Answered · 5 minute read
Three hours is the right answer for most people. Two hours covers the Marina channel, JBR and Bluewaters but cannot anchor. Three adds a forty-minute swim stop off the Palm. Four lets you eat aboard properly, and five reaches the World Islands. On a 48ft those cost AED 1,500, 2,250, 3,000 and 3,750.
Published
Charter time runs berth to berth. Clearing the Marina channel takes about twelve minutes at the low speed the channel requires, and coming back in takes the same. That is nearly half an hour of a two-hour charter spent inside the harbour before anything else happens.
Anchoring properly — finding the spot, setting the anchor, getting the ladder down, getting everyone back aboard and stowed — is a twenty-minute overhead around however long you actually spend in the water. Two hours does not have room for it, which is why the crew will decline rather than rush it.
The best forty minutes of the day, for AED 750. The boat anchors in the flat water behind the Palm Jumeirah crescent, the engines go off, and the whole character of the charter changes — it stops being a tour and becomes an afternoon.
If you are choosing between a bigger boat for two hours and a smaller boat for three, take the three hours. Almost nobody regrets it and a great many people regret the opposite.
For a sunset charter, where the light window is only about forty minutes wide and the point is the timing rather than the swimming. For client hosting, where two hours is the attention you have. For a first time on the water with someone unsure about boats. And for a couple, where AED 1,500 for two hours is already AED 750 each.
In every one of those cases, adding an hour adds cost without adding much. In most other cases it is the cheapest improvement available.
FAQ
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