Every fact, with its date
Every specific claim published on this site, in one place. Each one carries where it came from and the day it was checked. If something is not here, we have not measured it — which is the point.
The trips
35entriesFrom the pageLake Como boat prices, observed →
Observed on public listings in August 2026: the hourly floor for a private boat is €250, half-day listings start at €433, and full days reach about €1,900 at the top of the range.
No operator checked prices a private boat per person: the boat is the unit everywhere on this lake.
The clock moves prices more than the calendar does: a two-hour sunset slot lists €30 above the identical daytime slot — a 6.4% premium for the hour alone.
Published deposit requirements across operators run 20–30% of the booking value, with the balance settled around the day.
Across 97 bookings over two seasons at one operator — the one I part-own, disclosed on every page — more than half of all booked value sat above €500, with a weighted average of €472 per booking.
From the pagePrivate boat or shared tour on Lake Como →
The one shared tour recorded in this site's price table lists at €45; it is the only shared-tour figure checked first-hand.
A private boat is sold whole, with six passengers as the ceiling on most boats, and the cheapest published scale climbs by the hour: €250 for one, €470 for two, €700 for three, €900 for four, €1,100 for five, €1,250 for six.
The figure does not move with the head count: one person aboard and six aboard are charged the same amount.
Division, not a listing — none of the operators checked publishes a per-head price for a private boat. Rounded to the euro, a €250 hour splits into €125 at two, €83 at three, €63 at four, €50 at five and €42 at six; the same division puts two hours (€470) at €78 a head and four hours (€900) at €150 with six aboard.
Hours can be added on the spot, depending on whether the skipper is free after your trip.
On the large platforms (GetYourGuide, Viator) the whole sum is charged up front; direct with an operator, what is collected at booking is usually a deposit.
Villa tickets and meals sit outside every private-boat price checked.
No shared tour on this lake has been taken from the boat here. How long one runs, how many people share it, whether the route is fixed, where it leaves from and what it includes ashore are therefore left open rather than filled in with something plausible, and the €45 above is the one shared-tour price recorded here, not a range and not an average. Read what the listing in front of you says on each of those lines; whatever it does not say is a question for the operator selling it, and worth asking before you pay.
From the pageWhat a private boat day on Lake Como costs →
A private boat on Lake Como is priced per boat, not per person: one passenger or six costs the same, and six is the maximum on most boats here.
Published prices run from €250 for one hour to €1,250 for six hours on the cheapest operator, and up to about €1,900 for a full day elsewhere on the lake.
The season does not change the price. The hour does: a two-hour sunset slot lists at €500 against €470 for the same two hours earlier in the day.
Pick-up is free from a declared list of points. Outside that list the price rises steeply, because reaching you can cost an hour of navigation before the trip has started.
Villa entrance tickets and restaurant meals are never included, on any operator we have checked.
From the pagePrivate half day by boat on Lake Como →
The price is for the boat, not per person: one passenger or six pay the same, and six is the maximum.
Four hours lists at EUR 900 on the price list this page draws from. The cheapest half day published anywhere on this lake starts at EUR 433, so this is not the entry price and it is not the top of the market either.
Hours can be added once you are out, when the boat has no booking after yours. Ask before leaving rather than hoping.
From the pagePrivate sunset on the water, Lake Como →
On the published list, the private two-hour sunset slot is €500; the same two hours in daytime are €470.
The price is for the boat, not a seat: one person and a party of six pay the same figure, and six is the most that most boats on this lake carry.
Sunset costs a little more than the daytime hours — around €500 — and spritz and prosecco are offered as part of it.
The listed figure already carries the skipper, the fuel, usually water, the pick-up and drop-off, and the taxes. Villa tickets and any lunch or dinner sit outside it.
Free pick-up uses the operator's published list, which for the towns means Tremezzo, Lenno and Bellagio, while two hotels with a private pier — the Grand Hotel Tremezzo and the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni — are on it as well.
Off that list, the skipper has to come and fetch you before the trip, which can take the boat an hour, and the cost is considerably higher.
The season does not change the price: it is always the same, and listed prices are final, not negotiated. What the hour changes is that sunset costs a little more.
Sunsets are very hard to get without notice. Together with lunch they are the slot that fills first, and July, August and September are the months in which the good hours disappear first.
Booked direct, nothing is automatic: the request goes by WhatsApp or email and I answer, quickly during the Italian day and more slowly through the Italian night. Last minute does work, but write first.
Booked direct, usually only a deposit is taken; the platforms take the whole amount at once.
