What the money at the cave buys, and what no money buys
Three separate payments go to three different parties, which is why so many people arrive thinking they have already paid and leave thinking they were fleeced.
What you actually pay
- €6.00 state entrance ticket, €2.00 reduced, to the Ministero della Cultura
- €12.00 rowboat fare to the Cooperativa Battellieri Grotta Azzurra, in cash, at the cave
- €23–25 return motorboat from Marina Grande, if you come by sea, to a third company again
- A tip to the rower, which is customary at €2–5 and has no official standing whatsoever
What nothing on sale buys you
- A place further up the rowboat queue. There is no product that does this
- The €18 folded into a tour price. It never is, on any of the seven
- More than a few minutes inside, however much you paid to get there
- A guarantee the cave will be open on the morning you turn up
The visit in order, from the pier to back out again
What actually happens, in sequence, whichever way you arrive.
Two routes converge at the same rowboat landing under the cliff. From Marina Grande you come by motorboat and transfer at the mouth. From Anacapri you come by bus and walk down. From the landing on, everybody has the same visit.
- Marina Grande, or the bus stop in Anacapri — Molo 0 and Molo 21 sell the motorboat transfer at €23–25 return. The Staiano bus goes from Piazza della Pace instead, at €2.40. Whether the desks at Marina Grande are open at all is the quickest proxy for whether the cave is.
- The crossing, or the stairs — By sea it is a run along the north-west coast, about an hour round trip before any queueing. By land a flight of stairs drops from the road to the landing, which is why the Ministry calls the site only partially accessible.
- The wait 60–90 min — Sixty to ninety minutes between June and September, sometimes over two. About thirty minutes in low season, thirty before 9:30am, thirty to forty after 3pm. From the steps you wait on land; from a boat you wait bobbing.
- Paying — €6 to the state and €12 to the boatman, handed over at the cave. Carry cash. No tour ticket and no pre-booking covers either of them.
- Into the rowboat — Four passengers maximum. You either step down from the landing or transfer across from the motorboat while it holds position.
- Through the mouth — The opening stands about a metre above the waterline and roughly two metres wide. Everyone lies flat in the bottom of the boat while the rower hauls on a fixed chain and times it to the swell.
- Inside under 5 min — A chamber about 60 m long and 25 m wide, with the vault around 7 m up. The blue arrives from a second, much larger opening below the waterline, not through the hole you came in by.
- Back out — The same mouth, the same chain, and a line of boats waiting behind you. Then the stairs or the motorboat back, and that is the visit.
Reckon on about two hours from Marina Grande and an hour and a half to two from the centre of Anacapri, queue included. If the arithmetic of four minutes against ninety is bothering you, that is the right question and it deserves a straight answer.
Before you pay for anything
Check today’s status
Motoscafisti publish a dated open or closed banner, updated daily, and capri.com and capri.net syndicate it. It runs March to late October. The phone is +39 081 8375646 after 9am.
Decide land or sea
€18 and a bus from Anacapri, or €41–42 and a motorboat from Marina Grande. The difference between the two figures is the transfer, not the cave.
Book only what can be booked
The transfer can be bought online, which skips the ticket-office line at the pier and nothing else. The €6 state ticket has a free timed booking through CoopCulture. The €12 rowboat cannot be booked at all.
Carry cash
The rowboat fare is handed to a man in a boat at the cave mouth. Guides widely report the floating ticket office is cash-only; no official source says so, but bring notes anyway.
The best-rated of the seven, if you want the safe choice
The Sorrento exclusive boat tour, €119 per person, 4.8 from 5,297 reviews, and roughly four hours. The grotto on it is optional, which means extra and not guaranteed, and the €18 at the cave is yours either way. Michayla from Australia called it worth every penny. If you are leaving from Sorrento, the other departure is cheaper, and the full write-up is on our review of it.
Cheapest, best-rated, or the whole boat?
Three very different things. One of them is priced for a group, which changes the arithmetic completely.
| Capri: Island Boat Trip with Grottos | Best ratedSorrento: Exclusive Capri Boat Tour and Optional Blue Grotto | Capri: 3-Hour Private Boat Tour with Blue Grotto Visit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | €25 per person | €119 per person | €399 per group |
| Departs | Marina Grande, Capri | Sorrento | Capri |
| The grotto stop | An island circuit; the stop gets dropped when the wait is long | Optional, so extra and not guaranteed | In the itinerary, still not guaranteed |
| Entry at the cave | €18, on the spot | €18, on the spot | €18, on the spot |
| Rating | 4.3 (5,948) | 4.8 (5,297) | 4.8 (173) |
| Worth knowing | The weakest score on this site, on the biggest review base | Roughly four hours | One boat, not one seat |
| Free cancellation | ✓ Up to 24 h before | ✓ Up to 24 h before | ✓ Up to 24 h before |
| View → | Book this → | View → |
Photo Gallery
The cave, the queue and the way in
Illustrations of the parts of the visit people ask about: the mouth, the light inside, the wait, the stairs down from the Anacapri road.
