What a Private Boat Day in Menorca Costs

Taken privately, a llaüt is quoted from about €400 a service and climbs with the hours and the season band: €650 to €800 for four hours and €900 to €1,350 for eight on one Mahón boat, and €1,680 to €2,160 for an exclusive seven hours from Cala Galdana. A Fornells catamaran is quoted from about €570 for a private half day and about €1,100 for a full one, and a private sunset starts at around €300. A seat on a shared boat is a different product, not a cheaper version of the same one, at roughly €35 to €90 per person on the south coast and about €45 to €65 for the north coast half day.

The published numbers

The day	What is published
Private llaüt, Mahón, 4 or 8 hours	€650 to €800 / €900 to €1,350, by season band
Exclusive llaüt, Cala Galdana, 3.5 or 7 hours	€840 to €1,080 / €1,680 to €2,160
Private catamaran, Fornells, half or full day	from about €570 / about €1,100, a second boat from about €660
Private sunset or sunrise	from about €300 on a llaüt, about €500 on a north catamaran
Seat, north coast catamaran, half or full day	about €45 to €65 / about €115
Seat, big Ciutadella boat, half or full day	about €35 / about €45 with paella and sangria

Private hire or a seat on a shared boat

The shared boat is not the private day with strangers added. It is a fixed route on a fixed clock, wind permitting: the big Ciutadella boats run from roughly 09:30 or 09:45 to 17:00, about two hours at Cala en Turqueta and an hour and a half at Son Saura, with a half day of about four hours and paella and sangria aboard the full one.

Private hire buys the departure hour, the route and an anchorage with nobody else’s timetable in it, priced per boat rather than per head. Llaüts carry 7 to 12 guests, so the same €650 to €800 half day reads differently across four people and across ten.

Which way it falls depends on your headcount, on whether the cove to yourselves is the point, and on which coast the wind allows, since routes here are adapted daily to wind and sea.

Why the llaüt is the local answer

The llaüt is not a word applied to whatever is in the harbour. At least six businesses run llaüt charters here with their own published programmes, from the Port of Maó, Es Canutells, Cala Galdana, Fornells and Ciutadella.

The fleets are small and named: three llaüts of 10, 12 and 15 m at Mahón, a 9 m hull at Es Canutells, an 11 m llaüt at Cala Galdana, and a classic fleet of fifteen from four bases. A llaüt is quoted like a house for the day, not a ticket.

Formats are fixed: a 4 hour half day or an 8 hour full day from Mahón; 3.5 or 7 hours from Cala Galdana, semi-private or exclusive.

Hiring the boat, or hiring the day

Rental and charter at Mahón runs from about €200 to €1,800 a day depending on boat and season, with a skipper added at about €225 a day and about €250 in July and August. At least five charter firms work the Moll de Llevant alone, one running 35 boats of 5 to 11 m taking 5 to 12 passengers, with or without a skipper, from about €350 a day.

Whether the skipper is optional is a licence question, and for most travellers the answer is no. A skippered charter is the default here, and sailing a charter boat yourself needs a recognised qualification, with Spain’s PER licence covering boats up to 15 m within 12 nautical miles of the coast. Licence-free rental is deliberately small: boats up to 5 m, engines up to 15 hp, daylight only, within 2 nautical miles of the port. That is an hour in the bay, not a day down the south coast.

What moves the number

Hours first, because they are the skipper’s day: the four and eight hour bands above are the same boat.

Season second, and the bands are tighter than the calendar. Peak season is May to October, one llaüt runs 15 May to 15 October only, and the published bands put the true high season between late June and early September, with the shoulder weeks cheaper. Inside one boat’s own band, the same eight hour day is €900 at one end of the season and €1,350 at the other, and the skipper day rate moves with it, about €225 rising to about €250 in July and August.

Then the hull and its seats: a llaüt takes 7 to 12, a charter boat 5 to 12, the small-group catamaran in the north 10. Then what is aboard, since the shared full day carries paella and sangria while a private quote is written per boat, so lunch, drinks and fuel are lines to compare.

