How Much Does A Saona Island Full Day Tour Cost?

A Saona Island full day tour from Punta Cana costs between $60 and $169 per person here, with most shared catamaran and speedboat trips clustered between $60 and $89. Every one of those tickets covers the boat legs and lunch, and all but the $169 small-group catamaran list an open bar of national drinks. The differences come from group size, trip length and how much beach time the itinerary gives you.

The floor of that range is the Saona Island excursion by catamaran with lunch from Bizar Tour Operador, from $60 per person for an 8 hour day. The ceiling is the small-group luxury catamaran from Quetzal Excursions at $169 per person for a 10 hour day that carries far fewer guests and serves lunch on the boat rather than at a beach buffet. Between those two sit four more Saona options, and four of the six cost $60 to $77, which tells you the base product is fairly standardized.

What that base product looks like comes from the listings themselves. The most reviewed trip on the whole site is the all-inclusive catamaran and speedboat day to Saona with buffet lunch, 4.4 from 4,767 reviews at $71.20 per person, and its listing describes the shape most operators follow: a road transfer to the southern port area, a speedboat or catamaran crossing, a stop at a natural swimming pool, roughly three hours on Saona itself, and a buffet lunch with beer, rum and soft drinks. If you want the fuller version of that comparison, the Saona Island party catamaran tours guide walks through every boat-based Saona option in one place.

Here is the full price picture, so you can see where each trip sits before reading about what the money buys.

One caveat before anything else: no verified official figure exists for the Cotubanamá National Park entrance fee that covers Saona, so this article will not print one. What we can say from the listings is which trips include park entry in the ticket and which leave you to check, and that is covered in full further down.

What Does The Standard Saona Tour Price Include?

Across the seven Saona listings on this site, the standard ticket includes hotel pickup where stated, both boat crossings, a buffet lunch on or near the island, an open bar of national drinks, and a stop at a natural swimming pool. The all-inclusive Caribbean Route trip lists all of these explicitly, as do the Melinmar and Bizar days; the luxury Quetzal trip swaps the beach buffet for lunch served on board.

The inclusions are more consistent than the prices suggest. The Caribbean Route listing spells out hotel pickup and drop-off, a 30 minute stop at the biggest natural swimming pool, three hours at Saona, snacks, a professional guide, the speedboat and catamaran crossings, a buffet lunch of BBQ, salad and typical Dominican fare, and an open bar of beer, rum and soft drinks. Its exclusion list is short: gratuities, and photos or video sold on the day. Lobster and premium drinks appear only in its VIP option.

The Melinmar version at $72.50 runs even longer, 9.5 hours door to door, with pickup and drop-off at your Punta Cana hotel, an air-conditioned transfer to the boat, the catamaran cruise, lunch, a guide and both soft and alcoholic drinks. The Bizar trip at $60 is the same skeleton with a 40 minute stop at the starfish natural pool, three hours of free time on Saona's beaches and an all-you-can-eat traditional Dominican lunch on the island. Reading the three listings side by side, the cheap ticket and the mid ticket buy nearly identical days.

That consistency matters when you are comparing against other island options. The Catalina Island all-inclusive from Aquatic EmotionRD sits at $57.96 per person for 9 hours, technically the cheapest island day listed here, but it is a different island with a different boat ride. If you are weighing the two, the Saona versus Catalina comparison breaks down the differences in water, beaches and boat time.

What Extras Do You Pay For On The Day?

The extras named on Saona listings are consistent: gratuities, souvenir photos and videos, towels, lobster and premium drinks such as piña coladas served in a fresh pineapple, and on some trips snorkeling gear. None of these are hidden fees; every listing prints them in its exclusion column, and none of them gates the core day of boats, beach, lunch and open bar.

Photos are the big one in practice. Almost every Saona listing here carries a line like "souvenir photos (available to purchase)", and the crew photographers work the whole day. You are never obliged to buy, but budget for it if you want the pictures, because your own phone stays dry on the speedboat leg. The Bizar listing also names premium piña coladas served in a fresh natural pineapple as a paid extra, a reminder that "open bar" means the national drinks listed, in that case rum, beer, soft drinks and water.

