Boat Parties by Night, Your Own Boat by Day
Malta has two kinds of boat day, and people constantly book the wrong one. One is a boat party: a few hundred people, a DJ, an open bar, and no say over where you go. The other is your own boat: eight friends, a cooler, and a bay nobody else found. Here is how to tell which you want — and how to do both in one trip.
The boat party: a night out that happens to float
Boat parties are a club with a horizon. You buy a ticket, you get a DJ, a route and a crowd, and the value is the crowd. They sell out in Maltese peak weeks, so they belong on the calendar first: see what is sailing in our boat parties collection. Treat it as a night out, not a day at sea — plan nothing demanding for the morning after.
Your own boat: the day the group remembers
The self-drive option needs no licence in Malta for the smaller boats, which surprises most visitors. The 17ft Hydra 530 runs from €120 for five hours, split between six or seven people, which is less than a round of drinks in Paceville. If you want the photo more than the horsepower, the Fiat 500 boat starts at €55. And for a proper full day with someone else driving, the 28ft charter to Gozo and Comino is an eight-hour private trip from €650 for the whole boat — the one to split between ten people rather than two.
The guided middle ground
If nobody in the group wants to be responsible for a boat, a guided route solves it: the two-hour jet ski safari to the Blue Grotto from €275 covers the south coast caves that you cannot reach on a rental without knowing the water.
Doing both in the same weekend
The order matters. Own boat by day, boat party by night is a long day but it works if the party sails after 20:00. Boat party first and self-drive the next morning does not — nobody should be steering after an open bar. If the group is big, put the private charter on the recovery day and the party on the night everyone arrives fresh.
Rentals and charters are run by our sister site Malta Explorers. For the parties, our events calendar has every date, and if you want a table when you step off the boat, the VIP section takes it from there.