Time can be added while you are already out, subject to the skipper being free afterwards.
Bad weather is the skipper's decision. A trip called off for weather is rescheduled at no cost, and if the alternative date does not work for you the payment is refunded in full.
Of 89 bookings that came with a note from the guest, drinks on board and specific villas were the most frequent themes, 7 notes each, and three of the notes were marriage proposals.
How long before sunset the boat leaves the dock, and whether that gap stays the same in June and in September, has not been recorded from the boat. Rather than estimate it, this page says so. The start of the slot is a question for the person who answers your message, and it costs nothing to ask it in the same line as the date.
Where you leave from
19entriesFrom the pageBeing picked up at your hotel dock on Lake Como →
Many hotels on the lake have a private pier, and a boat can collect you directly from it. The operator we know best treats that as a premium experience and, for the hotels on its free pick-up list, includes it in the price.
Pick-up and drop-off are part of the all-inclusive figure, alongside skipper, fuel, taxes and usually water — but only from the list of free pick-up points that most operators give out.
Being collected somewhere off that list costs much more, because the boat can spend an hour of navigation reaching you before the tour starts.
The published list of points where collection costs nothing names two hotel piers: the Grand Hotel Tremezzo and the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni.
Beyond those two, which hotel piers on this lake a boat can be sent to, and whether each one is free or charged for, has not been measured. Rather than read it off hotel websites, this page says so. The way to settle it for one hotel is to name that hotel in the same message that asks about a date.
The skipper arrives at the pier a little early, and the boat is recognisable by the company name written on it. Anyone waiting at the wrong pier is sorted out on WhatsApp, with a photo and a phone call.
In our own booking records, 4 of the 89 bookings that carried a free-text note asked to be collected from a hotel or a villa.
Of the 31 pick-up points requested in those records, Tremezzo was asked for 15 times, Lenno 5 and Varenna 3; every entry in that count is a town or one of its docks, not a hotel.
The meeting point is the subject of 12 of the 130 questions in pre-booking emails (9%) and 21 of 681 in chat messages. The questions themselves are specific: can the boat come to the hotel's dock, can the hotel's private pier be used, is a taxi needed to reach the boat.
From the pageWhere the boat leaves from on Lake Como →
The skipper arrives at the dock a little before the agreed hour, and you recognise the boat by the company name written on it. Either side can coordinate on WhatsApp.
Docks do get mixed up. When it happens it is sorted out on WhatsApp at pick-up time: the boat's side sends photos, phones you, and talks you to where it is.
The operator also advises on parking and on the stations for each dock.
Most operators work from a list of points where collection is free. Off that list the cost goes up considerably: the boat has to come to you first, which can mean an hour under way before your own tour has begun.
A lot of hotels on the lake have a private dock, and pick-up can be made straight from the hotel. Which hotels those are has still to be listed by the operator.
Pick-up is free from Tremezzo, Lenno and Bellagio, and from the docks of the Grand Hotel Tremezzo and the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni.
In our own booking records, 31 requests named a pick-up point: Tremezzo 15, Lenno 5, Varenna 3, Bellagio Punta 3, Menaggio 2, Bellagio Loppia 2, Bellagio Borgo 1. Bellagio appears as three separate entries.
Of 89 bookings that carried a free-text note, 4 asked to be collected from a hotel or a villa.
Where the boat collects you comes up before and after booking: 21 questions on it in the chat archive, 12 in the email archive, and being collected from a hotel dock is a recurring request in pre-booking email.
The docks have not been walked one by one: there is no recorded pin for any of them, no timing on foot from the ferry landing or the car park, and no landmark written down. Reading those off a map would be inventing them, so this page does not. The address of a particular dock is one line to ask for in the message that fixes the date.
How long you need
17entriesFrom the pageHow long you need on a Lake Como boat →
The lake's published private ladder runs one to six hours — €250 to €1,250 on the cheapest operator, per boat — and no operator we checked lists anything shorter than one hour.
Every one-hour listing we checked is continuous navigation: not one of them includes a stop. The hour buys you the nearby icons from the water, not time at any of them.
The tours built around a lunch ashore are the five- and six-hour ones — their own listings say so, with the restaurant billed separately.
How long a stop takes here — a swim, or a table ashore — has not been timed from the boat, so no figure for either is published on this page, and no ranking of the middle rungs is offered on top of it. Name the stops you want in the same message that gives the date and the dock, and let the hours be quoted around them.
