Spain · Western Mediterranean · Moll Vell & Port de Palma
One long harbour, four club marinas and a bay that ends at the Portals Vells cliffs — the quay printed on your voucher decides whether you walk ten minutes from the cathedral or take a bus for half an hour.
Quick answer
Eighteen well-reviewed boats work the Bay of Palma, carrying 30,180 reviews between them, and the cheapest seat on the water is $38 for two hours. The default day out is a half-day catamaran with lunch and a swim stop from $69; the fast version is a $49 speedboat that reaches the caves and a cove in two hours; the highest-rated boat here is a small charter at $68, 4.8★ over 505 reviews.
They do not all sail from the same water. Most Palma-branded boats load at Moll Vell, the old quay below the cathedral, a ten-minute walk from Plaça de la Reina. One of the cheapest — the El Arenal bay tour — leaves from the club marina at s'Arenal, thirteen kilometres east down the Platja de Palma; EMT line 25 runs there from the cathedral itself. Cruise passengers berth further west again, at the Estació Marítima terminals by Porto Pi, five to six kilometres from the old town.
What the bay gives you is Illetes, Portals Vells and the El Toro marine reserve. What it does not give you is Cabrera, Sa Calobra or Formentor — all three are reached from other harbours entirely, on scheduled boats that cost a fraction of a guided day. The arithmetic for each is below, along with what the cheap version leaves out.
Compare
The five kinds of day boat that leave the Bay of Palma, each represented by the cheapest well-reviewed example of its type. Prices, durations and ratings are the operators' own figures from the listings further down this page, re-checked in September 2026; the last column is the thing that actually decides between them.
| Kind of trip | Time out | Swim stops | From | What decides it | Book |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short bay tour and snorkel | 2 hours | One | $38 | Cheapest water time — but it starts at s'Arenal | Details |
| Half-day catamaran with lunch | 5 hours | One to two | $69 | Food, shade and a long lazy anchorage | Details |
| Speedboat cave run | 2 hours | One | $49 | Reaches the cliffs and coves a catamaran cannot | Details |
| Marine-reserve snorkelling | 3 hours | Two | $45 | Protected water, so there are actually fish | Details |
| Sunset sail with food | 2 hours | None | $115 | The bay in evening light, dinner already handled | Details |
The boats
Every boat below is currently bookable and carries the operator's own rating and review count. Prices are per person unless the card says the boat is private, in which case the figure buys the whole hull for the day. Durations are the operator's, and on this coast they move with the wind. Re-checked in September 2026.
4.6★ (12116 reviews) · 5 hours · from $69
4.3★ (3190 reviews) · 2 - 4 hours · from $46
4.4★ (2710 reviews) · 2.5 hours · from $45
4.3★ (2607 reviews) · 2 hours · from $38
4.7★ (1653 reviews) · 5.5 hours · from $103
4.3★ (1425 reviews) · 5 hours · from $63
4.4★ (1238 reviews) · 3 hours · from $69
4.5★ (978 reviews) · 4 hours · from $70
4.5★ (815 reviews) · 3 hours · from $45
4.6★ (725 reviews) · 3.5 - 4 hours · from $64
4.6★ (531 reviews) · 4 - 4.5 hours · from $95
4.8★ (505 reviews) · 2.5 hours · from $68
4.5★ (464 reviews) · 2 hours · from $49
4.3★ (430 reviews) · 5 hours · from $99
4.5★ (287 reviews) · 4.5 hours · from $99
4.8★ (254 reviews) · 2 hours · from $115
4.5★ (170 reviews) · 3.5 hours · from $45
4.6★ (82 reviews) · 2.5 - 8 hours · from $523
The piers
Palma's port runs about six kilometres from the cruise terminals at Porto Pi to the old quay below the cathedral, and the excursion boats use only part of it. The rest of the waterfront is yacht clubs, and they are not where your trip leaves from.
Moll Vell — the Muelle Viejo, the old commercial quay — is the address that matters. Since it was rebuilt as Marina Moll Vell it has held a mix of large yachts and the pontoons that shared excursion boats work from, and it sits directly below the cathedral: ten minutes on foot from Plaça de la Reina along the Passeig Sagrera, no bus, no taxi. If your voucher says Palma with no further detail, this stretch of water is almost always what it means, and the meeting point is a numbered pontoon rather than the marina gate.
