Île aux Cerfs by Boat: Catamaran, Speedboat, and What the Price Leaves Out
Updated September 18, 2026 · 7 min read
Almost every boat to Île aux Cerfs leaves from the same place — Trou d’Eau Douce, the fishing village on the east coast — and almost all of them sell the same three things: the crossing, a barbecue, and a snorkel stop. The price range is €45 to €125.
That spread is not about the island. It is about the hull, the hours, and two items that appear on some tickets and not others.
The catamaran: seven hours, of which two are sailing
Take the most-reviewed trip in our whole inventory as the reference — 2,300 reviews is the highest count we hold, which is a measure of how many people have been, not of how good it is. The catamaran day trip with lunch and transfer costs €50.98, rates 4.4 stars from 2,300 reviews, and runs seven hours door to door.
The operator publishes the clock, which most listings do not: hotel pickup, arrival at Trou d’Eau Douce at 9.15am, the catamaran leaves at 9.30am, and you are back at the quay at 4pm. Between those points the day is a visit to the Grand River South East waterfall, a snorkelling and swimming stop in the lagoon, and a three-course barbecue. What is left over for the island itself is a couple of hours, not a day — the operator does not put a number on that part, and reviewers report as little as an hour and a half.
The waterfall is not reached by the catamaran. A 42-foot catamaran cannot go up a river, so you transfer to a speedboat and run about 500 metres upstream, then come back. It is the part of the day people are most often surprised by, in both directions: some love the river and the fruit bats in the tall trees, others find it a queue for a small boat.
Four more catamarans from our inventory, for comparison:
| Trip | Price | Stars | Reviews | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lagoon experience + BBQ | €48.44 | 4.7 | 812 | 7 |
| With lunch and transfer | €50.98 | 4.4 | 2,300 | 7 |
| Cruise with BBQ lunch | €55.77 | 4.3 | 1,365 | 6 |
| With BBQ and snorkelling | €62.10 | 4.7 | 821 | 7 |
| Catamaran, waterfall and BBQ | €70.00 | 4.6 | 445 | 7–8 |
Read that table twice. The cheapest catamaran on it is also one of the best rated, and the €70 option does not buy a better boat — it buys a different operator. Across our catamaran pages the picture is the same: 38 offers, from €43, median €61.05.
The speedboat: half the time, or twice the money
Speedboats do the crossing in minutes rather than an hour, which changes the shape of the day rather than its content.
At the cheap end, a five-hour speedboat trip with lunch costs €45 and rates 4.6 stars. At the other end, a full-day speedboat tour with barbecue is €125 at 4.8 stars from 456 reviews — the same seven hours as the catamaran, for two and a half times the price.
What the expensive speedboat buys is a small group and a boat that can chase a schedule. What the catamaran buys is shade, a deck to sit on, and a bar. If anyone on board gets seasick, the catamaran is the calmer platform; if anyone hates a slow boat, five hours of it will feel like a very long lunch.
Five islands instead of one
The east coast has more than Île aux Cerfs, and the trips that string several together carry some of the strongest ratings in our inventory.
The 5-island adventure from Trou d’Eau Douce is €85 for six to seven hours, 4.7 stars from 1,327 reviews. A south-east five-island catamaran cruise from Grand River South East does it in five hours for €70 at 4.8 stars. A nine-hour speedboat version with snorkelling and sea turtles runs €108.92.
For a first day on the east coast, the single island is the safer choice — it has shade, food stalls and somewhere to sit. The five-island trips are better once you know you like being on a boat all day.
What the price does not include, on almost every ticket
This is the part worth reading before you book.
Water sports on the island are extra. Parasailing, the tube ride and the undersea walk are all sold on Île aux Cerfs itself, and on the reference trip above they sit in the excluded list along with tips. The day-trip price gets you to the island; the activities there are a second wallet. What they cost and what they involve is a separate piece — the lagoon’s water sports and the rules around them.
A minimum booking of two people applies to that trip, which matters if you are travelling alone.
Infants aged 1 to 4 travel free on it, and the food is halal with vegetarian options — two details that are rarely in a headline and often decide a family booking.
It is not suitable for wheelchair users, by the operator’s own statement. That is the boarding at Trou d’Eau Douce rather than the island, and it is the kind of thing to confirm directly with the operator for any trip on this coast rather than trusting a summary — including ours.
The honest summary
Île aux Cerfs is a beautiful island with a golf course on it and several hundred visitors a day arriving by boat. Nobody who goes there finds an empty beach at midday.
What you are choosing between is a slow boat with shade and a fast boat with time. Both deliver the same lagoon, and in our inventory of 75 island boat trips — from €45, median €75, 19,339 reviews between them — the difference in rating between the cheapest and the dearest is smaller than the difference between two operators charging the same.
If the snorkelling is the point rather than the island, the protected lagoon in the south is the better water: Blue Bay, and where you are actually allowed to swim in it.