From the pagePrivate full day on Lake Como →
On the cheapest published list on the lake the longest entry recorded is six hours at €1,250, with five hours at €1,100. Both are written as all-inclusive for the boat, with the restaurant explicitly excluded.
Asked what a whole day costs, the operator we know best puts it at up to €1,200.
Elsewhere on the lake a full private day lists from around €1,900 — the low end of a $2,000 to $2,985 range read off dollar-priced listings, so treat it as an order of magnitude rather than a quote.
Six is the ceiling on most boats here, and the sixth passenger costs what the first did: the figure is for the boat.
Inside the price: the skipper, the fuel, usually water, pick-up and drop-off, and the taxes. Outside it unless the listing says otherwise: villa entrance tickets, Balbianello included, and any lunch or dinner.
Pick-up is free from Tremezzo, Lenno and Bellagio. So are the Grand Hotel Tremezzo and Villa Serbelloni docks.
Often a tour is arranged around a restaurant with its own dock: the boat leaves you there, you eat, it collects you and the tour carries on. The operator can also suggest restaurants that are not tourist stops.
More hours can be added on the spot, if the skipper is free afterwards.
Longer trips, with more hours, are harder to plan, and the advice from the operator we know best is to book them well ahead.
Of 89 bookings that carried a free-text note, seven named a specific villa, one asked for a lunch stop and one for a swim.
In our email archive, where the questions come before booking, the most frequent one is whether the boat has a canopy for shade, asked seven times; the best time to avoid the heat was asked five times, and whether hours can be extended three times.
Whether the boats used for a six-hour day carry a canopy or bimini, and whether it can be raised once you are out, has not been recorded boat by boat, so this page does not answer it. It is the question the email archive shows coming up most before booking. Ask about it in the message where you give the date.
Whether a day longer than six hours is sold at all, at what price, and whether a full day appears on the operator's own list as an hour count or as a window of the day, has not been established. Six hours is the longest entry recorded on the list this page prices from. If you want more than that, ask for it with the date rather than assuming it exists.
What is on board
11entriesFrom the pageLake Como with kids, on the water →
Children can come aboard, and life jackets in children's sizes are available — say the ages when you book, so the right sizes are on the boat before you step on it.
A child costs nothing extra: the figure is for the boat, so two adults with two kids pay what two adults pay. When you ask, give the full number aboard including children — it is how the right boat, and the right jackets, get chosen.
Women in the last months of pregnancy are advised against coming aboard: a boat moves, and this is the one case where we say no for comfort and safety rather than leave it to chance.
From the pageWhat you can bring on a Lake Como boat →
The figure quoted for the boat already carries the skipper, the fuel, pick-up and drop-off at a listed point and the taxes, and usually water on board — 'usually' is the operator's own word, so water is the norm rather than a guarantee on every boat.
Unless a listing says otherwise, villa entrance tickets — Balbianello is the example given — and lunch or dinner sit outside the price of the boat.
The sunset slot costs a little more, and it comes with spritz and prosecco.
On the published list the two-hour sunset trip is €500 with a glass on board written into the listing, against €470 for two daytime hours.
Drinks on board is the joint most frequent theme in our booking records: of the 89 bookings that arrived with a written note, seven mention it — level with requests for specific villas, and ahead of any single occasion.
Before booking, the same question reaches the email archive as whether drinks can be brought — three times — inside the what-is-included cluster, which is the largest in that archive at 24 of 130 questions.
What you may bring on top of what is included — a bottle of your own, glasses and ice for it, towels, food from ashore — has not been recorded here, boat by boat, so this page does not answer it. It is not set out on any list seen here either, which makes it a question to ask with the date rather than one to read off a page.
A small child can come aboard, and a child's life jacket can be provided by the boat.
Occasions
10entriesFrom the pageProposing on Lake Como, from the water →
Of 89 bookings that arrived with a note from the client, three mentioned a marriage proposal and one a honeymoon; one each mentioned an anniversary and a birthday.
Of the same 89 notes, seven asked about drinks on board and four asked to be collected from a hotel or a villa.
The season does not change the price; the hour does. The sunset slot costs a little more — around €500 — and spritz and prosecco are offered on board with it.
On the published list, two hours at sunset are €500 against €470 for two daytime hours. The figure is for the boat, and six people is the maximum on most boats here.
Sunsets are very hard to book without notice. With lunch, they are the slot that fills first in high season, and the best hours disappear above all in July, August and September.
There is no automatic online booking: the request goes by WhatsApp or email and I answer it, usually within minutes, more slowly during the Italian night. A booked date can be moved with notice, before the 24-hour mark.