Immediately west of it is the Real Club Náutico de Palma, the city's senior yacht club. It is not an excursion pier — its berths belong to members and to the racing fleet — but it shapes the bay all the same. The RCNP runs the Copa del Rey MAPFRE in the first week of August, when more than a hundred boats and close to a thousand sailors race in the middle of the Bay of Palma. Course areas are laid out where the day boats normally cross, and skippers work around them. Further west along the Passeig Marítim come Marina Palma Cuarentena and Club de Mar, both private marinas where charter boats are berthed and where a private booking may ask you to meet.
The Estació Marítima cruise terminals sit at the far western end by Porto Pi, five to six kilometres from the old town. Cruise Critic puts the walk at roughly an hour along the front with almost no shade; EMT line 1 does the same journey to Plaça d'Espanya in about ten minutes and also stops at the Dique del Oeste berth opposite the Castell de Sant Carles. If you are off a ship and booked on a Moll Vell boat, budget the transfer twice.
Two harbours in the listings are not in Palma at all. s'Arenal, at the eastern end of the Platja de Palma about thirteen kilometres out, has its own club marina and sends out the cheapest boat on this page; EMT line 25 runs there from Plaça de la Reina beside the cathedral, and line 23 from Plaça d'Espanya, which is the more useful pairing than any taxi. Portitxol and Es Molinar, the two small basins two kilometres east of the cathedral, look like the obvious place to find a boat and are not: they hold fishing boats, the Club Marítim Molinar de Levante's dinghies and the Portitxol club's sailing school, and shared excursions do not load there. Walk out for the seafood; do not go looking for a ticket booth.
| Pier or harbour | What leaves from it | From the cathedral | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moll Vell / Marina Moll Vell | Most shared catamarans, speedboats and sunset sails | 10 min on foot via Passeig Sagrera | Meeting points are numbered pontoons spread along the quay — the voucher names one |
| Escalera Real | The 50-minute City Sightseeing bay boat, hourly 11:00–17:00 | 5 min on foot | Its own booking page currently shows the service suspended until further notice |
| Real Club Náutico de Palma | Members' and racing berths, some private charters | 15 min on foot | Hosts the Copa del Rey MAPFRE in the first week of August — courses sit in the middle of the bay |
| Club de Mar / Marina Palma Cuarentena | Private charters and large yachts | 25 min on foot along the Passeig Marítim | Gated marinas; a skipper meets you at the pontoon gate |
| Estació Marítima (Porto Pi) | Cruise ships and inter-island ferries | 5–6 km — EMT line 1, about 10 min | The walk is roughly an hour with no shade; line 1 also serves the Dique del Oeste berth |
| s'Arenal club marina | The El Arenal bay tour and local charters | 13 km — EMT line 25 from Plaça de la Reina | Line 23 covers the same corridor from Plaça d'Espanya, about 50 min end to end |
| Portitxol and Es Molinar | Fishing boats, club sailing, private hulls | 2 km — 25 min on foot along the front | No shared excursions load here, whatever the neighbourhood looks like |
The coast
Almost every shared boat here turns west out of the port, because that is where the water clears and the cliffs start. Knowing the sequence tells you what a two-hour trip can reach and what needs five.
The bay opens westward past Cala Major and Illetes, where the little islets that give the place its name sit a few hundred metres off Calvià's shore and the water goes from harbour-grey to green. Past Portals Nous and the Puerto Portals marina the coast turns rockier through Palmanova and Magaluf, and at the southwestern corner it finishes at Portals Vells — four coves and the sea caves the locals call ses Coves de la Mare de Déu. Those caves are man-made: they are the sandstone quarry that supplied stone for Palma's cathedral and the church of Santa Eulàlia, later cut with an altar by sailors, and they are the single most photographed stop a Palma boat makes.
Beyond the corner lie the two protected patches that make the snorkelling worth doing. The Illa del Toro reserve and the Illes Malgrats reserve off Santa Ponsa were both declared in 2004; the Balearic tourism board credits the Toro closure with quadrupling species density and bringing back grouper and sea bass. That is the difference a marine-reserve trip is selling — not scenery, biomass. Snorkelling from a boat inside them is free and unrestricted; scuba diving needs a permit from the regional fisheries authority, and fishing is closed outright from May to October.
