Catamaran Tours From Alcudia And The North Bay

The north bay of Mallorca is where the island's coastline turns dramatic: long sand at Alcudia and Pollenca, then the limestone wall of the Formentor Peninsula pushing out to sea. Four of the catamaran listings covered here sail this water, three of them from the pier at Port d'Alcudia and one from Muelle Nuevo in Port de Pollenca. A Palma Bay BBQ sail sits alongside them below as a contrast, because plenty of visitors staying in the north weigh the local departure against the bigger boats and catering of the capital. This guide compares all of them on the things that actually decide the day: the pier you leave from, the stops named on the listing, the food and drink included, and the from-price with its basis. If your base is in the southwest rather than the north, the Santa Ponsa and Magaluf catamaran tours guide runs through the same kind of comparison for that side of the island.

What Catamaran Tours Leave From Port D'Alcudia?

Three catamaran listings covered here depart Port d'Alcudia, priced from $45.55 to $85 per person, all shared tours. Two run a full 5 hours and one runs 4 hours 30 minutes. The two catered cruises list a meal with drinks, while the Formentor beach trip states no meal, and none of the three lists kayaks or snorkel gear on the listing.

The first is the Catamaran Cruise from Port d'Alcudia with Lunch and Swim Stop, operated by Tour2b from Transports Maritims BRISA on the Passeig Maritim, near the Mango store on the promenade. It carries a 4.0 rating from 82 reviews, runs 5 hours from $82 per person, and lists a full lunch of chicken, sausage, salad, pasta and fruit, with water, soft drinks, beer and sangria during the meal. Its named stops are Platja Des Coll Baix and Playa del Puerto de Pollensa, and the inclusion list covers lunch and drinks, with free cancellation listed.

The second is the Mallorca Catamaran Cruise with Scenic Views and BBQ Lunch, operated by Transports Maritims BRISA itself from Passeig Maritim 18 in Port d'Alcudia. It is about 5 hours, from $85 per person, rated 4.1 from 130 reviews, and its stop list runs from Platja des Coll Baix to Cala Murta and Aucanada Beach, with Cap de Formentor and Playa de Formentor passed by from the water rather than visited. The BBQ lunch or dinner includes pasta salad, bread and fresh fruit, plus 2 drinks with the meal, options being orange juice, water or sangria, and free cancellation is stated on the listing. Free cancellation is listed.

The third is a different animal: the Half-Day Visit to Formentor Beach by Catamaran, from $45.55 per person, 4 hours 30 minutes, with 14 reviews, too few for a reliable star rating. It lists exactly two things, the catamaran cruise and beach visit time, with stops at Playa de Formentor and Cap de Formentor. No meal is stated, no drinks are stated, and it carries up to 300 guests, so read it as a transport-and-beach day rather than a catered sail.

The Palma option, the Oasis Catamaran BBQ Sail, runs 4 hours from $92 per person, rated 4.2 from 29 reviews, with a BBQ served on board and free cancellation. It is the price and format contrast here, not a north-coast product.

Which Stops Do The North Bay Sailings Actually Visit?

The named stops across the four north listings are Platja Des Coll Baix, Playa del Puerto de Pollensa, Cala Murta, Playa de Formentor, and Ses Caletes and Formentor. Aucanada Beach and Cap de Formentor are only passed by, and the scenic BBQ cruise also sails past Playa de Formentor without stopping. Those are the only places any listing names, and no north listing promises dolphins, caves or a glass bottom.

The stop list matters more in the north than in Palma, because the coastline between Alcudia and Formentor is the whole point of the trip. The scenic-views cruise covers the widest arc, passing the Aucanada lighthouse at the southern entrance of the bay and the cliffs of the Formentor Peninsula, though its only stops are Platja Des Coll Baix and Cala Murta. Es Coll Baix is a coarse-sand beach reached more easily by sea than by land, and it is the swimming anchor for the catered trips.

The Formentor beach trip goes the other way in spirit: it is built around beach visit time at Playa de Formentor and the sail past Cap de Formentor, with the cruise itself as the transport. Formentor's water is famously clear, and the cape road above it is famously slow in summer, which is why arriving by boat rather than by car or bus appeals to a lot of Alcudia visitors. One fresh fact worth knowing: Formentor has a mooring field for low-impact mooring, booked through Ports IB, and anchoring on Posidonia seagrass meadows is banned outright, under Balearic Decree 25/2018. The legal alternative is authorised buoy systems. No claim is made here that any listing uses the Formentor buoys; that detail belongs to the operator and the day.

