Blue Cruise is a popular crewed yacht charter in an South Western coast of Turkey, aka Turquoise Coast, on a sailing boat named Gulet. A full Blue Cruise generally starts in Didim or Kuşadası (some start from Bodrum or Marmaris) and they usually terminate at the port of Antalya covering all Turkish Riviera region. Many Blue Cruises have predefined routes but it is common for large local groups to rent an entire yacht and dictate to which bays and towns they would like to sail to. There are also 2 ways to do this: You can either rent a cabin on a Blue Voyage or rent an entire boat.
Blue Cruise is the English translation of Turkish term Mavi Yolculuk (Mavi = Blue and Yolculuk = Cuise). These Cruises were started by Turkish writer Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı and his friends. Cevat Şakir was forced to live in Bodrum on exile in 1920s. Falling in love with the beauty of the region, he has later started to live in this sleepy fishing and sponge-diving town. Cevat Şakir has started taking trips with his intellectual friends on the sponge divers' sailing boats, called gulets, and they named these cruises as Blue Cruise. The term and this type of holiday making was later introduced by him and his friends to Turkish literature and then intelligentsia.
Most Turkish holidaymakers still prefer gulets for Blue Cruises but nowadays it can be performed by all types of yachts from small boats to large super-yachts. Whatever the vessel is, the Blue Voyage should be at least 4 days. During this holiday, you will love the joy of sleeping all the night under the stars, enjoy waking up with the morning sun, discover how social people become when living a life far away from social distractors like TV, mobile and internet.
Blue Cruise is quite entertaining, relaxing and very calming. Your boat moves from place to place while you do not interrupt your resting days with travel. Since the number of people you interact is limited, the holiday becomes joyful and restful. In a couple of days, you start to feel like all your busy and tiring life is in another planet and you just enjoy your holiday.
Blue Cruise is also a cheaper way of holiday making. Let me give an example: 2006 summer, from Marmaris to Datca we paid 400 USD per person (16 people and a tip: 8- 12 people is ideal) for 7 nights 8 days. All our personal F & B purchases included. The price is right because we have found a captain on our own by word-of-mouth. Between Marmaris and Datca we have almost spent nothing. This was much cheaper than staying in hotels in a single location for 8 days.
Best time to do a Blue Cruise in Turkey is early June or late September. In early June, the bays are still calm (before tourist flood of summer) but the sea is still a little cold. Also try to avoid long Turkish Public Holidays during when the entire coastline is quite crowded by both international and local visitors (and prices will be higher).
Blue Cruises are done on relatively small yachts so it has a great "immense yourself into nature" experience. Well the only problem with this is the honey bees who are waiting for you in almost every bay. So be careful if you are bee sting allergy. Do not worry you will most probably not be bitten but make sure that you know you are allergic or not. This is important because most bays you will visit will not be accessible by road and even they are they will be far from nearest hospital.
2 things are important during blue cruise: the group you are with and the crew. Blue Cruise is best done with a group who knows each other and have almost same tests. It is quite annoying if some want to drink and sing songs in the middle of the night while others want to sleep like chickens. An experienced and well serving crew and a good captain is also a must.
Blue Cruise is the English translation of Turkish term Mavi Yolculuk (Mavi = Blue and Yolculuk = Cuise). These Cruises were started by Turkish writer Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı and his friends. Cevat Şakir was forced to live in Bodrum on exile in 1920s. Falling in love with the beauty of the region, he has later started to live in this sleepy fishing and sponge-diving town. Cevat Şakir has started taking trips with his intellectual friends on the sponge divers' sailing boats, called gulets, and they named these cruises as Blue Cruise. The term and this type of holiday making was later introduced by him and his friends to Turkish literature and then intelligentsia.
Most Turkish holidaymakers still prefer gulets for Blue Cruises but nowadays it can be performed by all types of yachts from small boats to large super-yachts. Whatever the vessel is, the Blue Voyage should be at least 4 days. During this holiday, you will love the joy of sleeping all the night under the stars, enjoy waking up with the morning sun, discover how social people become when living a life far away from social distractors like TV, mobile and internet.
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| Turkey Blue Cruise Region |
Blue Cruise is quite entertaining, relaxing and very calming. Your boat moves from place to place while you do not interrupt your resting days with travel. Since the number of people you interact is limited, the holiday becomes joyful and restful. In a couple of days, you start to feel like all your busy and tiring life is in another planet and you just enjoy your holiday.
Blue Cruise is also a cheaper way of holiday making. Let me give an example: 2006 summer, from Marmaris to Datca we paid 400 USD per person (16 people and a tip: 8- 12 people is ideal) for 7 nights 8 days. All our personal F & B purchases included. The price is right because we have found a captain on our own by word-of-mouth. Between Marmaris and Datca we have almost spent nothing. This was much cheaper than staying in hotels in a single location for 8 days.
Best time to do a Blue Cruise in Turkey is early June or late September. In early June, the bays are still calm (before tourist flood of summer) but the sea is still a little cold. Also try to avoid long Turkish Public Holidays during when the entire coastline is quite crowded by both international and local visitors (and prices will be higher).
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| A Gulet on Blue Cruise |
2 things are important during blue cruise: the group you are with and the crew. Blue Cruise is best done with a group who knows each other and have almost same tests. It is quite annoying if some want to drink and sing songs in the middle of the night while others want to sleep like chickens. An experienced and well serving crew and a good captain is also a must.
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