Snorkeling gear splits the tours. The Saona Sail & Speed trip and the Caribbean Tour Packages trip both list snorkeling equipment as an exclusion, meaning you either rent on the day or swim without it. The Quetzal luxury catamaran includes it, as does the Catalina trip. If snorkeling matters to you, this site's dedicated snorkeling boat tours guide covers the coastal Punta Cana alternatives where gear is standard.

Towels and gratuities round out the list. Nearly every exclusion column mentions towels, and several name tips for crew and guides as optional but expected. A practical planning range: the ticket price plus tip and a photo budget is the honest total cost of the day, and the ticket itself already includes the boats, the food and the drinks.

Why Do Saona Tour Prices Vary So Much?

Price moves with three things here: how long the day runs, how many people share the boat, and where you are picked up. The $60 to $89 shared trips differ mainly in duration, from 7 to 11 hours, while the jump to $169 buys a small-group boat, a guide-to-guest ratio the big catamarans cannot match, and pickup limited to the Bayahibe and Dominicus area rather than Punta Cana hotels.

Duration is the easiest difference to see. The Melinmar day at $72.50 runs 9.5 hours, a long fixed schedule, while Saona Sail & Speed quotes a 7 to 11 hour window because its pickup arrangement depends on the option chosen at checkout, and its listing states pickup is not included unless you select it. That is the one Saona listing where the headline price needs the closest reading: the ticket is $89, but transport depends on your checkout choice.

The Saona Sail & Speed trip, officially the Saona Island catamaran and speedboat tour to a dream beach, is worth a solo look for that reason. It gives you one way by speedboat and one way by sailing catamaran, 2.5 hours at Saona, a complete buffet lunch served at the beach, an open bar of beer, rum and soft drinks, the natural pool stop, national park entrances and an official guide, all in the $89 ticket. Its exclusion column is where the value question lives: towels, snorkeling equipment, lobster, the photo service and tips.

Group size is the second lever. Listings describe the shared Saona format as big: standard group catamarans in the market carry dozens of guests, while the Quetzal small-group trip deliberately caps the experience. Its listing also states hotel pickup from the Bayahibe and Dominicus area only, with pickup from Punta Cana, Santo Domingo or La Romana organized at extra cost, and that guests staying at Club Med Punta Cana must book through the resort's excursion desk. Those fine-print lines explain more of the $169 than the boat itself does.

Pickup logistics matter at the budget end too. The Caribbean Tour Packages sightseeing trip from $77 lists round-trip hotel transfers only "if the corresponding option is selected", and the Bizar and Caribbean Route trips include hotel pickup and drop-off outright. When a price looks low, check the pickup line first; that is where the difference usually hides.

Is The Small-Group Luxury Catamaran Worth The Higher Price?

At $169 per person for 10 hours, the Quetzal small-group luxury catamaran costs roughly double the shared trips, and the listing justifies it with lunch served on the boat rather than at a crowded beach buffet, snorkel gear included, national park fees and park entry covered, and a 4.7 rating from 356 reviews, the highest rating of any Saona day on this site.

The trade is essentially crowds for cash. The shared days at $60 to $89 are, by the listings' own descriptions, lively and busy: big catamarans, music on the return leg, beach buffets serving many tables. The Quetzal listing instead emphasizes the Quetzal guide, snacks and drinks, lunch on the boat and the national park fees inside the ticket. Whether that is worth $80 more per person depends entirely on what you are buying the day for, and the is a Saona Island trip worth it post tackles that question directly for the island itself.

For groups, there is a third path that changes the math completely: a private charter. The private luxury catamaran to Saona or Catalina from Quetzal runs from $1,990 per group for 8 hours, rated 5.0 from 94 reviews, with snacks, water, juices, rum and local beers included and lunch listed as an exclusion. Split among a large family or a celebration group, per-person cost can land near the small-group ticket, with the whole boat to yourselves. The private party boat guide covers the full charter market from Punta Cana.

Does The Park Entrance Fee Cost Extra?

No verified official figure exists for the Cotubanamá National Park entrance fee that covers Saona, so no honest article can print one. What the listings do show is that park or island entry is included in the Saona Sail & Speed, Caribbean Tour Packages, Quetzal and Catalina tickets; the other Saona listings do not mention it, which means reading the listing or asking the operator before you book.

This is the murkiest corner of Saona pricing, and it is worth being blunt about why. Park fee figures circulate widely online, but no primary source currently publishes an official amount, and amounts can change. The safe position is exactly what the listings let you verify: four of the seven island trips listed here name park entry, island entry or national park fees among the inclusions, and those are the trips where the ticket price is genuinely all-inclusive on this point.

