Capri Private Boat Excursion from Positano

Overall it was a great time - the captain was friendly and informative, the views were amazing. I bought my tickets off Capri.com and the only reason I am taking off a star is because their included "snacks" is just one bowl of peanuts (we had a party of 5).

PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. If you are considering using them, please read below. I never write reviews but wanted to warn fellow travelers. Four months ago, we booked this private boat tour for our anniversary to see the blue grotto, a lifelong dream of ours. The day before our tour, we got a suspicious email that our Boat ride was canceled. We reached out to them and asked what happened and they claimed we did not pay our deposit. Instead of relaxing and enjoying our last night in Florence we were rushing to figure out what happened to the reservation we booked 4 months ago. We responded with a screenshot of the receipt from our deposit and asked them to please double check to confirm our deposit was received. They came back to us and said “oh we found it, sorry our mistake. See you tomorrow.” We confirmed once again just to be sure, they sent us a confirmation code and everything seemed fine. The next morning, we are in Positano and go to their booth to get on our boat. As soon as we show up to the booth it was clear something was wrong. They said that our reservation has been canceled because “you did not pay the deposit”. We explained the entire situation and showed them the chain of emails confirming our reservation. They then said they could not help us at all, there was nothing they could do since there were no more boats available that day. Keep in mind, we reserved a boat for the day of our anniversary 4 months ago. They told us to call their manager. After being so rudely pushed aside, I called their manager and they said that they were sorry and blamed one of their colleagues. They said that we could have a boat the next day - why would I ever book with such an untrustworthy company again? For us, we did not get our anniversary celebration we booked so far in advance, but more importantly, I am writing this review because we spoke with MULTIPLE other families/couples in Positano that morning and the following days, and they had the exact same experience. PLEASE READ: After they canceled our reservation, we were speaking with other families and couples around the ticket offices who had the EXACT SAME STORY. The cancelation email, the follow up email not to worry, and then canceled again upon arrival. There are many other reviews (mostly on Google, not TripAdvisor) where people had a horrible experience even when they did get on their boat. Please read other reviews for clarity. Also, couples who trusted they could have a reservation for the next day were canceled on a SECOND time. Due to a lot of the positive reviews on TripAdvisor I assume that at some point this was a good and trustworthy company. After our experience and talking to the families around us who were distraught about getting this once in a lifetime experience taken away from them it was clear that something is going wrong here and that this is a scam. What we assume is that they are taking the deposit, and over booking. ALSO, it’s been 5 days and we haven’t gotten our refund of the deposit yet - they said it would be 2 business days. To end on a positive note, we were able to get another boat after going to every single boat tour company in Positano. We had an amazing experience with the company who has an orange booth on the beach. Thank you for reading this and we hope that no one has the same horrible experience with this company.

My wife and I enjoyed our “7hr” tour from Praiano to Capri. Our captain, Clementa was excellent. Everywhere we turned was another beautiful picture of the Amalfi Coastline, Capri or the sea. We enjoyed the various grottos (see below, but we were unable to enter the Blue Grotto), swimming spots, Monte Solaro, the natural arch and of course the views! We were very happy, but certainly some advice to provide: 1) the seas CAN be choppy so if you have a weak stomach you should take medicine beforehand 2) The Grotto Azul (Blue Grotto) is very famous and a must see…..however, there are variables to understand that are outside of the control of your captain (so don’t be upset). A) if the weather or tide is not perfect, you WILL NOT be able to enter the grotto. B) if the weather is perfect, than you could wait for an hour in line to transfer to another small row boat to be taken into the grotto. 3). There is an additional fee to enter the grotto (something like €14), but I did read that the row boat people expect to be tipped on top and are aggressive about it. I did not have this experience (because the weather was bad for us), but sharing what I have read so others can benefit. 4) if you plan on disembarking onto the island of Capri you have two options A) pay €100 docking fee (not included in the cost of your trip) from the main port or B) have lunch at one of the sea view restaurants that have a dock (dock is free, but lunch is not!). We choose option B and enjoyed ourselves. 5). Everything takes more time than expected. Sea is choppy (extra 30-45 minutes each way on the boat to/from Capri). Blue Grotto - could wait for a row boat (extra hour of waiting). Lunch - service is relaxed in Italy so this could take longer than expected. Want to visit Capri- need a bus or a taxi - long lines to wait for either option. All of this to say that our “7hr” tour felt VERY rushed. We actually were 8.5hrs (but note we didn’t see the Blue Grotto) because Clementa was very understanding and accommodating to what we wanted to accomplish. Clementa never rushed us and showed us everything that he told us he would show us. We did go to AnaCapri and then took the cable car up to the highest peak, Monte Solaro (€12 round trip per person). This took 15 minutes to wait for a cab, 20 minute ride (€25) from Marina Piccola (where we ate lunch) to AnaCapri (Piazza Vittoria), 12 minute ride up to the top of Monte Solaro, 30 minutes exploring and taking pictures, 12 minutes back down, 15 minutes waiting for a cab and finally 20 minutes (€25 ) back down to Marina Piccola to take our boat back with Clementa. Total time on the island was about 1hr45minutes plus lunch of approx 1hr30minutes. Some things we missed out on that I wanted to accomplish. 1). Never got to spend any time walking around Capri or AnaCapri (I would have liked to have had 30-45 minutes in each place). 2). Did not get to visit the Blue Grotto because the sea was too choppy and they weren’t taking anyone into the grotto. That would have been an extra hour. So, given all of this experience, I would say that to FULLY experience Capri you need to add an additional 2.5hr to the time we spent…..8.5hrs plus 2.5hrs for the Blue Grotto and touring the island. My suggestion is that they upgrade the experience to 9-11 hours depending on weather. Smooth sailing - 9hrs, weather not so good 11hrs.