Only one of these two days is ours
We are a boat operator, and that belongs at the top of any comparison. From Belek we run three days on the water and no land excursion of our own: the Alibaba pirate galleon along the Side coastline, a freshwater cruise on the Green Canyon reservoir, and a Manavgat market and river day. There is no jeep on that list and there never has been.
The jeep safari is run by our sister operation, Side Jeep Safari — the same operator under a different name, with its own website. That is why this page reads the way it does. We can describe what a day in the Taurus foothills involves, because we know the operation behind it, but the fare, the pickup areas and the exact running order of that day live on their page and can be changed there at any time. We publish what we do and do not run from Belek, and we do not print other people's numbers, not even a sister's.
So read this as a sorting page rather than a sales pitch for two things at once. If the boat is the wrong day for you, we would rather send you up the mountain with them than sell you a deck you will spend six hours wishing you were off.
Water against dust: what the two days actually feel like
Ours is a stopping day. You are collected from your hotel in Belek or Kadriye in the morning, driven to Side Harbour and put aboard a painted, pirate-themed galleon with sails and rigging. From there the boat cruises the Side coastline, the captain anchors in clear coves so guests can swim straight off the deck, a barbecue lunch is grilled and served on board, and somewhere in the middle of the day the foam party, the music and the pirate animation take over. Between those things you sit on a sun deck and watch a coastline go past. About 6-7 hours of the day is spent on the water.
The jeep day is a moving day. It runs as a convoy of 4x4s with a driver at the wheel — open-top in summer, covered in winter — and it leaves the asphalt early for tracks in the foothills: dry riverbeds and stream crossings, orchards of orange, lemon and pomegranate, cotton and sesame fields, village roads, Roman aqueducts and viewpoints high above the water. In summer the jeeps throw water at each other, which is either the best part of the day or the reason you wish you had worn something else. You will come home dusty. That is not a flaw in the tour, it is the tour.
Put plainly, one day is spent in the water and the other moves through landscape, with a swim stop and a lakeside lunch along the way. If a good excursion means arriving somewhere and stopping, take the boat. If it means a new view through the windscreen every few minutes, take the jeeps.
- Boat day: swimming off the deck, barbecue lunch on board, foam party and pirate animation, sun deck, about 6-7 hours afloat inside a full day.
- Jeep day: 4x4s in convoy, open-top in summer and covered in winter, mountain tracks and stream crossings, orchards and villages, high viewpoints, a swim stop at Oymapınar village and a lakeside lunch, sun and dust.
- Boat day fare: €25 for adults, €12.50 for children aged 4-11, infants aged 0-3 free, round-trip hotel transfer from Belek included.
- Jeep day fare: published by the operation that runs it, on its own site — not repeated here.
Both days begin with a drive out of Belek
Here is the awkward thing the two days have in common. Belek has no boat harbour of its own as far as our records go, so our galleon does not leave from the town you are staying in: the morning transfer drives you to Side Harbour, and that drive sits inside the fare rather than being charged on top of it. The jeep day has the same shape for the opposite reason — the mountains are inland, so an off-road day also begins with a drive before the interesting part starts.
What differs is who confirms your pickup. Ours is included from Belek and Kadriye and is confirmed the day before you travel, and the time depends on where your hotel falls in the route, which is why you will not find a departure clock time anywhere on this site. For the jeep day, the pickup areas are theirs to publish, and Belek is not on the list of departure points they can confirm — so if that is where you are staying, ask them before you book rather than after.
The guest each day is hardest on
We say this on every page and it belongs here too: the galleon day is not ideal for guests with limited mobility. Boarding and moving around a deck are done on foot and a boat is not a step-free environment, and no amount of good will from the crew changes that.
The jeep day carries a different warning. Mountain tracks are bumpy in places, so anyone with back or neck trouble should say so before boarding rather than find out at the first riverbed. In summer the vehicle is open-topped, which means hours of sun, wind and dust, so a hat stops being optional and contact lenses are worth a second thought.
Age pulls the same way. Our boat day is built for mixed groups, and it is the one that produces children who talk about the foam party for the rest of the week, with half-price places for ages 4-11 and free travel for infants aged 0-3. A bench seat in a dusty convoy asks considerably more of a small child, and it asks it for longer.
What the boat day costs, and why the jeep price is not on this page
Our day is €25 for adults, €12.50 for children aged 4-11 and free for infants aged 0-3, and the fare covers the transfer as well as the boat: round-trip hotel pickup from Belek and nearby resorts, the full-day cruise with its crew, the barbecue lunch, the foam party with music and pirate animation, and local travel insurance. Drinks from the on-board bar, tips for the crew and guide, the photo and video service and personal spending sit outside it. Two adults and two children aged 4-11 come to €75 for the day.
We will not print our sister's fare here, and it is worth saying why rather than looking coy about it. Prices live in the admin panel of whoever operates the tour, and a number copied onto somebody else's website goes stale the first time it moves. Their site carries their price on the day you read it, ours carries ours, and if you want the two side by side the honest way to do it is to open both at the same moment.
If it is the mountains you are after, we have a water version of them
There is a third answer that gets missed, and it exists because the jeep day and one of our boat days look at the same landscape from opposite sides. Our Green Canyon cruise goes inland from Belek to a freshwater reservoir behind the Oymapınar Dam near Manavgat: deep-green, calm and noticeably cooler than the coast, with pine-clad cliffs rising straight out of the water. It is emphatically not a sea trip, and we repeat that on every page that mentions it, because the photographs mislead people every summer.
The mountain roads look down on that water. Our boat is on it. So if what attracted you to a safari was the scenery rather than the driving, the canyon day gives you the same mountains with swimming and a lunch on board instead of dust, at €42 for adults and €25 for children aged 4-11, roughly 8 hours door to door.
Doing both, and in which order
If you have a fortnight in Belek the sensible answer is not to choose. The two days do not overlap in any way that would make the second feel like a repeat: different terrain, different clothes, different kind of tiredness by the evening.
Order them by weather rather than by preference. Put the mountains on the clearer, cooler day, when the views run furthest and the dust is least punishing, and keep the boat for the day the coast is at its hottest, since the cure for heat is water you can get into. Leave a hotel day between them. Both are full days that take the morning and the afternoon and hand you back your evening.
Booking either one, and what happens if the week changes shape
Our side of it works the same way for every boat day, and it still surprises people: nothing is prepaid and no card is taken online. You reserve a date, we confirm it, and you pay in euros on the day of the tour. Cancellation is free up to 24 hours before departure, so holding a date early costs you nothing if the group changes its mind. Same-day booking is not possible, and the earliest date the system will accept is tomorrow.
Then pack for the day you actually chose. For the boat that means swimwear, a towel, sunscreen, a hat and non-slip footwear for moving around the deck. For the mountains it means covered shoes and clothes you do not mind losing to dust and water. And if you are still undecided the night before, message us on WhatsApp: we will tell you honestly which of the two suits your group, including when the answer is the day we do not sell.