Cairns Great Barrier Reef tour: what each one costs you in hours

The coral is offshore, so every Cairns Great Barrier Reef tour spends part of its day travelling. That is the single fact that explains the fares on this page: a boat that goes further needs more hours, and hours are what you are buying.

Ninety minutes to two and a half hours: the inlet. $54 and $102 never leave Trinity Inlet. The first is a sunset run with a drink and the city skyline; the second is dinner aboard as the day turns to night. They are the two lowest fares on this site, and they are evenings rather than reef days. If a whole day at sea is not in the plan, they are the honest answer.

Four to five hours: half a day. Four listings. $126 and $77 are four hours; $147 and $79 are five. You leave the marina, you reach one destination, you swim, you come back. Nobody serves you lunch, and the afternoon is still yours. For anyone who sunburns, travels with small children, or has a flight the same evening, this is the shape of a Cairns Great Barrier Reef tour that works.

Seven to nine hours: the full day. Nine listings, and this is what most people mean by a reef day. $182 is seven hours, $200 is seven and a half, $216 is eight, $193 and $203 are eight and a half, and $193, $179, $203, $200 and $182 are nine. All of them carry a meal except the sailing and island days that describe refreshments instead, and all of them leave early. A nine-hour listing out of the marina is a whole day gone, and it is worth booking nothing else for that evening.

Two days. $298 pairs a full-day cruise to the outer reef with a full day in the Daintree Rainforest, and $470 is two days of diving and sailing with a night aboard the yacht and a night dive. These are the only listings on this site that are not back by dinner, and they are the two highest fares here.

What the fare covers once you are aboard. Eleven of the 18 listings carry a meal note: a gourmet buffet on the superyacht with wine and cheese on the return, buffets at the pontoons, a packed lunch on the small-group listing, dinner on the inlet boat. The four-hour listings carry none, which is part of why they cost less. Beyond that, what is written into a Cairns Great Barrier Reef tour differs listing by listing, so the table below copies each page rather than generalising.

And the one that does not leave from Cairns. $182 starts at Deeral rather than the city, and cruises rainforest waterways before it reaches the coral reefs of the outer reef. It is nine hours like the big catamaran days, but you get yourself to a different place to start it, and that is on the listing page rather than buried.

Eighteen listings, five blocks of hours, and one sensible answer in each.

If you can give the reef a whole day, take $216. Our top pick: eight hours on the Silverswift catamaran and three different reef sites of coral gardens and marine life, with snorkelling or diving at each, at 4.7 from 657 reviews. Eight hours is a long day and this is the listing that fills them with the most water.

If you want the most tested full day, take $193. Nine hours from the marina to the outer reef by premium catamaran, lunch on board, snorkel, dive or stay on deck, at 4.8 from 3,875 reviews — more evidence than any other listing on this site carries. It is flagged as likely to sell out, so it is not one to leave until the morning.

If you have five hours, take $147. A half-day to the outer reef with marine biologist snorkel guides and a selection of 15 exclusive moorings, at 4.9 from 626 reviews — the highest rating on this site. $79 is the five-hour island alternative with a glass-bottom boat option, a rainforest walk and a pool.

If you have four, take $126. Four hours: out to the World Heritage listed reef and a small-group guided snorkel with a choice of moorings, at 4.7 from 1,931 reviews. $77 is the four-hour catamaran to Green Island and the lowest reef fare on this page.

If not everyone wants a boat day, take $200. Seven and a half hours at a multi-level pontoon on the reef, with snorkelling, a glass-bottom boat tour and a waterslide, so there is somewhere to be for people who would rather not swim. $200 is the nine-hour version that adds Fitzroy Island and a buffet lunch.

If you have two days, take $298. A full-day outer reef cruise and a full day in the Daintree Rainforest with a local guide, at 4.7 from 287 reviews. $470 is the diving version: two days on the outer reef, a night aboard the yacht and a night dive, in a small group.

And if the days are all committed, take $102. Two and a half hours of dinner aboard the Spirit of Cairns along Trinity Inlet, at 4.5 from 423 reviews, or $54 for 90 minutes at sunset with a drink. Neither is a reef day, and the table above says so plainly.

Does the listed length include the ride out? Yes. Every duration in the table above is door to door from the marina, which is why a four-hour listing visits one place and a nine-hour one visits two or three. Nothing on this site quotes a travelling time separately, because the listings do not.

Can I do two things in one day? Not with the full-day listings. A seven-to-nine-hour Cairns Great Barrier Reef tour is the day. The half-day listings are the ones that leave room for an afternoon, and the two evening runs on Trinity Inlet are the ones that fit around everything else.

What about the rainforest? One listing here reaches it as a second day: $298 is a full reef day followed by a full day in the Daintree Rainforest, and its own page names Cape Tribulation with a local guide. If what you are looking for is a Cape Tribulation tour from Cairns on its own, without the reef day attached, it is not among the 18 listings compared here.

And the other land trips? This site compares boats, so an atherton tablelands tour from Cairns, a Mossman Gorge tour from Cairns and an outback tour from Cairns are all outside it. They exist, they leave from the same town, and none of them is on this page, which is the honest thing to say rather than pretend otherwise.

What about the other islands? A Whitsundays tour from Cairns means a different group of islands, well beyond a day out of this marina. Everything on this page is bookable within a day of the marina, apart from the two-day packages.

How early do the full days leave? Early enough that breakfast is part of the planning. The listings state their times on their own pages; what this site can tell you is the length, which is the number that decides whether a Cairns Great Barrier Reef tour eats your whole day or half of it.

What people talk about afterwards. Three things, on almost every listing: how long the day really was once travel to the marina was counted, whether the meal matched the fare, and how much of the time was actually spent at the mooring rather than under way.