The longer cruise · from Side
Quick answer
The longer option of the Green Canyon catamaran tour from Side: 4.5 hours on the Oymapınar reservoir with swimming breaks, a fishing opportunity, soft drinks on board and an open buffet lunch, with hotel pickup across the Side coast. It costs €33 per adult and €20 per child aged 3–11, runs every day of the season and is paid on the tour day; the return journey begins at around 15:00, and cancellation is free up to 48 hours before.
The long option of the Green Canyon catamaran tour: 4.5 hours cruising the emerald reservoir above the Oymapınar dam, between steep pine-covered canyon walls, with swimming breaks in the cool spring water, a fishing opportunity and an open buffet lunch. The day itself is the same as the 2.5-hour option — same hotel pickup, same lunch, same return at around 15:00 — you simply spend more of it on the water.
This site exists for one road: the one from the Side coast to the Oymapınar jetty. Every district we collect from has its own page with the measured distance where we have one, and an honest note where we do not.
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The Green Canyon is not a natural lake: it is the reservoir behind the Oymapınar dam, 185 metres high and completed in 1984 on the 93-km Manavgat river, holding about 300 million cubic metres of water. Beneath it, roughly 120 metres down, lies the Dumanlı karst spring — the source that once fed ancient Side through its aqueduct.
The common mistakes: expecting warm sea water (it is a cool freshwater lake), planning the afternoon (the return journey begins at around 15:00), assuming every drink is included (soft drinks on the catamaran are, drinks at the restaurant are not), leaving the phone unprotected, forgetting a layer for the deck, booking a party-boat expectation, not giving the exact hotel name, and paying in advance when nothing needs to be paid until the tour day.
They are different days. A Side sea boat trip leaves from the harbour and is about the coast, the swell and the party; the Green Canyon catamaran tour is a coach ride inland to a calm, emerald, spring-fed lake between canyon walls, with 4.5 or 2.5 hours on the water and an open buffet lunch, at €33 per adult. Choose the sea for the coast and the music; choose the canyon for the quiet and the cold, clear water.
Because the Green Canyon return journey begins at around 15:00, Side guests are back at their hotel in the late afternoon — early enough for a shower and an evening in the old town: the Roman theatre, the temple columns at the harbour, dinner by the water. The canyon takes the day; it leaves the evening.
If a Green Canyon cruise cannot operate because of weather, we contact you to rebook or cancel free of charge — and since nothing is paid online, there is nothing to refund. In practice it is rare: the reservoir is sheltered mountain water, not open sea, and ordinary wind that cancels Side sea trips rarely troubles it.
The shorter cruise from Side: the same pickup, guide, swimming breaks, fishing, soft drinks on board and open buffet lunch, with 2.5 hours on the water instead of 4.5. Same day, same return at around 15:00.
