Search for catamaran cruise prices in Mauritius and you will get numbers in four currencies, half of them “from” prices, and no explanation of why the same full-day trip to the same island shows up at €49 on one site, €62 on another and Rs 2,550 on a third.
The honest answer is that the price is doing about six different jobs at once. Once you can see what those are, the range stops looking random and you can tell in about thirty seconds whether a listing is cheap or just incomplete. This article breaks down what a catamaran cruise in Mauritius actually costs in 2026, where the differences come from, and the specific things to check before you pay.
We run these cruises ourselves as a licensed Mauritian operator (Licence No. 15735), so the prices below are our own, and the comparisons are taken from live listings rather than estimated. If you want the wider picture first — what the routes are, what a day on board involves — start with our complete guide to catamaran cruises in Mauritius and come back to the money.
The short answer
In September 2026, per person, booking direct with a Mauritian operator:
| What you are booking | Typical price |
|---|---|
| Shared sunset cruise, 2 hours | €38–€48 |
| Shared full-day cruise with lunch, ~7 hours | €55–€70 |
| Half-day island tour (often speedboat), 4–5 hours | €55–€70 |
| Private catamaran charter, half to full day | €365–€700 for a small group |
| Private luxury yacht charter, full day | €1,000–€1,500+ |
Children, where a child rate exists, are usually somewhere between half and two-thirds of the adult price. Note the “where a child rate exists” — it is not universal, and this is one of the places the advertised price misleads people most. More on that below.
Our own current prices, for something concrete to anchor against:
| Cruise | Length | Adult | Child | Departs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunset Catamaran Cruise, Grand Baie | 2 hours | €38 | €19 | Grand Baie Public Beach |
| Ile aux Cerfs Catamaran Cruise | 7 hours | €55 | €55 | Trou d’Eau Douce |
| Northern Islands: Coin de Mire, Gabriel & Flat Island | Half day (speedboat) | €65 | — | Grand Baie |
| Private Sunset Cruise with Lobster Dinner | 5–7 hours | €365 total, up to 4 people | — | Black River |
| Luxury Private Yacht Cruise, Northern Islands | 7–8 hours | €1,500 charter | — | Black River |
Six things that move the price of a catamaran cruise in Mauritius
1. Shared or private
This is the biggest single factor and it is not a small step up. A seat on a shared catamaran costs €38 to €55. The boat to yourself starts around €365. You are not paying for a better boat — often it is a similar boat — you are paying for all forty seats instead of one.
Where private stops being extravagant is with a group. Our private sunset charter with a lobster dinner is €365 for up to four people, which is €91 each: more than double the shared sunset price, but for a whole catamaran, your own crew, your own departure time and a lobster barbecue rather than crisps and rum punch. For a honeymoon, an anniversary or four friends who want to be able to hear each other, that is a different calculation than the headline number suggests.
2. Duration and whether lunch is on board
A seven-hour cruise costs more than a two-hour cruise, which is obvious. What is less obvious is how much of the difference is the food. A full-day shared cruise includes a barbecue cooked on the back of the boat — fish, chicken, rice, salads — plus an open bar for most of the day. Catering forty people at sea is a real cost and it is most of the gap between a €38 sunset sail and a €55 full day.
Which means a full day at €55 with lunch and drinks included is better value per hour than a sunset cruise at €38. If you are optimising for money rather than for effort, the long day wins.
3. Which coast
Routes are not priced equally, and the reason is distance and fuel. East-coast Ile aux Cerfs cruises sail inside the lagoon from Trou d’Eau Douce and tend to sit at the lower end. Northern-island trips cross open water to reach Coin de Mire, Gabriel and Flat Island and typically cost more — on the international platforms, noticeably more: full-day northern-isles cruises were listing at $88 on GetYourGuide at the time of writing, around €76 at the European Central Bank reference rate of 1.1537 for 16 September 2026. West-coast dolphin cruises sit in between.
4. Whether transfers are included
This is the line item that turns a bargain into a headache. Mauritius is small but slow to drive across; getting from Belle Mare to Black River is not a ten-minute taxi. Some listings include hotel pick-up, most do not, and a €10 saving on the cruise disappears immediately into a €40 transfer.
Before you compare two prices, check whether both include getting you to the jetty. If only one does, you are not comparing the same product.
5. Adult versus child rates
Child pricing in Mauritius is inconsistent to the point of being a trap. Some operators charge half. Some charge a flat discount for ages three to eleven. Some charge the full adult fare because a child eats the same lunch and occupies the same seat.
We will be straight about our own: our Grand Baie sunset cruise is €19 for a child against €38 for an adult, which is a genuine half-price. Our full-day Ile aux Cerfs cruise is €55 for everyone — there is no child discount on that one. Some competitors do better on that specific trip, charging around €35 for children aged three to eleven. If you are a family of four booking a full day, that difference is €80, and it is worth asking every operator directly rather than assuming a child rate exists.
6. Who you are buying from
There are effectively three tiers of seller in Mauritius, and the same seat can appear in all three at three different prices.
International marketplaces — Viator, GetYourGuide and similar — are the most expensive, because the platform takes a commission. At the time of writing, a two-hour northern sunset catamaran cruise lists at $55 on both, about €48. A full-day Ile aux Cerfs cruise lists at $71 on Viator, roughly €62, and at $56 to $59 on GetYourGuide after discounting, about €49 to €51. Their advantage is real: thousands of reviews and a familiar refund process.
Licensed local operators selling direct — our tier — sit below that, because there is no commission in the price. Our full-day Ile aux Cerfs cruise is €55 and our Grand Baie sunset is €38.