The fourth listing, the Mallorca Catamaran Tour in the Bay of Pollensa, departs Port de Pollenca in front of Restaurant Stay on Muelle Nuevo and lists Ses Caletes and Formentor as stops, departing from Port de Pollenca. At 4 hours 30 minutes from $78 per person, rated 4.6 from 112 reviews, it is the Pollenca base's own catered day. Free cancellation is not listed on it, which is the one policy difference among the catered north trips worth flagging before you book anything non-refundable around it. If you would rather base yourself on the island's northwest coast instead, the guide to Port de Soller boat trips along the Tramuntana coast covers the closest options, with departures, prices and swim stops for that side of the island.

It is also worth being precise about what no listing here offers. None of the four is a dolphin-watching trip, a cave trip or a glass-bottom trip, and none should be bought as one. Passengers do report bottlenose dolphins off the south-west of Mallorca, on the Santa Ponsa and Paguera routes, but no listing covered on this page departs from there, and Spanish law keeps boats at least 60 m from cetaceans under Real Decreto 1727/2007. A sighting from a north bay catamaran would be luck, not a product feature.

How Much Does An Alcudia Catamaran Tour Cost?

The four north listings run from $45.55 to $85 per person, all shared tours with per-person pricing. For comparison, Palma Bay shared sails run from $44.82 to $102.44 per person, small-group tapas sails from $110.92 to $125 per person, and private charters from $1,389.36 to $1,877.98 per group for the whole boat.

Within the north itself the spread is narrow and the differences are mostly about what is included. The $45.55 Formentor trip is the floor because it lists only the cruise and beach time. The $82 Alcudia lunch cruise and the $85 BBQ cruise sit at the top because they list full meals and drinks, and the $78 Pollenca Bay trip sits just below them with lunch, drinks, snorkel gear and stand-up paddle listed.

The per-person versus per-group distinction matters if you are comparing the north against a private charter. A charter from $1,400.56 per group is the whole boat, not a seat, and a per-group charter price and a per-person ticket are different purchases that cannot be compared directly; for a group of ten or twelve the arithmetic can work out either way depending on the listing. The private options covered here depart Palma, not Alcudia, so a north-coast private day would mean travel to the capital first.

The Alcudia lunch cruise keeps things simple: a 5-hour sail from the Alcudia promenade with lunch, drinks, and a swim stop named right in its title. Lunch takes in chicken, sausage, salad, pasta and fruit, with water, soft drinks, beer and sangria alongside. From $82 per person, free cancellation listed. No snorkel gear or kayak on this one. Check availability on the live listing if it suits your day.

Is The Pollenca Bay Trip Different From The Alcudia Trips?

Yes, in two ways: it departs Port de Pollenca rather than Port d'Alcudia, and it is a bay-focused trip, with stops at Ses Caletes and Formentor rather than the Coll Baix and Cala Murta calls of the Alcudia cruises. It is 4 hours 30 minutes, from $78 per person, rated 4.6 from 112 reviews.

For a visitor staying in Puerto de Pollenca, the pier difference alone can decide it. The trip meets in front of Restaurant Stay on Muelle Nuevo, steps from the Pollenca promenade. That means no drive to Alcudia. The lunch is a cold Mallorcan spread, pasta salad, chicken, salami, cheese, Mallorcan bread and fruit, with drinks during lunch, and the water toys are stand-up paddle and snorkel gear. Free cancellation is not listed on this one, which is worth reading closely before booking.

The rating difference is real too: 4.6 from 112 reviews against 4.0 from 82 and 4.1 from 130 for the two Alcudia catered trips. Those are modest pools by the standards of the big Palma boats, and none of them should be read as a verdict, though the sample sizes vary widely: the Palma tapas trip carries 2,107 reviews while the Formentor crossing reports just 14. The most reviewed listing on the whole site, for scale, is the Palma catamaran luxury tour at 4.5 from 3,654 reviews.

If you are staying in Alcudia itself, the calculus reverses. Both catered Alcudia trips leave from the Passeig Maritim, a flat walk or short ride from most of the resort, and both spend their 5 hours inside the same bay the Pollenca trip sails, with the scenic cruise adding the run past Aucanada lighthouse and out toward the Formentor Peninsula. Guests on a tight schedule, one boat day in a week, generally do better picking by pier proximity than by any other single factor.

Can You Swim And Snorkel On North Coast Cruises?

The Pollensa Bay tour lists snorkelling equipment and stand up paddle, and the Alcudia lunch cruise names a swim stop in its title. Neither Alcudia cruise lists snorkel gear. The Formentor beach trip is beach time only: no gear, meal or drinks stated, so bring your own. Water clarity around Es Coll Baix and Formentor is the reason most people book.

Swim stops anchor the catered trips. The Alcudia lunch cruise stops at Platja Des Coll Baix and Playa del Puerto de Pollensa, and its title names a swim stop. The BBQ cruise stops at Platja Des Coll Baix and Cala Murta. The Pollenca Bay tour lists Ses Caletes as a stop and provides snorkelling gear and paddleboards. In every case the stop length is the crew's call on the day, and weather can change it; check the listing for cancellation terms.