For the trips that stay silent on park entry, the listing is the place to check, not a forum. A quick message to the operator through the booking page settles it before you pay, and it takes a minute. The same applies to the VIP option on the Caribbean Route trip, where lobster and premium drinks are included only in the VIP tier; the standard ticket's open bar is beer, rum and soft drinks.

One related rule that is verified and worth knowing on the sandbar: park regulations prohibit lifting starfish or other marine life out of the water at the natural pool, and tours enforce this. Touching the starfish harms them, so the waist-deep pool is a look-and-swim stop, not a handling one.

How To Pick The Right Saona Tour For Your Budget

Pick by budget band: under $65, the Bizar catamaran day at $60 gives the full standard itinerary; $70 to $90, the most reviewed Caribbean Route trip at $71.20 or the long Melinmar day at $72.50, with the Saona Sail & Speed trip at $89 if you want the speedboat-plus-sailing-catamaran combination; above that, the $169 Quetzal small-group day for fewer crowds, or a private charter split across a group.

The under-$65 band is thinner than people expect. Only the Bizar trip sits there among Saona options, and it is a complete day: hotel pickup and drop-off, speedboat ride, the 40 minute starfish pool stop, three hours on Saona's beaches, the all-you-can-eat Dominican lunch and the domestic open bar, 4.0 from 93 reviews. The mid band is where most buyers land, and the 4.4-from-4,767-reviews Caribbean Route trip is the confidence pick there simply because no other Saona listing has anything close to that review pool.

Two timing facts help you plan whichever band you choose. Full-day Saona trips typically pick up early in the morning from Punta Cana and Bávaro hotels and return between 6 and 7 p.m., so the day is a full commitment, and listings generally describe the format as a speedboat outbound and a catamaran return with music and an open bar on the way home. And if your dates fall over Easter, know that the Ministry of Tourism's Semana Santa measures applied during Easter week 2025 only, restricting ambulatory alcohol sales on beaches and excursions for that period. There is no verified standing ban on open bars aboard licensed boats; the restriction was a holiday-period measure, per the ministry's own announcement.

Whichever trip you land on, the booking mechanics are friendly to price-checkers: every Saona trip here that includes free cancellation says so on its listing, and the Caribbean Route, Melinmar, Saona Sail & Speed, Caribbean Tour Packages, Bizar and Quetzal trips all list it. Booking ahead through the operator's live listing, rather than through a street vendor, also keeps the inclusions above, the lunch, the open bar and the transfers, enforceable. This guide sits within the full Saona Island and party boat coverage here on Punta Cana Party Boats, from full-day island trips to coastal booze cruises.

Common Questions About Saona Island Tour Costs

How Much Does A Saona Island Full Day Tour Cost?

Between $60 and $169 per person here, with most shared catamaran and speedboat days clustered between $60 and $89. The cheapest is the Bizar catamaran excursion at $60 for 8 hours; the priciest is the Quetzal small-group luxury catamaran at $169 for 10 hours.

What Is Usually Included In The Price?

On the standard shared trips: both boat crossings, a buffet lunch, an open bar of national drinks such as beer and rum, a natural pool stop, a guide, and hotel pickup where the listing states it. The exact inclusions vary by listing, so read the included column before booking.

Do I Have To Pay The Park Entrance Fee Separately?

On four of the seven island trips here, park or island entry is not listed as included. On the others the listings do not mention it, and since no verified official fee figure exists, the right move is to check the listing or message the operator before booking.

Why Is The Luxury Catamaran So Much More Expensive?

It is a small-group trip with lunch served on the boat, snorkel gear and national park fees included, a 4.7 rating from 356 reviews, and pickup limited to the Bayahibe and Dominicus area. You are paying for fewer fellow guests and a longer, 10 hour day.

Are Photos And Tips Included?

No. Gratuities and souvenir photos appear on the exclusion lists of nearly every Saona listing, along with towels and, on some trips, snorkeling gear. Budget for tip and photos on top of the ticket.

Is Food Included On Saona Tours?

Yes, every Saona trip listed here includes lunch: usually a Dominican buffet on or near the island, and on the Quetzal luxury trip a lunch served on board the catamaran. Snacks and fruit appear on several listings as well.