Looking to book a boat tour from Sorrento to Capri that makes a stop at the Blue Grotto. Any recommendations on companies?
I took a boat ride with Lubrense Boats out of Massa Lubrense in May 2022. They can be found on the Get Your Guide marketplace.
The ride from the harbor near Sorrento included refreshments, a blue grotto visit (additional separate cost to go inside by others), ride around Capri island, a longer stop to check out Anacapri and a short swim in the waters off the island. We had less than 10 guests.
I enjoyed the experience and the crew. I recommend them.
Mondo Guides
www.sharedtours.com
Also note that entry to Blue Grotto is weather and tide dependent
You would transfer from your boat to a smaller one and pay an additional fee
It’s a bit of a time suck tourist trap
We skipped it
Search this forum for more thoughts on Blue Grotto
Here is one search result
https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&date_range=2y&filter=Travel+Forum&query=Blue+Grotto&utf8=%E2%9C%93
We took this shared tour from Sorrento.
https://www.sharedtrips.com/shared-city-tour/sorrento/35/capri-deluxe-max-12-people#tour-details
It is slightly different from the Mondo Shared tours with Rick Steves tour in that this tour provides a mini-bus tour on the isle of Capri. The mondo Rick Steves tour does not.
You meet your guide at the ferry port in Sorrento and take the public ferry. Once at Capri Harbor,
the tour includes transportation on the island and the mini-van and guide take you from the harbor up to Anacapri. You get free time to ride the chairlift up to the top (or not), find a quick takeaway lunch on your own and then they drive down to Capri. You get a guided tour of the back paths of Capri.
You get some time in the main area of Capri town before you board your mini-bus and drive down to the harbor where you board a boat that takes you around the island (and there are grottos there that are worth seeing and you can swim for a little bit at one stop.)
Then the boat continues around the island and stops at the Blue Grotto and if the Grotto is open, you pay separately and transfer to a row boat that takes you into the grotto. Then after 5-10 minutes, after the rowboat exits the grotto, you transfer from the rowboat back onto the big boat. The big boat takes you back to the harbor and then catch the ferry back to Sorrento.
For the one day that we had to see Capri, we felt the cost of the guided tour was worth it.
The Rick Steves version that Mondo offers is cheaper but does not provide transportation on the island itself. You are given 4 free hours to DIY and you figure out how to get from Capri harbor up to Capri (take the finicular) and then from Capri to Anacaptri (take the bus)