Answered · 4 minute read
Yes. Charters are priced per boat, so one person can book a yacht licensed for twelve at the standard rate — AED 1,500 for two hours on a 48ft. Nothing is cheaper for a solo booking. If cost matters, a shared dhow cruise at AED 99 or a RIB tour seat at AED 150 puts you on the water alone for a fraction of that.
Published
A private charter takes a boat off the market for those hours. Whether one person or twelve step aboard makes no difference to the operator's cost, so it makes no difference to the price. One person on the 48ft pays AED 1,500 for two hours, exactly as a group of twelve would.
No operator in Dubai offers a solo discount, and one offering a suspiciously low private rate is usually selling a seat on a shared boat.
Shared products are sold per seat and work perfectly well for one person. A Creek dhow dinner cruise is AED 99 including dinner. A RIB tour seat is AED 150 for an hour to the Burj Al Arab. A jet ski is AED 250 for thirty minutes, and riding alone costs the same as riding two-up.
None of these require a group, and nobody will think anything of a solo booking — shared boats carry solo travellers constantly.
Photography and content shoots, most commonly. A photographer who needs the boat positioned in a specific place at a specific minute cannot do that from a scheduled sailing at any price.
Also for a proposal set-up, where one person boards early to arrange things before the other arrives. And occasionally simply for the quiet — a boat at anchor off the Palm with nobody else aboard is a genuinely rare thing to buy in this city.
What it does not buy is driving it. Every charter comes with a captain, and a solo booking does not change that. Driving a boat yourself needs a UAE marine licence, which is a separate two-day course and test.
FAQ
Check a date
Leave the date and roughly how many of you there are and we will come back with the boats that are free and what each costs. No deposit at this stage.