What you float over matters here. Much of the pale gold you see from the deck in the north bay is sand, but the darker patches are Posidonia meadow, a protected marine plant and the reason the water stays so clear. It is visible in snorkel contexts and worth looking at, but the ban on anchoring on it exists because it is easily damaged, and the buoy fields are the legal mooring. Respect for the meadow is not optional etiquette; it is decree law. More detail on the swimming side of these trips is in the guide to snorkel stops on Mallorca catamaran tours.

Beach flags apply at the named beach stops on the days you land. Green means swim, yellow means caution, red means no swimming, and a white flag with a jellyfish icon signals jellyfish; if stung, rinse with seawater only. Those are general Mallorca beach conventions, lifeguarded locally, not a statement about any particular stop. For what to pack around all of this, the catamaran packing list for Mallorca covers towels, reef-safe sunscreen and the extras that cost money onboard.

When Is The Best Time Of Year For A North Bay Sail?

By average sea temperature near Palma, the water runs 22.5 degrees C in June, 24.8 in July, 26.0 in August and 25.1 in September, against 15.9 in April and 18.9 in May. Sunset on the 15th of June is 9:18 pm and on the 15th of December 5:26 pm, which shapes how much afternoon a 5-hour trip can use.

None of that makes one month correct and another wrong; it makes the trade-offs explicit. Spring sails trade warm water for lighter decks and greener hills, late summer gives the warmest swimming, and October's 22.7-degree average still reads as a swim month for most northern Europeans. The listings are bookable in late October, which is all that is verified about season length; operator season dates belong to the operators, and weather can cancel any trip, with the policy on the listing.

The sunset column is not decoration for a 5-hour trip. A 10 am departure from Alcudia returns mid-afternoon either way, but a noon sailing in June finishes in full daylight while a noon sailing in late October finishes close to dusk, and the character of the last hour changes with it. The full monthly breakdown, including winter, is in the month-by-month timing guide.

One structural note on the waterfront you leave from: the Paseo Maritimo redevelopment in Palma, 3.5 km with more than 1,800 added trees and about 70 percent more pedestrian and green space, won a national sustainable construction prize. Alcudia's own promenade is a different, older seafront, but the same shift toward the water applies: the pier at Transports Maritims BRISA sits right on the Passeig Maritim, a few minutes' walk from the resort's restaurants, so a boat day slots into a beach day without any transport at all.

The Formentor half-day earns its solo slot as the budget and beach-visit option, from $45.55 per person with up to 300 guests and nothing catered. It is the right product for someone who wants to stand on Playa de Formentor and see Cap de Formentor from the water, and the wrong product for someone who wants a quiet swim and a long lunch. Check availability if the beach, not the boat, is the goal.

Should You Sail From Alcudia Or Travel To Palma Instead?

For most north-coast visitors, the local departure wins on travel time: the Alcudia and Pollenca piers are minutes from the resorts, while Palma is a crossing of the island each way. Palma wins on boat variety and review depth, with shared sails from $44.82 to $102.44 per person and the most reviewed listing on the site among them.

The honest framing is that you are trading a commute for a choice. From Port d'Alcudia you have two catered cruises and a beach shuttle, all catamarans, all inside the same bay. From Palma you have seven shared Palma Bay sails, three small-group tapas trips capped at 10 to 12 guests, and four private charters, plus amenities that come with scale: the Palma luxury tour runs a DJ, a professional photographer and a gourmet buffet with vegetarian and vegan options, from $61.62 per person, 4.5 from 3,654 reviews.

One Palma option that suits visitors who want the small-boat feel without a private price is the Deluxe Catamaran with Snacks, Drink, SUP and Snorkeling: an electric catamaran, from $85.15 per person, 4.6 from 1,085 reviews, with a welcome cava or juice, tapas, paddleboards and snorkel gear included. It is a format contrast to the north's big-deck BBQ trips, and at about 4 hours it leaves room in the day for the drive. The wider trade-offs, boat by boat, are laid out in the overall Mallorca catamaran comparison.

For filling the rest of a north-coast week beyond the water, the things to do in Alcudia guide covers the old town, the nature park and the beaches within reach of the same promenade your boat leaves from. This whole site, Mallorca Katamaran Tours, exists to keep the comparison honest: every price and rating here comes from the listings themselves, per-person prices stay per-person, per-group prices stay per-group, and nothing is recommended that a listing does not actually promise.

The short version, then: stay in Alcudia or Pollenca and you have four genuine catamaran options within a short walk or ride, from $45.55 to $85 per person, with the coast you came for out the window the whole time. Stay anywhere else, or want the buffet, the DJ or the twelve-guest tapas boat, and Palma is worth the drive. Either way, book the pier nearest your bed unless the listing itself gives you a reason not to.

Common Questions About Alcudia Catamaran Tours