Family Boating Holiday: The Questions Parents Ask First
The six questions we field most often from families who have never chartered before.
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Family Boating Holiday: The Questions Parents Ask First
A family boating holiday tends to be the trip people remember longest and the one they worry about most before booking. That is fair enough. You are taking children somewhere with water on all sides, in a boat you have probably never handled, in a country you may not know well.
The worry rarely survives the first afternoon. What replaces it is a week where nobody asks for the wifi password, where the children are outside from breakfast until dark, and where the whole family is in the same place for seven days running, which is harder to arrange at home than it sounds.
We have advised on charters since 2011 and we are tied to no operator, so what follows is the answer we would give a friend rather than the one that sells the most boat.
Quick Navigation
- 1 Is A Family Boating Holiday Safe? What Is Aboard And What Gets Briefed
- 2 What Should We Pack? Less Than You Expect, And Where To Buy The Rest
- 3 Which Boat Suits A Family? Why The Catamaran Usually Wins The Argument
- 4 How Much Sailing Do You Want To Do? Sail It Yourself, Add A Skipper, Or Go Fully Crewed
- 5 Will The Children Get Bored? What A Day Aboard Actually Looks Like
- 6 Where Should A Family Go? The Cruising Grounds That Forgive Beginners
1.Is A Family Boating Holiday Safe?
What Is Aboard And What Gets Briefed
Yes, and the honest reason is that a charter yacht is a more controlled environment than most family holidays. Every boat hands over with a safety briefing, lifejackets sized for children, guardrails running the length of the deck, a liferaft and a working VHF. The briefing is not a formality. It is where you learn the boat you are about to live on.
The habits that matter are simple, and children pick them up faster than adults do. Lifejackets on deck under way, one hand for yourself and one for the boat, and an agreed rule about who goes forward and when. Within two days it stops being a rule and becomes the way the family moves around.
It also helps that the cruising grounds families are sent to are chosen precisely because the water is sheltered and the passages are short. If you want the longer answer, we wrote one: is it safe to sail with children works through it properly, including the age question.
2.What Should We Pack?
Less Than You Expect, And Where To Buy The Rest
Families pack for boats the way they pack for everything else, which is to say too much. A yacht rewards restraint. Stowage is generous by boat standards and small by house standards, and hard suitcases are the one thing genuinely unwelcome, because there is nowhere to put them once they are empty. Soft bags collapse and disappear.
The list itself is short and unsurprising: suncream in more quantity than feels reasonable, swimwear that dries, light layers, one proper waterproof, soft soled shoes, a hat that stays on in wind, and a small first aid kit with something for seasickness in it. Almost nothing on that list is specific to sailing except the shoes.
Everything else can be bought where you are. Marinas and the villages behind them run on charter crews, so there is usually a supermarket, a chandlery and a pharmacy within walking distance of the pontoon. Forgetting something is an errand, not a crisis.
3.Which Boat Suits A Family?
Why The Catamaran Usually Wins The Argument
For most families the answer is a catamaran, and the reasons are practical rather than glamorous. Two hulls put the cabins at opposite ends of the boat, which matters more than anything else when teenagers and parents are sharing a week. It also gives you a level deck at anchor, so meals stay on the table and nobody feels queasy reading in the saloon.
The shallow draught is the underrated part. A catamaran gets closer inshore than a monohull, which puts you in the quiet corner of a bay rather than out with the fleet, and shortens the swim between the boat and the beach.
A monohull is not the wrong answer. It sails better upwind, it costs noticeably less for the same number of berths, and crews who actually want to sail often prefer one. Our comparison of the best boats for a family sets the two side by side by crew size and age.
4.How Much Sailing Do You Want To Do?
Sail It Yourself, Add A Skipper, Or Go Fully Crewed
This decision shapes the week, and it runs as a spectrum rather than a menu. You can sail the boat yourself. You can add a skipper, which is the same boat with a professional aboard, not a different or lesser yacht. Or you can go fully crewed, with a skipper and a cook running the week around you. A flotilla sits alongside all three: your own boat, in company.
Families are often surprised by how well the middle option works. A skipper takes the navigation, the weather calls and the berthing, which are the three things that turn a holiday into work, and leaves you the sailing and the swimming.
If you intend to sail yourself, the paperwork matters. Outside the Caribbean you will generally need a practical certificate at RYA Day Skipper level, an International Certificate of Competence, or ASA 103 and 104. Greece requires an ICC and a second named crew member over eighteen. Croatia, Malta and the Canaries also want a VHF licence aboard.
Whichever way you go, ask for the all in number. A skipper's fee and food, mooring fees, fuel and end cleaning are where a headline weekly rate stops covering things.
5.Will The Children Get Bored?
What A Day Aboard Actually Looks Like
Boredom is not the failure mode on a boat. The day has a shape children take to almost immediately: a short passage in the morning while the wind is kind, an anchorage by lunchtime, and an afternoon that belongs entirely to the water.
Most of what fills it costs nothing. Swimming off the transom, snorkelling over rocks, jumping off the bow, rowing the dinghy ashore and coming back sunburnt and pleased with themselves. Paddleboards, kayaks and towable toys can be added to almost any charter and are worth the small extra on the invoice if your children are old enough to use them unsupervised.
Ashore, the appeal is that everything is new and nothing takes long. A harbour village, an ice cream, a ruined fort on a headland, dinner at a taverna where the food arrives when it arrives. Children who are bored at home are rarely bored somewhere they arrived by boat.
6.Where Should A Family Go?
The Cruising Grounds That Forgive Beginners
Croatia, Greece, Turkey, the British Virgin Islands and Menorca cover most first family charters, and they share the qualities that matter: short hops between anchorages, wind that is reliable without being demanding, sheltered water, and somewhere to moor at the end of the day without a long approach in the dark.
Croatia suits families who want towns as well as beaches, with Split, Hvar and Dubrovnik strung along a coast that makes a natural week. Greece divides usefully between the gentle Ionian and the windier Cyclades, and only one of those is a first charter. The British Virgin Islands is the one where the next island is always in sight.
Our guide to the top family sailing holiday destinations goes further into each. If you would rather skip the shortlisting, tell us who is coming and roughly when, and we will come back with the boats that genuinely fit and the honest all in cost of the week before you commit to anything.
Planning a family boating holiday? Tell us who is sailing and roughly when, and we will come back with the honest all in cost.
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Christopher Lait
Chris founded Drake Academy, a sailing company that provides leadership training to businesses. Now the CEO of SailChecker.com you will find him handling many of your enquiries as he attempts to drive SailChecker.com forward as the company of choice for yacht charter and sailing by focusing on quality advice and great customer service.
