📖 At a glance
- Included
- Licensed captain, fuel, safety gear, bottled water
- You bring
- Food, drinks, sunscreen, towel, camera
- Drinks
- BYOB on most tours — bring a cooler with ice
- Confirmed at booking
- Exact inclusions and pricing in the booking flow
- Not provided
- Meals, alcohol, fishing licenses for non-charter trips
What we provide
Every Sand Dollar tour comes with the essentials handled. You get a USCG-licensed captain who grew up reading this water — that’s the part you can’t buy at the marina, and it’s why our captains know exactly which island the tide just refilled or where the dolphins have been feeding. Fuel is included, so there’s no surprise top-up. All required safety equipment is on board and checked, including properly sized life jackets for kids and adults. We carry bottled water, too. On fishing charters, the vessel’s license covers every paying guest, so you don’t each need your own fishing license — we’ll explain the regulated, seasonal rules on board. Rods, reels and bait come with our fishing trips.
What you bring
The rest is personal preference. Pack the things that make a day on the water yours: reef-safe sunscreen, a hat, sunglasses, a towel, a light layer for the breeze, and a camera or phone for the inevitable dolphin shot. On a shelling tour, add water shoes and a mesh bag for your finds. We provide water, but if you want soda, juice or a specific snack, bring it. Think of it like this: we handle the boat and the know-how, you handle your comfort and your menu. Our full what to bring on a boat tour guide has the complete checklist.
| We include | You bring |
|---|---|
| Licensed captain | Food and snacks |
| Fuel | Drinks (BYOB on most tours) |
| Safety gear & life jackets | Sunscreen, hat, sunglasses |
| Bottled water | Towel, light layer, camera |
| Fishing rods & bait (charters) | Water shoes & bag (shelling) |
Drinks, BYOB and food
Most of our tours are happily BYOB — bring a small cooler with ice and your drinks of choice and we’ll make room for it. It’s a big part of the appeal on a tiki boat tour or a sunset cruise, where the vibe is relaxed and social. We just ask for two things: keep it glass-free when you can (cans and plastic are kinder on a boat), and drink responsibly — the captain’s in charge of the boat, you’re in charge of having a good time. For the deeper dive on coolers and drink rules, see our BYOB boat tours guide. Food works the same way: pack what you like, from a charcuterie spread to a bag of chips.
A note on pricing
We don’t post prices on these guide pages because rates and exact inclusions vary by tour type, group size and season, and they’re confirmed live when you book. That keeps everything honest and current rather than out of date. When you pick a tour in our booking flow you’ll see precisely what’s included and what it costs before you commit — no guesswork, no surprises at the dock. Browse the private charters if you want a fully customized day, and the inclusions adjust to match.
From the Helm: What our captains stage on the dock at Caxambas before every Naples boat tour
Before the first guest ever walks down the dock at Caxambas, our captains have already run through the same short routine: life jackets counted and sized by kid and adult, the cooler packed with bottled water and ice, the VHF radio checked, and the bimini top locked down against whatever the wind’s doing that morning. We’ll also glance at the tide clock one more time before lines off, since it decides whether we idle out slow past the shallow markers or have a little more water to work with. None of that shows up on a packing list because it’s not something you bring — it’s what we handle before you arrive, so the only real decision left for you is what snacks and drinks are coming in your own cooler.
The safety briefing itself is short on purpose, but it’s not skipped, ever — where the kill switch is, how the boarding ladder folds down, where the first-aid kit lives, and what to do if we call everyone to sit down fast. Our captains give a slightly longer version to a boat full of first-timers than to a group that’s clearly been out on the water before, reading the room in those first couple of minutes at the dock. It’s the one part of the trip that stays identical no matter which tour you’ve booked that day.
Since most of our trips run BYOB, we ask guests to bring drinks already in cans or plastic rather than glass, and to pack ice separately from food if the cooler’s doing double duty — glass on a rocking deck is the one thing we’ll ask you to leave in the truck. Guests are usually surprised how much cooler space clears up once they realize we’re supplying the water; that’s one less thing to haul down the dock in the Florida heat before you’ve even left the slip. We’ll stow your cooler in the shaded corner of the deck too, out of the direct sun that bakes the rest of the boat by midday.
Because exact inclusions can shift slightly by tour — a private charter runs a little differently than a shared sunset cruise — our captains will walk you through anything trip-specific at check-in rather than leave it to guesswork. If you’re planning a private charter or a tiki cruise with a bigger group, it’s worth mentioning any special requests when you book so we can stage the boat accordingly, whether that’s extra shade, additional coolers, or space for gear.
That dock routine at Caxambas repeats before every tour we run, rain or shine, because consistency there is what lets our captains focus on you instead of logistics once we’re underway. If a bigger group or a specific occasion is part of the plan, our private charters page and the tiki cruise lineup both cover how staging shifts for a full boat versus a smaller family trip.