East of the port the picture is flatter and shallower: Portitxol, Es Molinar, Ciutat Jardí, then eight kilometres of Platja de Palma sand ending at s'Arenal and the low cliffs of Cap Enderrocat. That is the water the $38 s'Arenal trip covers, and it explains the price — it is a shorter, gentler, less dramatic coast than the western run, with sandy bottoms rather than cliff walls.
The arithmetic
Mallorca runs scheduled passenger boats to the three places people most often try to reach from Palma. None of them leaves from Palma, and that is the whole cost of the saving.
Cabrera. The archipelago south of Mallorca is a maritime-terrestrial national park, and you cannot simply sail there. Access is by an authorised passenger operator or with a prior navigation and mooring permit; the park is capped at 300 visitors a day and, since the courts upheld the limits, at 80 people per boat. The licensed companies — Excursions a Cabrera, Cabrera Sea Fun, Ona i Mar and Aventura Ibsub among them — must apply for their authorisation between the first of January and the end of February each year, and they all sail from Colònia de Sant Jordi, an hour's drive southeast of Palma. Entry to the park is free; the boat is the ticket, at roughly €45–56 for a three-hour trip and €58–71 for the full day, with the crossing taking 40 minutes to an hour depending on the hull. No boat on this page goes there.
Sa Calobra and the Torrent de Pareis. Barcos Azules sail from Port de Sóller on the northwest coast — reachable from Palma on the vintage Ferrocarril de Sóller — with an adult return to Sa Calobra at €35, about an hour each way, departures at 09:50, 11:20, 13:00 and 15:00 daily between the first of April and the end of October, and returns at 13:40 and 16:45. Cala Tuent is the same fare. That is the most spectacular hour of coastline in the Balearics and it costs less than half of any guided catamaran day — but it is a two-hour round trip from Palma before you board.
Formentor. The ferry from Port de Pollença to Formentor beach takes about 25 minutes and runs around €18–20 return, with returns at 11:30, 12:30, 13:30, 15:30 and 16:30 and a 18:00 sailing added in July and August. It is a shuttle, not an excursion: no guide, no swim stop, no drink.
The honest sum. Two adults on the cheapest Palma bay boat, the $38 s'Arenal trip, cost about the same as two Sa Calobra returns. What the €70 of scheduled ferry does not buy: a skipper who moves the anchorage when the embat gets up, snorkelling gear over the side, shade and a toilet on a five-hour day, or the caves at Portals Vells, which no scheduled boat visits. If you want to stand somewhere, take the ferry. If you want the day on the water, the catamarans are what you are actually buying.
The same test applies to the Coves del Drach excursion. It is a coach trip, not a sailing: the boat part is a rowing boat on the Martel lake after the classical concert. Entry to the caves has been listed at €18 for adults and €11 for children aged two to twelve on the caves' own tariff, so the coach, the guide and the seat account for the rest of the $63. Driving yourself to Porto Cristo makes it far cheaper and costs you a day of parking.
Prices
Three bands, taken from the eighteen listings on this page rather than from a market average.
The $38 s'Arenal bay tour, the $45 Palma snorkel run with a drink, the $45 catamaran with tapas, the $45 marine-reserve trip and the $49 speedboat. Two to three and a half hours, one swim stop, no lunch. On this coast the two-hour boat is not a lesser version of the five-hour one — it is a different product, aimed at people already staying on the beach.
The half-day catamarans cluster here: $69 with lunch and 12,116 reviews behind it, $69 with a BBQ and a sunset option, $64 with paddleboards, $70 for the music-and-swim cruise, and the small charter at $68 that carries the best rating on the page. The $63 Drach caves excursion is priced with them and is not a sea trip at all.
The luxury catamarans run $95, $99 for the day version and $99 at sunset, with $103 buying the longest trip here at five and a half hours and the sunset sail with canapés at $115. The private charter starts at $523 for the hull: worse value than two seats, level at six people, better than any of them at eight, and the only option where the swim stop lasts as long as you want it to.
