Canyon catamaran from Side and the relax day with waterfall views record them as unlimited; Little Pirates lists lunch and soft drinks served on board | Anything alcoholic, and bottled or extra drinks |
| Soft and alcoholic drinks included | 1 day boat | Side relax boat tour | Nothing from the bar — optional extras only |
| Unlimited drinks included, evening | 1 night yacht | Side disco yacht | Extra food and premium drinks |
| Optional package listed beside the bar | 2 boats | Caretta Bay day, where the crew add it on board; Dolphin Island day | The package itself, or drinks one by one at the bar |
| Bar on board, pay as you go | 12 boats | Side pirate day; Kumköy blue-waters day; the Alanya and Belek pirate boats; both private charters | Every drink, at prices we do not set or publish |
| Drinks excluded, no bar in the record | 13 boats | Side boat tour; the canyon days from Kumköy, Evrenseki, Belek and Antalya; the Suluada day from Antalya | Whatever is sold on board on the day |
The catamaran's exception, written down and easy to miss
The Green Canyon catamaran from Side is the one boat whose drinks rule has a boundary, and the record draws it clearly: the free unlimited soft drinks apply only on the catamaran, not at the lunch restaurant. Lunch on that day is eaten ashore, and anything ordered at the restaurant table is excluded — as is alcohol of any kind, on a boat that also bans music outright so you hear the canyon rather than a playlist.
That is not a catch, it is a boundary, and knowing it changes how you pack a small amount of cash for the day. The half-day catamaran from Evrenseki draws the same line even more bluntly: all drinks on the boat and at the restaurant are excluded, and its record adds that drinks with lunch are paid on site. Two canyon days on the same reservoir at the same ticket price, opposite answers to the same question.
The two boats where you decide on board
The Caretta Bay day from Side and the Dolphin Island day sit in a category of their own. Neither includes drinks: both list all drinks as excluded and both keep a bar. But both also list an optional unlimited package that is not part of the ticket — and on the Caretta Bay day the record says plainly that the crew can add it once you are aboard. The Dolphin Island record lists the package as an option without saying when it is arranged.
What our record does not state is the price of that package, and we are not going to invent one — ask the crew rather than a website. What it does mean in practice is that these two days are the only ones where the drinks decision can wait until you have seen the weather, the deck and how thirsty the group actually is. On a scorching crossing that flexibility is worth something; on a cool, breezy day it costs you nothing to skip.
It also means these two days can behave like either category depending on what you decide once the boat is out of the harbour, which is exactly why comparing their ticket price against an all-in day tells you very little on its own.
Good to know
- You can look at the weather and the group before committing to a package.
- Skipping the package leaves both tickets exactly as cheap as they look.
- Both boats keep a bar as well, so single drinks stay possible.
Worth considering
- No package price is published, so you cannot budget it before the day.
- The decision happens on board, when comparison shopping is no longer an option.
- Neither day is an all-inclusive day unless you make it one.
Why the cheapest ticket is often not the cheapest day
Take the two Side departures a family most often puts side by side. The Side boat tour lists soft drinks and alcoholic beverages among the things its price does not cover. The Side island day asks a little more, includes unlimited soft drinks throughout its eight hours, and is the longer day of the two. The gap between those two tickets is printed and fixed. The gap between the two bar tabs is neither, and for two adults and two children in the sun it is the one that keeps growing.
That is the whole argument of this page, and it does not depend on any number we cannot verify. It only depends on noticing that one of those two prices is complete and the other is a starting point. Our prices page lines the tickets up by the kind of day, which is the right job for it; this page reads the line underneath them.
The same test applied across the catalogue narrows gaps that looked wide. The canyon catamaran from Side and the relax day with waterfall views are not as far apart as their tickets suggest, once you account for a family of four drinking through a seven-hour day: the relax boat covers them from first swim to last, the catamaran only until they sit down to lunch. And the Side relax day, the most expensive shared boat in the catalogue, is the only one where nothing at all comes back at you from behind a bar.
Bringing your own, and the one rule that stops you
The obvious workaround is to bring a cool box. On most boats that is a conversation with the crew rather than a right, and on one of them it is settled in advance and against you: the Side island day records a flat no on outside food and drink, for hygiene reasons. That is the same boat that includes unlimited soft drinks, and the two facts belong together — you are not being sold a bar, you are being handed the drinks.
The clearest opposite is not a party boat at all. The Side fishing trip leaves lunch and cold drinks outside the ticket, sells cold drinks on board, and states that you are very welcome to bring your own snacks, meals and cold drinks aboard. It still hands you complimentary simit and hot tea on deck as the day starts. If self-catering is what you want, that is the day whose record actually invites it.
The two private charters have their own arrangement, and it is more generous than most people expect: both the gulet and the luxury motor yacht record that you may bring one bottle of spirits on board, with the bar handling everything else. On a whole-boat day, quoted for the vessel rather than per head, that is a small clause that matters to a group planning a celebration.
How to use this before you book
Work in this order. Decide the shape of the day first — quiet or loud, sea or canyon, six hours or ten — because no amount of free lemonade rescues a day you did not want. Then, among the two or three boats left standing, read the drinks line and let it break the tie. It is a better tie-breaker than a small gap in ticket price, and it is the only one of the two you can actually verify in advance.
Then book without paying. No card is taken at the reservation stage, the money changes hands on the day of the tour itself, and a free cancellation window stays open until 24 hours before departure — enough to hold the boat you want while the group is still arguing about it. If you are not sure whether yours drinks enough to make the difference, the two package days let you decide on board rather than in a hotel lobby the night before.