All seven tours, cheapest first
Every one of them still leaves the €18 at the cave to pay on the spot, and none of them includes entry. The private boat is priced per group; the other six are per person.
CheapestCapri: Island Boat Trip with Grottos
Beats the queueBlue Grotto Early Entrance Experience
From SorrentoFrom Sorrento: Capri Boat Tour with Blue Grotto Optional
Best ratedSorrento: Exclusive Capri Boat Tour and Optional Blue Grotto
From NaplesFrom Naples: Capri, Anacapri, and Blue Grotto Full-Day Trip
From PositanoPositano: Capri and Blue Grotto Shared Boat Tour with Drinks
Private boatCapri: 3-Hour Private Boat Tour with Blue Grotto Visit
What reviewers actually said
Six reviews of the tours on this page, in the words the reviewers used.
Worth every penny.
One of the top highlights of my trip.
It felt more like 4 hours because of the non-stop great scenery.
Probably the third rowboat inside the grotto.
Fortunate to not have a long wait.
A very cute turquoise very well kept traditional boat with a sail shielding from the sun.
Ratings and reviews are the operators’ live GetYourGuide figures. Read our full tour reviews ›
Things people ask me at the bus stop
Four questions I have answered a few thousand times on the road down from Anacapri, none of which the ticket price prepares you for.
Do I have to tip the rower?
No, and it helps to separate two things. The €12 rowboat fare is a real, official, separate charge, and a large share of the complaints about boatmen demanding extra money are visitors meeting that lawful second fare for the first time. A tip on top of it has no tariff, no policy and no obligation behind it. Local custom in the Italian press runs €2–5 a head; visitors report being asked for it after a song, and report audible displeasure at small amounts. Pay what you think it was worth. The full breakdown of who takes what.
What happens to my money if it closes?
The €6 and the €12 are paid at the cave, so a closure costs you nothing there. Your exposure is whatever you pre-paid to get to the mouth: the motorboat transfer, or a tour booked weeks earlier. I could not find a published refund policy from any of the operators, so I will not tell you what yours is. Ask at the ticket desk before you pay, and check the status first.
Is the free first Sunday actually free?
Only the €6 is. Domenica al Museo waives the state ticket and nothing else, because the €12 rowboat is a private fare that is never waived. So a free Sunday costs €12 from land and €36 from Marina Grande, and it draws a bigger crowd than a normal one. Under-18s from the EU go free on any day and 18 to 25-year-olds pay €2. Both totals, quickly.
Can I manage it with a bad knee or a pushchair?
Treat it as not step-free. The Ministry classifies the site as partially accessible and leaves it there. What that means in practice is a stair descent from the road, a transfer into a boat that takes four people, and a requirement to lie flat on your back while the rower pulls through the mouth. No further official detail exists and I am not going to invent any. Both routes down to the landing.
Can’t make these dates?
Browse more available Blue Grotto Capri tour and find one that fits your schedule — all with instant confirmation and free cancellation.
The Blue Grotto, explained
I live on Via Pagliaro, the road that runs down towards the grotto, and I have watched that queue from the bus stop since I was a child. The argument I have most often is about the price. It is not the figure people arrive with, and it is not one figure.
Three payments, two totals
The cave is a state-owned archaeological site, which is why the money splits three ways and why nobody publishes a sum. Six euro is the state entrance ticket and goes to the Ministero della Cultura. Twelve is the rowboat fare and goes to the Cooperativa Battellieri Grotta Azzurra, in cash, at the mouth. That makes €18, and €18 is the number every other guide prints.
The payment that catches people is the third one. Arriving from Marina Grande, a return motorboat transfer of €23 to €25 sits underneath the other two, goes to a third company again, and is included in nothing. So the real total for the way most visitors actually arrive is €41 to €42. capri.com prints €19 on arithmetic implying a €13 rowboat that no official source confirms, so I would say €18 and carry €19.
Reductions apply to the six euro only. The first Sunday of the month waives the state ticket for everyone, which still leaves €12 from land or €36 from Marina Grande, in a bigger crowd than usual. The full table, and who takes which share.
What the five minutes are actually like
The mouth stands about a metre above the water and two metres wide. Everyone lies flat in the bottom of the rowboat, four passengers at most, while the rower hauls on a chain fixed to the rock and times the pull to the swell. Inside, the chamber runs about 60 metres long and 25 wide, the vault seven metres up and fourteen at its highest.
The blue does not come through the hole you entered by. A second, much larger opening sits below the waterline, separated from the visible one by a band of rock, and seawater absorbs red light while passing blue. A dead-flat sea weakens the effect rather than perfecting it: that submerged window needs some surface movement to transmit light at all.
Then you are back out. Under five minutes, start to finish. I am not going to dress that up, and whether it is worth the wait is a fair question.
Why it shuts, and how to find out
The same metre of clearance that makes the entry memorable is what closes the site. Any swell, high tide or onshore wind and there is no way through; northerly winds almost always mean closed, and conditions often worsen after three. The only fixed closures are 25 December and 1 January, but it opens and shuts within the same day often enough that a yes in the morning is not a yes at four.