The hulls
The Bay of Palma is wide and shallow-shored, so the boat type decides how far west you get and how the afternoon breeze feels once you are out there. Prices are the cheapest example of each type on this page.
| Hull | From | Typical trip | What it does better | The trade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Speedboat / small motor boat | $45 | 2 – 3 hours | Reaches the cliffs, caves and small coves the big boats skip | No shade, no galley, and a lively ride once the embat fills in |
| Sailing catamaran | $45 | 3.5 – 5.5 hours | Nets, shade, food aboard and a stable platform for children | Slow — a five-hour trip may cover only the near half of the bay |
| Motor cruiser / party boat | $70 | 3 – 4 hours | Music, deck space and a predictable schedule | The route is a loop; the stop is short and busy |
| Small charter boat | $68 | 2.5 hours | Ten or so people, so the snorkel stop is not a queue | Sells out first and cancels first in wind |
| Private hull | $523 | 2.5 – 8 hours | Your route, your timings, your anchorage | Only rational from about six people upwards |
Season
Sea temperatures are the monthly averages published by seatemperature.info, which agree within a degree with climate-data.org's figures for Palma; the sailing notes are what the season does to this bay in particular.
Two winds run this coast and they behave in opposite ways. The embat is the thermal sea breeze: the plain between Palma airport and Alcúdia heats up, the Serra de Tramuntana channels the flow, and from May to September the breeze fills in from the south or southeast around midday, builds to something like 12–18 knots by four in the afternoon, and dies at sunset. It is not dangerous and it is why sailing catamarans exist here, but it is also why an afternoon anchorage is choppier than a morning one and why the cheapest cabins on a speedboat get wet after 14:00. If you are prone to seasickness or bringing small children, take the first departure of the day.
The tramuntana is the other kind — the cold northerly that comes over the mountains, and the one that actually cancels sailings. It hits the north and west of the island hardest, which is precisely why Sa Calobra and Formentor boats stop while the Bay of Palma, sheltered in the island's southern lee, keeps working. That asymmetry is worth knowing: on a blown-out day, Palma is often the only harbour on Mallorca still sending boats out.
Operators re-route rather than refund where they can. GetYourGuide's own Palma catamaran copy says the boats run to Portals Vells or Cala Vella depending on wind conditions, which is a fair description of how the day is decided — at the pontoon, that morning, by the skipper.
| Month | Sea | Boats running | What it means on the water |
|---|---|---|---|
| April | 16 °C (61 °F) | Season opens | Catamarans start, the water is still a dare, and prices are at their lowest |
| May | 18.9 °C (66 °F) | Most boats | Clear light, quiet coves, the first genuinely swimmable fortnight |
| June | 22.8 °C (73 °F) | Everything | The best month here: warm water, full timetables, August prices not yet |
| July | 26.1 °C (79 °F) | Everything, filling up | The embat is at its most reliable — book morning slots |
| August | 27.1 °C (81 °F) | Everything, sold out | Warmest sea of the year; the Copa del Rey fleet occupies the middle of the bay in the first week |
| September | 25.8 °C (78 °F) | Everything | The local choice — the sea holds its heat and the boats empty out |
| October | 23.2 °C (74 °F) | Thinning | Still swimming weather; the first tramuntana days start cancelling small hulls |
| November – March | 14.3 – 19.6 °C (58 – 67 °F) | Almost none | Charters and the Drach caves excursion continue; shared bay boats mostly stop |
Extras
Palma has no marine-park fee and no harbour tax on day boats, which is unusual for a Mediterranean port. The costs that do turn up are these.
