Île aux Bénitiers: Six Boats, the Same Barbecue, and a Price Range of €60 to €102.80

Six boats run the same day off the west coast: dolphins in the morning, a stop at Crystal Rock, then lunch on Île aux Bénitiers. The photographs are the same, the barbecue is the same, and the prices run from €59.04 to €100.21.

For most people: the shared catamaran day with lunch at €59.40 — 4.6 stars, six and a half hours, and the shade a catamaran has and a speedboat does not. If the dolphins are the whole point, take a speedboat instead: the Tamarin dolphin snorkel with Crystal Rock and lunch is €63 and leaves early. If you have no car, the island-wide pickup trip at €102.80 collects you from any accommodation in Mauritius — that, and not the boat, is what the extra €41.17 buys.

The six, side by side

The last row is the one worth staring at. It is the most expensive trip on the list, it has been reviewed more than three times as often as any other, and it carries the lowest rating of the six. That combination is not an accident, and it is not a warning either. It is a different product sold alongside the same day.

What the €41.17 actually buys

The €100.21 trip includes pickup and drop-off at any accommodation in Mauritius — not from a shortlist of resorts, from anywhere on the island. On an island where the dolphin boats leave from Tamarin, La Preneuse and Flic en Flac, all on the west coast, that matters enormously if you are staying in the east or the north and have not hired a car.

Nothing else on the list offers that unconditionally. The catamaran tour at €63 says pickup and drop-off may be arranged at an additional cost, depending on location. The €60 speedboat makes it an option you select. The €60 trip gives you a meeting point in Tamarin and nothing else.

So before comparing headline prices, work out what getting to the west coast costs you. From a hotel in Belle Mare or Grand Baie, a taxi there and back for two can close most of that gap on its own — and if you are already driving yourself, the €59.04 boat is simply the cheaper boat.

See availability and prices for the island-wide pickup trip

The hour you leave is the part nobody compares

Dolphin watching and swimming may only be sold between 6am and noon — that is the law here, not a habit, and it sets the shape of every one of these mornings.

Now read the departure times the operators publish.

The €100.21 trip states plainly that the boat trip starts at 7.45am, with pickup times varying by where you are staying. The €75.81 catamaran asks you to meet the crew at Le Morne Anglers’ Club Jetty at 9.15am, departs around 9.30am, and only then sets off towards Tamarin Bay to look for dolphins — returning to the jetty at 3.30pm.

Both are legal. But one is on the water with four and a quarter hours of the permitted window left, and the other casts off with two and a half — before the run down to Tamarin Bay. If dolphins are the reason you are booking, book the earliest departure you can find, whatever the hull is. If the dolphins are a bonus and the day on the water is the point, the later catamaran is the more comfortable boat and the better-rated one.

See availability and prices for the west-coast catamaran cruise

Speedboat or catamaran: this is a real choice, not a detail

A speedboat gets to the dolphins fast and gets you into the water close to them. It also has no shade worth the name and it slams. One reviewer of the €60 speedboat puts it better than any listing does: you should be physically and mentally ready for speedboat travel, because it was a very jumpy, high-speed experience.

The €59.04 speedboat operator says the same thing in its own conditions — the swimming and snorkelling are described as a physically demanding and energetic activity for which you need to be a good swimmer — and lists wheelchair users and people with mobility impairments as unsuitable. The €60 catamaran adds pregnant women to that list.

A catamaran, by contrast, is a platform. You sit under a canopy, the crossing is slow, and the dolphins are usually watched from the deck rather than swum with. That is the honest trade: comfort against proximity.

See availability and prices for the shared catamaran cruise

The small print that changes a booking

Two-person minimum. The €100.21 trip will not take a single booking. Solo travellers should check this before anything else; it is the condition most likely to end the comparison early.

Drinking is sequenced, not banned. The €66 catamaran serves alcoholic drinks after snorkelling, and its operator reserves the right to cancel the snorkelling altogether if you have been drinking beforehand. Smoking and intoxication are both listed as not allowed on board.

Special diets need notice. The €75.81 cruise requires vegetarian, gluten-free and seafood-free meals to be requested in advance. The €100.21 trip offers a vegetarian option and an optional lobster lunch, both to be stated at booking.

Young children are not necessarily excluded, but they are not necessarily catered for either. On the €100.21 trip, children aged three and under travel free and a child or infant seat for the road transfer must be requested at booking. The other listings set their own terms, and they are not the same — if an age matters to your group, it is a question for the booking page rather than for a comparison table. We have gathered what the lagoon actually enforces on families separately.

Nobody promises you a dolphin. The €75.81 operator writes it out: sightings are common but cannot be guaranteed, because these are wild animals. One of the others goes further and asks you not to book at all if you would consider the approach to be chasing. Take that at face value — it is the most honest sentence on any of these pages.

When to skip this trip altogether

If you want fish rather than dolphins, this is the wrong coast. The protected lagoon in the south-east delivers far more to look at per hour of snorkelling, and it has its own set of rules. If you want an island to walk around rather than a sandbank to eat lunch on, the east-coast boat trips are a different day entirely. And if anyone in the party cannot swim confidently in open water, read the speedboat conditions again before you pay.

Which one to book

For most people: the shared full-day catamaran at €59.40 — 4.6 stars from 605 reviews, six and a half hours, shade, a barbecue with drinks, and parking at the marina if you drive. It is the best-rated boat in the group that still leaves room in the dolphin window.

See availability and prices for the shared catamaran cruise

For dolphins specifically: the €60 speedboat from Tamarin — the earliest, the cheapest, and 4.3 stars from 1,360 reviews. Only if you are a confident swimmer and can get yourself to Tamarin.

If you have no car and are staying far from the west coast: the €102.80 trip. Its rating is the weakest here, and the reviews explain why — one describes nineteen people on a small jetty. But it will collect you in Belle Mare at dawn, and nothing else on this page will.

The west coast holds 47 dolphin trips in total, from €35. These six are the ones that end with lunch on the islet.