Paradise Island Mozambique Boat Tour Review
What’s a visit to Vilanculos without visiting the famous islands of the Bazaruto Archipelago: Magarugue Island, Benguerra Island, Bazaruto Island & Two Mile Reef, and Santa Carolina (or Paradise Island). Out of all the options available, we decided to go on a Paradise Island Mozambique Boat tour as it was said to have the best snorkeling around. It’s also home to an abandoned hotel.
Boat operators
There are several boat tour operators that are all very similar in itinerary and pricing for Paradise Island, Mozambique. The company you choose will likely depend on where your accommodation is. I can’t find anything online about the company we used (maybe I have the name wrong) but it was the one our hotel organized for us.
I suggest starting with your accommodation to ask them to organize a tour for you based on what you want to do. This will save you some admin work with trying to get different tour operators to respond to you. Some aren’t even online and just operate directly with lodges.
We messaged some companies on our own but realized quickly that our hotel manager at Baobab Beach Resort was faster and better than us at organizing. This also made sense for us in low-season because some companies told us they weren’t operating that day because they didn’t have enough guests, or that we reached out to them too late in the day and their boats were grounded. Literally grounded—the tide is so intense here! Because of the high gas prices, many companies will wait until they have 6 people or more to make the trip.
If you want to reach out to companies on your own, start with Wild Africa Mozambique. Although we didn’t use them, it was recommended by a friend, and they were very helpful and responsive to our requests.
A note on online reviews: Because companies wait to fill up their boats before organizing, you may be faced with cancellations of your tour if other people cancel. I saw a lot of mixed reviews for various operators online so I’m hesitant to share a specific company and instead suggest you organize directly with your accommodation host.
Basic FAQs
Does weather matter? Yes. If the sea is too choppy and it’s windy, there will be no tours to Paradise Island, Mozambique.
How much is it? Costs for the ride will likely be around USD 110 per person. We didn’t negotiate and we organized this directly through the hotel.
How to pay? We were able to pay via card through Baobab Hotel since we were staying here but this isn’t always the case. Ask before in case you need to go to the ATM as you will need to pay before your boat ride.
What’s the best season? August is high season and boats usually go out every day. In other months, you may have to wait a day for enough people to book.
How long does it take to get there? The ride to Paradise Island should take 1 hour there and 1 hour back. Our boat’s engines were acting up the whole trip, so it took twice as long to get there and back. The ride started at 8:30 and was supposed to return at 3pm, we didn’t get back until 5pm though.
On the way to Paradise Island, the boat will stop for any dolphin or sea cow activity. We saw plenty of dolphins on our way to the island and a sea turtle! We weren’t lucky enough to see the sea cows, but it’s possible. The day before, another hostel member said she saw the sea cows on her way to Bazaruto island.
We also passed the red dunes, which actually looked better in the daytime than during our sunset ride the night before.
What does the Paradise Island, Mozambique tour include?
As a full-day activity, this ride will include lunch, water (and some soft drinks), and snorkeling equipment. You’ll also take a walk around Paradis Island, which has an abandoned hotel.
The lunch is amazing and was one of our favorite meals of the entire trip. The prawns and fish were just excellent.
The abandoned hotel of Paradise Island, Mozambique
Paradise Island, Mozambique is weird. It has an old, abandoned hotel that dates back to the early 1950s. The history of this hotel is fuzzy. Our guide said the closure had to do with the Portuguese man who ran it. He didn’t want to hand it over to the locals because he wanted them to focus on education (?) and then it wasn’t bought up by anyone else because the government wants 30% of all sales from the hotel (?). People, I could be making this up but that’s what he said. I don’t know what else to tell you.
There was also some drama about a “white woman”, which is why there is a white statue of a woman chained to a tree…? You’ll just have to visit for yourself.
The hotel retains its structure and you can see how it once had a lovely setting over the ocean. There are rumors that famous people, including Elton Joh, came to vacation here. Apparently, Bob Dylan wrote his song Mozambique at this hotel.
2Summer’s also wrote about this hotel back in 2014. It’s still the same, just with more graffiti.
A weird note to include: our guide told us we didn’t need to wear shoes to explore the island. Unless the soles of your feet are rock-hard, you’re going to want your shoes. There are prickly pinecones on the forest walk, hot concrete, and glass/sharp metal near the abandoned hotel. Insist on your shoes.
Snorkeling around Paradise Island
We brought our own equipment and it worked out well for us so that we had the right size flippers and headgear. There are two locations to snorkel around Paradise Island, Mozambique. The first is off the shore and the second required everyone to get back on the boat. Apparently, in the boat location, the corals are brighter, but there is fewer fish. As our guide said: “you know nothing about this island, and I know it all, so I will decide” LOL. So , we ended up at the first location.
Our guide took some convincing to get him into the water. Wilhelm and I went ahead at first but the other people in our group were really annoyed that he was just sitting on the shore. He complained that the boat company forgot to pack his personal snorkel gear. Eventually, he got in and pointed out some sea life. I was too slow to keep up, so I trailed behind.
There isn’t a lot of colorful corals. However, there are large schools of fish, angel fish, grouper, clown fish, starfish, and tons of other sea life to keep you entertained. We spent almost 2 hours snorkeling around the coast.
The water here is very, very shallow and at times difficult to navigate. I was a little paranoid about hitting the corals. Wilhelm scrapped his leg against them. Suck your stomach in and try to find the best path out to the deeper parts.
Is the trip worth it?
The day trips to Paradise Island, Mozambique are pricey, however, it’s the only way to snorkel. Therefore, I highly recommend you do one snorkeling tour (if you’re into it). There is no snorkeling off the coast of Vilanculos and there is a lot of boat activity, so I wouldn’t recommend going out far into the ocean at all.
To compensate for the high tour prices, stay at a reasonable accommodation. If you don’t want to do full-day boat rides, then you may want to splurge on a fancy lodge and only do a sunset cruise (between USD 30-110, public vs private)
I enjoyed the boat ride, though the frequent stops to attempt to fix the boat motors made our trip 2 hours longer. Because of this, we kinda got a free sunset cruise out of it since we only managed to make it back to Vilanculos at 5pm.
Got any questions about this Paradise Island, Mozambique boat tour? Let me know in the comments!