| Item | Amount | Who collects it | When it applies |
|---|---|---|---|
| EMT city bus single | €3, up from €2 | EMT Palma, at the door | Reaching s'Arenal (lines 23, 25) or the cruise terminals (line 1); the Balearic free-travel scheme covers card-holding residents, not visitors |
| Coves del Drach entry | €18 adult, €11 child 2–12 | Coves del Drach ticket office, Porto Cristo | Included in the guided excursion; payable if you drive yourself |
| Cabrera national park boat | €45 – €71 depending on length | Authorised operators from Colònia de Sant Jordi | Park entry itself is free; the cap is 300 visitors a day and 80 per boat |
| Scuba permit in the marine reserves | Free permit, applied for in advance | Balearic fisheries authority | Diving only — snorkelling from a boat needs nothing |
| Drinks past the included round | Boat prices | The operator | Most 'drinks included' listings mean one or two, not an open bar |
| Marina parking at Moll Vell | Hourly, metered | Marina Moll Vell | Only if you drive; the quay is a ten-minute walk from the old town |
On the water
The excursion quay is Moll Vell, below the cathedral; the cruise terminals are five to six kilometres west and s'Arenal thirteen kilometres east. The scenery the boats are heading for — Illetes, Portals Vells, the Illa del Toro reserve — is all west of the port.
Questions
Almost all shared boats load at Moll Vell, the old quay below the cathedral, a ten-minute walk from Plaça de la Reina — the voucher names a numbered pontoon rather than the marina entrance. The exception on this page is the $38 bay tour, which leaves from the club marina at s'Arenal thirteen kilometres east. The Real Club Náutico and Club de Mar are yacht clubs, not excursion piers, though a private charter may ask you to meet at one of their gates.
Technically, but plan for it. The Estació Marítima terminals sit at Porto Pi, five to six kilometres from the old town, and Cruise Critic puts the seafront walk at about an hour with almost no shade. EMT line 1 covers it to Plaça d'Espanya in roughly ten minutes and also stops at the Dique del Oeste berth opposite the Castell de Sant Carles. From Plaça d'Espanya the cathedral and Moll Vell are another fifteen minutes on foot. The metro is no help at all — the single M1 line runs inland to the university and never touches the water.
By rating, the small charter sightseeing boat at 4.8★ over 505 reviews, and the sunset catamaran at the same 4.8★. By weight of evidence, the five-hour catamaran with lunch — 12,116 reviews at 4.6★ is the largest sample on this coast. If what you want is water rather than deck, the marine-reserve snorkelling trip is the one that goes where the fish actually are.
No. Cabrera is a national park, entry is capped at 300 visitors a day and 80 per boat, and only companies holding an annual authorisation may carry passengers there — Excursions a Cabrera, Cabrera Sea Fun, Ona i Mar and Aventura Ibsub among them. All of them sail from Colònia de Sant Jordi, an hour's drive southeast of Palma, taking 40 minutes to an hour to cross. Park entry is free; the boat costs roughly €45–56 for a short trip and €58–71 for a full day.
The northwest, and it is not Palma. Barcos Azules run from Port de Sóller to Sa Calobra and the mouth of the Torrent de Pareis for €35 return, about an hour each way, four sailings a day from April to October — cliffs no road reaches. The Bay of Palma's own case is different: it is sheltered, it has Portals Vells and two marine reserves, and it keeps sailing on days when the tramuntana closes the north coast.
Not as a product. Bottlenose dolphins do turn up in the Bay of Palma and crews will divert if they see them, but none of the eighteen boats here sells a sighting or guarantees one, and any listing that promises dolphins in this bay is selling luck. If wildlife is the point of the day, the marine-reserve trip is the honest version — protected water where the fish population is measurably denser.
Morning. The embat, the thermal sea breeze that forms over the plain behind Palma and is funnelled by the Serra de Tramuntana, fills in from the south around midday and builds through the afternoon to roughly 12–18 knots before dying at sunset. Sailing catamarans enjoy it; small speedboats and anyone prone to seasickness do not. Sunset departures such as the two-hour canapé sail catch the flat water on the other side of it, as the breeze drops away.
June, then September. June has a 22.8 °C sea, full timetables and prices below the August peak; September holds 25.8 °C with visibly emptier boats. July and August bring the warmest water of the year at 26.1 °C and 27.1 °C, along with sold-out departures — and in the first week of August the Copa del Rey fleet is racing in the middle of the bay, which moves the routes around.
The private charter on this page starts at $523 for the boat, not the seat, for anything from two and a half to eight hours with the route agreed with the skipper. Against $69 a head on a shared catamaran, that is poor value for two, roughly level at six, and cheaper than the group boat at eight — with the difference that the anchorage lasts as long as you want and nobody calls you back aboard.
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