Boat trips from Nice, done privately.

Nice is the easiest place on the coast to start a boat day, and the one most people fly into. The Port de Nice sits under the Colline du Château, twenty minutes from the airport, and the moment you clear the harbour wall the whole Baie des Anges opens up. Land at eleven and you can be swimming off Cap Ferrat by one.

This guide is the honest version of what a boat trip from Nice looks like: the runs and how long they really take, what you see on each, the difference between a private boat and a shared cruise, and what the day costs with nothing left out.

Where a boat trip from Nice goes

East is the classic. Out of the harbour and round the point, and within twenty minutes you are in the bay of Villefranche, one of the deepest natural harbours in the Mediterranean and the calmest water on this stretch of coast. Cap Ferrat is the next headland along, with the coves of Passable and Paloma on either side of it, and beyond that Beaulieu, Èze-sur-Mer and the run along the cliffs to Monaco.

West is quieter and longer. The Baie des Anges, the airport headland, then Antibes and the Cap d’Antibes forty-five minutes on, and the Lérins Islands off Cannes at about an hour and a half. Most guests go east on a half day and west on a full one, and the decision can wait until you are aboard: the captain will tell you which way the sea is kindest that morning.

The runs from Nice, honestly timed

These are the passage times for the quickest boat in the fleet on a flat morning, from the quay at Nice. Villefranche, twenty minutes. Cap Ferrat and its coves, thirty. Beaulieu-sur-Mer, thirty. Monaco, forty. Antibes, forty-five. The Lérins Islands, about ninety. Saint-Tropez, a little over two hours at a proper pace, which is why Saint-Tropez is a full day and not an afternoon.

A boat that is slower, or a sea that is not flat, adds to every one of those figures, and a captain who says so before you leave the quay is worth more than one who promises the timetable.

Private boat or shared cruise?

The shared boat trips from Nice run a fixed route to a timetable with sixty or more people aboard, and they are good value for what they are: an hour along the coast and back, with commentary. What they cannot do is stop. You do not anchor, you do not swim, and lunch is wherever the boat happens to dock.

A private charter is the opposite shape. Up to ten of you, your own captain, and a day that goes where you want it to: a cove nobody else has found yet, a swim off the platform, a table at La Réserve in Beaulieu or Le Plongeoir on the rocks at Nice with the tender waiting. Half days and hourly charters from two hours exist for people who want the private boat without the whole day.

What a boat trip from Nice costs

The boat is from €1,400 a day, with the captain at €350 on top and fuel charged at cost for the route you actually take. A four-hour half day starts from €850. Hourly charters run from two hours. Split ten ways, a full private day from Nice costs each guest about what two people pay for a shared cruise and a lunch ashore.

Towels, snorkelling gear, shade and a chilled rosé are already aboard. A €300 deposit holds the date, and it can be moved for free up to fourteen days before. If the captain calls off a day for weather, you choose a new date or a full refund.

The shape of a good day

Out at ten, while the water is still glass. Villefranche first, before the anchorage fills, then round Cap Ferrat to whichever cove the wind is not on. Lunch held ashore or laid on the aft deck at anchor. The afternoon is swimming, the seabobs and not much else, and the run home is timed for the light rather than the clock: the coast turns gold behind the Promenade about an hour before sunset, and that is the photograph everyone takes.

Booking a boat trip from Nice

Every boat in the fleet shows live availability, so if a day is free on this site it is genuinely free. Choose the date, the boat and the shape of the day, pay the deposit, and the crew come back with the route and the timings. Boarding is at the Quai des Deux Emmanuel in the Port de Nice; your captain meets you at the head of the pontoon, and the day starts the moment you step aboard.