What is inside the number, and what is not

A deposit of around 30 per cent at booking is normal on llaüt charters, with the balance settled later. Cancellation is set per boat and the spread is wide: one llaüt refunds in full 30 or more days out, charges 10 per cent between 7 and 30 days and returns nothing inside 7 days, while refunding the deposit in full when weather cancels the trip, and a Fornells catamaran cancels free up to 48 hours ahead and not after. Two quotes are not comparable until those paragraphs sit side by side.

One honest note: Balearic charter businesses do not publish commercial registry numbers, so registration is verified with each business rather than quoted from a website.

Where the boat day sits in the week

The house decides which harbour you walk to, so it comes first. We do not display villas on this site: tell us the dates, the group and the bedroom count, and a shortlist comes back from trusted local agencies and owners, booked on their terms. Area by area is on luxury villas in Menorca.

The water is arranged around the stay: a llaüt charter for the slow day, a yacht charter from Mahón for range, a boat charter from Fornells when the north is kind, a sunset run for the last of the light, and the shared south coast and north coast days when seats are the better buy. A private chef at the villa afterwards, cheese and wine when the wind is up, and airport transfers at both ends. The island is on Menorca; the mechanics are in how a private boat day comes together.

What to send to get a real figure

Five things: your dates, your numbers, how many swim and the ages of any children, half day or full, and which coast. With those, what comes back is a boat’s own figure for your week rather than a range.

Request availability with those details and the harbour you would rather leave from.

Good to know

For four of us, is the private boat worth it or should we buy seats?

At four, the seats win on price and the private boat wins on everything else. Seats on the big Ciutadella boats are about €35 for a half day and about €45 for a full day with paella and sangria included, while a private llaüt starts around €400 a service and runs €650 to €800 for four hours on one Mahón boat. Four people paying that are buying the departure hour, an anchorage to themselves and a boat that carries 7 to 12 rather than a shared deck. For six or more the gap narrows, because a seat is charged per head and the boat is not.

What is actually included in a private charter price?

Each boat writes its own quote, so lunch, drinks, fuel and the skipper are lines to check rather than things to assume. What is consistent is the money mechanics around it. A deposit of around 30 per cent at booking is normal on llaüt charters here, with the balance settled later, and cancellation terms are set per boat rather than by any island rule. We get yours in writing before anything is paid.

Do we need a licence to take the boat out ourselves?

For anything resembling a real boat day, yes. A skippered charter is the default product on this island, and sailing a charter boat yourself needs a recognised qualification, with Spain's PER licence covering boats up to 15 m within 12 nautical miles of the coast. Licence-free rental exists but is deliberately small, at boats up to 5 m with engines up to 15 hp, in daylight, within 2 nautical miles of the port. That is a swim off a beach, not a boat day.

Why is the north coast quoted differently from the south?

Because it is a different product on a different sea. The north is the exposed coast and the Tramuntana is the island's operating constraint, so skippers adapt routes daily to wind and sea rather than committing to a cove in advance. The Fornells half day is about 3.5 hours of sailing, covering anything between Cala Pregonda and Cala Mongofre depending on the wind, on boats that stay small: the small-group catamaran caps its trips at 10 guests, and taken privately it is quoted from about €570 for the half day and about €1,100 for the full one. The sheltered south carries the volume instead, with seats on the big Ciutadella boats at about €35 for a half day and about €45 for a full one, which is why the two coasts never read alike on a price list.

Which weeks are cheaper, and by how much?

Peak season is May to October, and the published price bands put the true high season between late June and early September, with the shoulder weeks either side cheaper. You can read the effect straight off one Mahón llaüt's own bands, where the same eight-hour day is €900 at one end of the season and €1,350 at the other. Skipper day rates move the same way, at about €225 a day rising to about €250 in July and August. Charter seasons are also shorter than the calendar suggests, with one llaüt running 15 May to 15 October only.

Request availability

Tell us the dates, the group and what you want out of it. A real person checks directly with the villa agency, skipper, chef or guide and comes back with real options and real prices. Nothing is booked until you confirm.

What a private boat day in Menorca costs