So which one do I book, with boat or without?
Whichever way you are leaning, there is one tour to book. The Side Jeep Safari is a single product at EUR 20 per adult, and the boat trip is not part of the fare. It sits in the excluded list next to the Manavgat Waterfall entrance, the village mini zoo tickets and drinks, which is exactly what an optional extra looks like in our records.
That is also why you will not find a combined with-boat price anywhere on this site. Quoting one would mean selling you a package we do not actually run. The fare is EUR 20; the boat hour is EUR 5 per person handed over on the day if you want it.
What the boat hour actually is
It is a one-hour trip on Green Lake, offered after the included lunch at the lakeside restaurant by Green Canyon. If you want to picture where the lake fits into the day, it falls between that lunch and the traditional village mosque visit, before the convoy turns for home and, depending on the programme that day, calls at the Manavgat Waterfall.
The cost is EUR 5 per person and it is settled at the lake, not online. Nothing about it is prepaid, reserved or ticketed in advance, which is why the decision genuinely stays open until you are standing there with a full stomach deciding how you feel about another hour out.
What the hour gives you that the rest of the day does not
By lunchtime you have already seen this water three times from above: the panoramic viewpoint over Green Lake, the photo stop at Oymapınar Dam and the viewpoint above Green Canyon, three of the stops set out in the guide that covers the whole route. All three are look-down views. The boat is the only part of the programme spent on the water rather than over it, and the scale of the place reads completely differently at surface level.
The second thing it buys is stillness. The morning is dirt track, dust and the bumps that come with an open-top 4x4 on unsurfaced roads. An hour afloat is the one flat, quiet stretch in an eight-hour day, and whether that is worth five euros depends on how much the morning has taken out of you.
Who should take it
The boat hour earns its five euros when the lake is the reason you came. If Green Lake and Green Canyon are what pulled you onto the tour in the first place, seeing them only from viewpoints is an odd way to finish.
- First-time visitors who want the lake at eye level, not just from the road above it
- Anyone travelling with a camera who wants the angle nobody gets from the viewpoints
- Couples looking for one calm hour inside an otherwise loud, dusty day
- Guests who found the morning tracks tiring and would happily sit still for an hour
- Holidays with no other day on the water booked
Who should skip it
Skipping is a perfectly normal choice and nobody on the tour makes anything of it. Say no, keep your five euros, and the day carries on around you.
Be honest with yourself about one thing in particular: we cannot promise you in advance how the shore hour is spent by guests who stay behind, because that depends on the day and the group. If that uncertainty would bother you, ask your guide before lunch rather than after it.
- Families whose small children have already had a long morning of driving and swimming
- Anyone who is uncomfortable on boats, in the sun or in the heat of the afternoon
- Guests who have a rafting day or a catamaran evening already booked elsewhere in the holiday
- Large families counting the extras, where EUR 5 per person adds up faster than it looks
- People who would simply rather not be committed to a fixed hour afloat
The rest of the day is identical either way
Boat or no boat, the programme is the same. What follows is the Side departure in detail, and the choice you make at the lake changes none of it: morning hotel pickup after breakfast time, a convoy of open-top jeeps carrying eight to ten guests each with a professional driver, the old Roman bridge where the asphalt ends, orchards of orange, lemon and pomegranate, cotton and sesame fields, the ancient Roman aqueducts, the Green Lake viewpoint, a swim stop at Oymapınar village with freshly made Turkish pancakes and a drink, the dam, the canyon viewpoint and lunch.
The published duration is eight hours, and the boat hour appears inside that itinerary rather than as a separate leg added to the end of it. What we will not do is put a clock on the return: we do not publish exact pickup or drop-off times, so if your evening is tight, say so to your guide in the morning.
What you pay, and when you pay it
For one adult the whole question comes down to EUR 20 without the boat, EUR 25 with it. The tour is EUR 20 per adult aged 13 to 99, EUR 10 for children aged 4 to 12, and free for infants aged 0 to 3. Nothing is taken online: no card, no deposit, no prepayment. You pay in euros on the day, and you can cancel free of charge up to 24 hours before departure.
Everything optional is settled on the spot, so carry some cash rather than relying on a card in the mountains. That means the EUR 5 per person for the boat, the Manavgat Waterfall entrance if the programme includes it that day, mini zoo tickets during the village break, drinks, and any photos or videos taken by the tour team.
If what you actually want is a day on the water
One hour on Green Lake is a garnish, not a boat trip in its own right. If time on the water is the point of the excursion, two other products on this site do that properly and are booked as products rather than added at the lake.
The Side Night Jeep Safari is EUR 35 per adult, runs about five hours from early June to mid-November, and includes a catamaran cruise with dinner on board, music and entertainment; it is designed for guests aged 12 and over. The Side rafting and jeep safari combo is EUR 28 per adult for around seven hours, with roughly 12 km of river in Beşkonak Köprülü Canyon, all safety equipment and lunch included, though that is white water rather than a cruise.