Local deal sites quoting Mauritian rupees are often cheaper still. Deals.mu was advertising a shared Grand Bay sunset catamaran at Rs 1,345 and a Flat Island cruise at Rs 1,945 — about €25 and €36 at Rs 54.72 to the euro. We are not going to pretend those numbers do not exist. If your only criterion is the lowest advertised figure, you will find it on a rupee-priced local site.
What you should do with that information is check what the low price includes, because the gap is usually made of something: no transfers, a bigger boat with more passengers, a shorter time ashore, soft drinks instead of an open bar, or payment in cash locally rather than a card booking you can dispute. Sometimes the answer is “nothing, it is genuinely cheaper”, and then you should book it. The point is to look, not to assume that cheap means the same trip.
Why the same cruise shows four different prices online
Three reasons, and none of them are a scam.
Currency. Mauritius quotes tourists in euros, marketplaces quote in dollars, local sites quote in rupees, and every conversion is done at a different rate on a different day. A listing at $70 and a listing at €65 are within a couple of euros of each other.
Commission. A marketplace takes a cut. That cut is in the price you see.
Promotional “from” pricing. The number in the search result is frequently the child rate, the low-season rate, or a discounted rate on a single date. GetYourGuide listings we checked showed $56 “from $80” and $59 “from $65” on the same page — the real price depends on your date.
A fourth reason worth naming: some listings are simply wrong. One widely-syndicated travel page currently lists Mauritius catamaran cruise timings as 08:30 to 16:00 and, two lines later, “time required: 2–3 hours”. Treat aggregator data as a starting point, not a quote.
Is it cheaper to book on arrival?
Sometimes, and it is a real trade-off rather than a trick question.
Walking into a beach kiosk in Grand Baie in low season, you can occasionally negotiate. What you give up is choice of date, the good operators (who are full), and any recourse if the trip does not happen. In high season — December to February and the European summer holidays — the popular routes genuinely sell out, and the boats with space at the last minute tend to have space for a reason.
Our own middle path, and the reason we mention it: we hold free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure on our activities, which gives you most of the flexibility of booking late while still holding a seat on the boat you actually want. Check whichever operator you choose, because some hold you to 48 hours and a few to no cancellation at all.
What a fair price includes
Use this as a checklist. If a cruise is cheap and the list below has holes in it, you have found where the money went.
A full-day shared cruise (€55–€70) should include: roughly seven hours, at least one snorkelling stop with masks and fins provided, a barbecue lunch cooked on board, unlimited soft and alcoholic drinks, two to three hours ashore on the island, and a licensed skipper.
A sunset cruise (€38–€48) should include: about two hours, soft and alcoholic drinks, light snacks, and crew. It should not be sold to you as dinner.
A private charter (€365 upwards) should include: exclusive use of the boat, a named departure time you choose, a proper meal, unlimited drinks, and usually the option of hotel transfers.
What is almost never included: tips for the crew, the Ile aux Cerfs speedboat add-on to the waterfall if it is offered as an extra, and anything you buy ashore on the island. Bring cash for that last one; the beach vendors on Ile aux Cerfs do not take cards.
Frequently asked questions
How much is a catamaran cruise in Mauritius per person?
Between about €38 and €70 per person for a shared cruise, depending on length and coast. A two-hour sunset sail is €38 to €48; a full day with a barbecue lunch and open bar is €55 to €70. Private charters are priced per boat, from around €365 for a small catamaran to €1,500 or more for a luxury yacht.
Are catamaran cruises cheaper if you book direct?
Usually yes, against international marketplaces, because the platform commission is removed. Direct full-day prices around €55 compare with marketplace listings at €49 to €62 for equivalent trips, and direct sunset prices around €38 compare with about €48. Local rupee-priced deal sites can undercut both, so check what those include before you compare.
Do children pay less on a catamaran cruise in Mauritius?
It depends entirely on the operator and the specific cruise, which is why you should ask rather than assume. Our sunset cruise is €19 for children against €38 for adults; our full-day Ile aux Cerfs cruise is the same price for everyone. Some operators charge a reduced rate for ages three to eleven on full-day cruises.
What is included in the price of a catamaran cruise?
On a full-day shared cruise: crew, snorkelling equipment, a barbecue lunch cooked on board, unlimited soft and alcoholic drinks, and time ashore. On a sunset cruise: crew, drinks and light snacks. Hotel transfers are sometimes included and often not — this is the single most important thing to confirm before comparing prices.
Why is a private catamaran charter so much more expensive?
Because you are buying every seat on the boat rather than one. A shared cruise divides the cost of the vessel, fuel and crew across forty passengers; a private charter puts all of it on your group. Split between four to six people the per-head figure is far less dramatic than the headline price suggests.
Is a catamaran cruise in Mauritius good value?
A full-day shared cruise at €55 covering seven hours, lunch, unlimited drinks, snorkelling gear and a few hours on an offshore island is one of the better-value activities on the island — comparable trips in the Maldives or Seychelles cost several times that. The sunset cruises are less good value per hour but much easier to fit into a full holiday.
Should I tip the crew?
There is no obligation and no service charge built into the price, but crews on shared cruises work a long physical day and tips are normal and appreciated. A few hundred rupees per person on a full-day cruise is a reasonable gesture. Bring it in cash.
Where the money is best spent
If the budget is tight, book the full-day shared cruise rather than the sunset sail: you get roughly three and a half times the hours, a meal and unlimited drinks for around €17 more. If the budget is comfortable and you are a group of four or more, price the private charter properly before you dismiss it — the per-person figure is often closer to the shared price than people expect, and it buys a fundamentally different day.
Either way, the decision that affects your money least and your enjoyment most is which coast you sail from, and that is worth reading up on before you book — our comparison of which coast has the best catamaran cruise in Mauritius covers it. And if you are travelling between June and September, check the conditions first: when and where to take a catamaran cruise explains why the same price buys a very different experience depending on the month.