What each of the three boat days feeds you
The food question comes up early, and that makes sense. A boat day from Belek fills most of the daylight hours, and nobody wants to spend it eyeing the horizon and wondering when they will next eat. The short version is that every one of the three boat days we genuinely operate from Belek includes a lunch. You do not need to plan a restaurant stop, and you will not be handed a bill for the meal at the end of the day.
The other half of the answer matters just as much. Drinks are not included on any of the three. That is exactly how it reads in our own inclusion and exclusion records, and we would far rather you read it here, in advance, than work it out when the tray comes round.
- Alibaba pirate galleon, €25 adult and €12.50 child aged 4-11: barbecue lunch served on board is included, drinks from the on-board bar are not
- Green Canyon reservoir cruise, €42 adult and €25 child: a freshly prepared on-board lunch is included, drinks and refreshments on board are not
- Manavgat market and river boat, €43 adult and €30 child: a riverside lunch is included, drinks with lunch and during the day are not
- Infants aged 0-3 travel free on all three days
The barbecue on the pirate galleon
The galleon is our flagship boat day from Belek. You are collected from your hotel in the morning and driven to Side Harbour, and from there the boat spends about six to seven hours cruising the Side coastline. Lunch is a barbecue, grilled and served on board, and it is part of the €25 an adult pays for the whole day rather than an extra you settle later.
Because it is cooked where you are sitting, there is no fixed dining slot the way there is at a hotel buffet, and we deliberately do not publish an hour for it. It belongs to a day that also holds swimming breaks, the foam party, music and pirate animation. What is not on that ticket is the bar: whatever you order there is charged separately and paid on board.
Green Canyon: lunch on a lake, not at sea
One thing to settle before we talk about the food, because it surprises people: the Green Canyon day is not a sea cruise. The boat sails on the freshwater reservoir held back by the Oymapınar Dam near Manavgat, a deep-green, cool, still lake between pine-clad cliffs, inland rather than out on the Mediterranean. Door to door the day is around eight hours, including the scenic drive each way from your Belek hotel.
A freshly prepared lunch is served on board and it sits inside the €42 adult price. The whole day is built at a leisurely pace, with free time on the open deck and swimming stops in sheltered coves, so the meal is not something you bolt down on the way to the next thing. Drinks and extra refreshments on board are separate here, exactly as they are on the galleon.
The riverside lunch on the Manavgat market day
The market day pairs one of the coast's biggest open-air markets with a calm cruise on the Manavgat River aboard a traditional wooden riverboat. It runs seven hours with a licensed English-speaking guide alongside you the whole time, and lunch is taken by the river surrounded by greenery, included in the €43 an adult pays.
Drinks with lunch, and drinks across the rest of the day, are not included. This is also the day where you will want cash for reasons beyond the table, because the market is where you will be buying spices, textiles, leather and fresh produce. Our own advice for this tour is to bring cash in Turkish lira or euros for the market. One more thing worth knowing before you pick this day: the market runs on Mondays and Thursdays rather than every day, so those two are the only dates the tour goes out on and the only ones the booking calendar will let you choose.
Drinks are never included, so plan for cash
We do not publish a drinks list or bar prices for any of these boats. Those prices are not ours to set, and we are not going to put a number on the page that we have not verified. What we can tell you with complete certainty is the structure: the meal is already paid for, the drinks are not, and drinks are settled on board on the day.
So bring some cash with you. A hot day on the water gets through more water than most people plan for, and that goes double with children. We also cannot confirm whether cards are accepted on board, which is one more reason cash is the safe answer. Keep it in a small dry bag or a zipped pocket, because you will be moving between deck, shade and water all day long.
- Included on all three days: the meal itself
- Not included on any of the three: drinks
- Also outside the price: tips for the crew and guide, and the photo and video service
- Cash rather than card, because we cannot confirm what is accepted on board
- On the Manavgat day, extra cash for the market in lira or euros
Dietary needs: what we can promise and what we cannot
This is the point where a lot of tour pages quietly guess, and we are not going to. Our record for these three boats says that a lunch is included and that it is freshly prepared. It does not say what is on the plate, and it does not say whether a vegetarian, halal or gluten-free version exists. We are not going to tell you that one does when we have not confirmed it, and we are not going to tell you that one does not either.
The honest process is simple. If someone in your party has a dietary requirement — an allergy, a religious requirement, a child who eats almost nothing — message us on WhatsApp before your tour day and tell us exactly what is needed. We will ask the boat and come back to you with a straight answer. If the answer turns out to be no, you will have it in good time to bring something with you, which is a great deal better than discovering it at the table.
Eating on board with children
Children aged 4 to 11 pay a reduced fare on all three days, and lunch sits inside that fare exactly as it sits inside the adult one. On the galleon the child fare is simply half the adult fare, €12.50 against €25, and infants aged 0 to 3 travel free on every one of these days.
If you are travelling with a baby or a toddler, bring whatever they normally eat and drink. We have no record of baby food being provided on board, so plan that yourself, and pack more water than you think a small child needs on a boat in full sun. A familiar snack in your bag also buys you a lot of patience during the transfer at either end of the day.
Nothing is prepaid, lunch included
None of this is paid up front. No card is taken online and there is no deposit at booking: you reserve your places, we confirm them, and you pay in euros on the day of the tour. That single payment covers the boat, your round-trip hotel transfer from Belek, insurance and the lunch. The cash you carry on board is only ever for the extras — drinks, a tip for the crew if you want to leave one, the photo service, anything you buy at the market.
And if your plans change, cancellation is free up to 24 hours before departure. You are never locked into a day, or a lunch, that you paid for weeks in advance.