In bad weather the skipper decides. The trip is moved to another day or hour at no cost, and if the client cannot make the alternative the payment is refunded in full.
Extra time can be added on the spot, depending on whether the skipper is free after you.
What a skipper will do for the moment itself — take photographs, cut the engine at an agreed signal, keep the arrangement from the other person — has not been set down as a rule, so nothing here should be read as a promise that it happens. Put it in the booking note next to the date, and the answer arrives before the day rather than on the water.
Where a hotel has its own dock and is on the operator's free pick-up list, the boat collects you at the hotel and it is inside the price.
Weather and changes
8entriesFrom the pageWhat happens if the weather turns on Lake Como →
Whether the weather is bad enough to call the day off is the skipper's decision.
A day the skipper calls off for weather is re-planned to another day, or to another hour, entirely free of charge.
If the alternative day proposed does not work for the client, the money already paid is refunded in full.
On a direct booking the operator usually collects only the deposit before the day; GetYourGuide and Viator collect the whole amount at the moment of booking.
A booked date can be moved, with notice, before the 24-hour mark.
Questions about weather and changes are a small share of both archives of the operator we know best: 4 of 130 questions in the email archive (3%) and 4 of 681 in the chat archive (1%).
Where the line falls between a day that goes out and a day that does not — rain on its own, or only wind and the state of the water — has not been recorded here from the boat. Rather than set a threshold nobody measured, this page says so. It costs one line in the message that asks for the date.
On a booking made through GetYourGuide or Viator, who makes the weather call and how a refund is processed have not been checked against those platforms' own terms, so this page does not state them. The terms to read are the ones on the booking you hold.
Availability and how far ahead
7entriesFrom the pageHow far ahead to book a boat on Lake Como →
Booked direct, there is no automatic online booking for private boats on this lake: requests arrive by WhatsApp or email and I answer them, usually within minutes during the day.
Sunset and lunch slots fill before anything else, and in July, August and September they are the first to go.
A booked date can be moved at no cost up to 24 hours before. Inside 24 hours it stops being a change of date and becomes a cancellation.
Cancellation terms are not the same everywhere: booked direct with the operator we know best, it is free up to 48 hours before, the deposit is lost between 48 and 24 hours, and the full amount is due on the day. Booked through a platform, the published term is usually free cancellation up to 24 hours. Read the one that applies to you rather than the one you read somewhere.
Weather does not count against the notice periods: a day called off for weather is moved at no cost whatever the date, which is why the cancellation clock is worth reading separately from the forecast.
Longer trips are harder to place than short ones: a boat with a six-hour booking has no room either side of it, so those dates close earliest.
Booking through a platform and booking direct commit you differently: the platforms take the whole amount at the moment you book, while a direct booking usually takes a deposit and settles the rest later.
Lunch and stops ashore
5entriesFrom the pageStopping for lunch by boat on Lake Como →
A lunch stop is not a pause in the trip: the boat leaves, you eat without a skipper waiting at the next table, and it comes back for you at the time you agreed.
The meal is never included in the price of the boat, on any operator we have checked, and the table is booked in your name rather than the boat's.
Guests routinely ask the skipper to reserve the table for them, and it is a normal thing to ask rather than an imposition — in our own message archive the request arrives by name, for a specific restaurant.
Restaurants publicly listed as having their own dock include La Punta at Bellagio, Aurora at Lezzeno, Crotto dei Platani at Brienno, La Tirlindana opposite Isola Comacina, Vapore and Belvedere at Torno, and Acquadolce at Carate Urio.
The list of restaurants with a dock is short, and the good ones that are not on a tourist route are known to the people who run boats rather than published anywhere.
Paying
4entriesFrom the pageHow you pay for a boat on Lake Como →
Booked direct, payment starts with a link sent over WhatsApp or email once the date is agreed: the deposit is paid there, and the confirmation follows it.
On board, both card and cash are accepted. Paying cash sometimes earns a small gesture — a modest discount, or a spritz offered on the house.
Some operators on this lake add around 4% for card payments, and published deposits typically run 20–30% — both worth checking before the day rather than on it.
An invoice or a receipt can be issued — say so when you book, not after the trip.
Why this page exists
Most travel writing cannot tell you when it was true. Conditions change, marinas change their rules, villas change their days. Putting every claim in one list with a date on it makes the site auditable — by you, and by us. The method →
If something here is out of date or wrong, tell me. The date changes with the correction.