No Choice in Marmaris Daily Boat Trips

Unless you’re planning on a private boat trip in Marmaris, the only other alternative is to stand in long line-ups this summer and wait for a local boat to take you on a daily boat trip to the nearby bays.  There will be no choice in which boat for the holidaymaker. It will start from one end of the line of boats along the promenade, and move down as each boat gets filled up, then the line up will move to the next boat until its full and so on.

Many of the Marmaris fans have expressed mixed feelings; however mainly negative as they now have no choice in which boat they wish to cruise with. One person stated that they have been going on the same boat for many years, and now will not have that opportunity, stating that they know the crew and feel comfortable going on that particular boat.

Other points that have changed is that there will be no all inclusive prices. The food will be included, but drinks will cost extra. All boats will have the same price no matter which boat it is.  Private boats will NOT be affected. So if you want a private daily boat trip, then just pick whichever one suits you best.  We went on one with Captain Osman and it was not only affordable but a great deal of fun. He is quite the cool guy… he cooks, cleans and serves everything – a one man show but excellent.

If you would like more information on this subject matter, Captain Osman is a great resource. His facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/osman.uyar.73 you can contact him via private message.

For those who have not seen this excerpt posted on this facebook group page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/96846053374/ Here is what member Heather Hardman has posted:

Marmaris Daily Boat Trips

… so hopefully it will help those on my page who have so many questions.
Okay, so the news is not good.

The local council has formed a corporation for all of the boats regardless of size or capacity. For any boat to now anchor their boat at the harbour or anywhere in Marmaris they have to belong to this corporation.

The council have now taken the control of all boat trips which means regardless of what excursion shop you go to your money will be taken for a day trip on the boat which will include lunch but no drinks of any description. You will be picked up as normal from your hotel and taken down to the harbour. You will then join a queue and the council officals running that queue will start at the first boat and fill that one, then they will move on to the next boat and so on.

All the money for the boat trips is paid direct to the council, the boats do not handle money at all and the money then goes in to a pot and the council will then pay each boat their money for that day.

This now means that nobody can run a private boat trip anymore. The boats will take what customers have been directed to them from the queue by the council officals, the customers have no say about which boat they go on and the boat people have no say either.

This information was confirmed on Monday.
This has good things and bad things attached to it.
Good things:
1. If a boat has a 70 person capacity this means 70 people will go on that boat only, so a guaranteed sun bed for every person and no over crowding.
2. The price will now be the same for every person and for everyboat.
3. If a boat at the end of queue doesn’t go out because there were no people left after filling the boats ahead of him, he still gets paid from the council.

Bad things:

1. The customer no longer has freedom of choice
2. The council is giving each boat a set amount towards providing lunch (It is not enough) so this means that drinks which have not been regualted in price by the council will be expensive.
3. The boats get paid no matter what and the chances of getting the same customers back again are slim which will mean the quality of service might be effected.
4. High season you could be queued for over an hour in the hot sun
5. If you are a large party you could get split between 2 boats.
6. It remains to be seen if this will actually work or not, it was tried back in 2006 and it fell apart by mid June and everything went back to how it was – only time will tell.

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After having read this, I asked Captain Osman. He states that these changes do not affect the private boat owners who do the daily boat trips.

If you have any comments or questions regarding this matter, we would appreciate it if you could share them with us below via facebook or our blog comments section. Please share this page if you are interested in spreading the word. Thank you!