Paxos Antipaxos Cruise From Lefkimmi and Beyond

Why this matters before you book

The meeting point on this tour is not one place. The operator states that it varies depending on the option booked, and lists three: Corfu Port, Lefkimmi Port, and Benitses port with a highspeed catamaran.

Those are not minor variations. They are different distances from the islands, which means different crossing times, which means different amounts of the day spent on the water rather than at Paxos and Antipaxos.

One guest raises it directly. They rate the day highly and then warn that anybody boarding in Corfu Town should expect a much longer run down to the islands. That is the most useful sentence in the whole review record. It is also the sort of detail that disappears in a booking flow, which is exactly why a guest felt the need to write a review about it.

Lefkimmi Paxos cruise: the short crossing

Lefkimmi sits near the southern tip of Corfu, which puts it far closer to Paxos than Corfu Town is. Boarding here removes the long run down the length of the Corfu coast from your day.

What that buys you is a shorter day overall and proportionally more of it at the islands. For anyone staying in the south of Corfu it is the obvious choice, and for anyone who finds long crossings tedious it is worth the transfer.

What you give up is the coastline. The run south from Corfu Town past the Old Town, Mon Repo and the coastal villages is genuinely lovely, and from Lefkimmi you simply do not see it.

Corfu Port: the full day

The longest option and the most sailing. You leave from the main port at Corfu Town, run the length of the island's east coast, round Cape Asprokavos at the southern tip and cross to Paxos from there.

The upside is everything the tour description promises about the route: the Venetian castles of the Old Town from the water, the Kanoni Peninsula, the palace of Mon Repo, and the towns of Perama, Benitses and Kavos going past.

The downside is hours. If your idea of a day out involves as much time as possible at the destination, this is not the version to book. If the boat itself is part of the appeal, it is the best of the three. For a first visit to the Ionian, seeing the whole Corfu coastline from the water is a genuine argument in its favour rather than a consolation.

Corfu catamaran tour: the fast option

Benitses is on the east coast south of Corfu Town, and the option departing from there uses a highspeed catamaran rather than the conventional cruise boat.

That is a materially different vessel. A highspeed catamaran covers the distance in a fraction of the time, which compresses the crossing and gives you a shorter, tighter day.

It suits people staying along that stretch of coast and anybody who would rather spend the time at the islands. It gives you less of the slow coastal sightseeing that the Corfu Port version is built around.

Which one to choose

Start from where you are staying, because a transfer to a distant port eats whatever time you saved. If you are in Corfu Town, Corfu Port. If you are in the south, Lefkimmi. If you are near Benitses, the catamaran.

Then adjust for temperament. Somebody who loves being on a boat should take the long version deliberately. Somebody who gets restless after an hour afloat should take the shortest crossing available to them.

And check whether your option includes pickup. Hotel pickup and drop-off is on the inclusion list conditional on the option selected, and having it removes the question of getting to the port entirely. Most people over-optimise this. Any of the three gives you the caves, the village and the swim, which is what you actually came for.

What is the same on all three

The islands. Every version goes to Paxos and Antipaxos, into the Blue Caves, and stops for a swim. Every version has multilingual guides and a bar aboard. Food is excluded on all three, and so are towels.

The tour is the same product with three front doors. Nobody is getting a lesser trip by boarding somewhere different; they are getting a different amount of sailing attached to the same destinations.

That is worth saying plainly because the choice can feel like a quality decision and it is nothing of the kind. It is a logistics decision about your own holiday and where you happen to be sleeping.

Reading your confirmation

The single most important thing on it is where you are meeting the boat, because the operator explicitly says the meeting point varies. Read it the night before rather than on the morning.

If pickup is included in your option, the confirmation will say where and when. If it is not, the port is yours to reach and Corfu's road network in August is not fast.

Guests who describe problems with this trip are overwhelmingly describing timing rather than the day itself. Getting the port right removes almost all of that risk before you leave your hotel.

What people want to know