The call is made by the skippers at the cave mouth at nine in the morning, so nobody knows the night before, me included. What you can do is check. Motoscafisti publish a dated open or closed banner, updated daily, syndicated by capri.com and capri.net, March to late October; there is a phone line too, +39 081 8375646, after 9am. Failing both, if the motorboat ticket desks at Marina Grande are shut, so is the cave. Hours, and why the published ones disagree.
The €6 and the €12 are handed over at the cave, so a closure costs you nothing there. What is exposed is a pre-paid transfer or tour. I could not find a published refund policy from any of the operators, so ask at the desk before you pay.
The cheap way in, in full
Here is the route I would take myself. The Staiano bus runs from Piazza della Pace in Anacapri for €2.40 bought in advance or €2.90 on board, with a day pass at €7.50; sources put the journey anywhere between five and fifteen minutes. On foot it is 3.5 km and forty to fifty minutes, all downhill.
From the road a flight of stairs drops to the landing. You pay your €18 there, and you wait on the steps rather than bobbing offshore, which even capri.com recommends if you are prone to seasickness. Reckon on an hour and a half to two hours from the centre of Anacapri, queue included. None of it is bookable and none of it needs to be. If that is all you wanted, take it and spend the difference on lunch. The land route, step by step.
Why I still put my clients on a boat
Because for most of the people I take out, the grotto is not the day. They come from Sorrento, Naples or Positano, the crossing is a stretch of coast they would not otherwise see, and the circuit passes the Faraglioni and half a dozen other caves. The grotto is a short stop inside that, and it may not happen.
So book the boat for the day, not for the cave. Book it for the cave and you will spend the morning angry at a queue the operator cannot shorten and a sea it cannot predict. The cheapest of the seven, the island circuit at €25, is also the lowest rated at 4.3 across nearly six thousand reviews, and I think that gap is this misunderstanding turning up in the scores. The one product pointed at the queue is the early entrance at €80, and it carries 29 reviews, which is not much to lean on. All seven, cheapest first.
Whichever you pick, the €18 is still yours to hand over at the mouth. Check the banner before you spend anything else.
Frequently asked questions
How much does the Blue Grotto cost?
It depends entirely on how you arrive, which is the thing almost nobody says. From Anacapri by land it is €18: a €6 state entrance ticket and a €12 rowboat fare. From Marina Grande by boat it is €41–42, because a €23–25 return motorboat transfer sits on top and is never included in anything. There is no combined ticket. capri.com prints €19, so budget for that. The whole table, with who takes which share.
Is the Blue Grotto worth it?
Yes, if you know you are buying under five minutes in a cave lit from below the waterline, and you have treated the queue and the closure risk as part of the price. No, if you have one day on Capri and have not yet seen anything else, if you are prone to seasickness and plan to queue from a boat, or if you are going because a tour listing implied the entry was included. The case for and against, at length.
Can you visit the Blue Grotto without a tour?
Yes, and it is the cheapest way in. Take the Staiano bus from Piazza della Pace in Anacapri, €2.40 in advance or €2.90 on board, walk down the stairs from the road, and pay €18 at the landing in cash. Nothing about that route is bookable and nothing about it needs to be. The land route, step by step.
Why is the Blue Grotto closed so often?
The mouth is only about a metre high above the water, so any swell, high tide or onshore wind shuts it, and northerly winds almost always mean closed. There is no weekly closing day and it shuts on 25 December and 1 January only, but it frequently opens and closes within the same day. The skippers make the call at the cave mouth at 9am, which is why nobody can tell you the night before. Motoscafisti publish a dated status banner each morning. Hours, the conflict between the published ones, and how to check.
Can you swim in the Blue Grotto?
No. CoopCulture’s visiting rules forbid entering the water for pleasure inside and outside the cave, with no carve-out for any time of day, and the prohibition rests on a Naples Port Authority ordinance banning bathing at any hour. It is enforced: four people were fined €1,032 each in July 2020, and reported penalties run roughly €1,000–3,000. The story that you can swim in after the boats leave at 5:30pm is wrong. Why that story keeps circulating.
How long do you have to queue?
Sixty to ninety minutes between June and September, occasionally over two hours. About thirty minutes in low season, thirty before 9:30am, and thirty to forty after 3pm. Nothing shortens it: buying the transfer online skips the ticket-office line at the pier, and a free CoopCulture booking holds an admission slot, but neither is a place in the rowboat line. The queue by hour and by season.
Does any boat tour include entry to the Blue Grotto?
None of the seven on this site does, and I have not seen one anywhere that does. The tour buys you the crossing and the circuit; the €18 is handed over at the cave. On several of them the grotto is listed as optional, meaning an extra charge and no guarantee, and island circuits drop the stop altogether when the wait is long. Transfer-only against island tour, and what each actually stops for.
Still have questions? Email us [email protected]