An Amalfi Coast boat tour from Sorrento is the best-selling day out in the whole area, and it also carries the most common misunderstanding: Sorrento is not on the Amalfi Coast. It sits on the other side of the peninsula, and there are 40–60 minutes of sailing round Punta Campanella between the pier and the first rocks off Positano.
That is not a flaw, it is a number to build into the day. In exchange, staying in Sorrento gives you the widest choice of departures in the Bay of Naples, transfers included, and the option of alternating the Amalfi Coast with Capri. This page covers the right pier, the times that work and prices verified on GetYourGuide.
Marina Piccola or Marina Grande: do not get the pier wrong
Almost every tour and every ferry leaves from Marina Piccola, below the cliff of the Villa Comunale, with the ticket offices clustered around Via Luigi de Maio and the tour meeting points squeezed into a few metres of quay. Marina Grande is the fishing village to the west, about 1.3 km away on foot, down steps and with no lift: a lovely place for dinner, not the tour harbour.
There are two ways down from the centre. On foot from Piazza Tasso it is ten minutes downhill (and twenty back up in the heat). The Villa Comunale lift drops you straight onto the quay and costs €1.00 single, €1.80 return; some sources quote €2 for the return ticket.
A few products with transfers included pick passengers up elsewhere on the peninsula, for instance at Marina della Lobra in Massa Lubrense. 
Marina Grande: right for dinner, wrong for boarding. The tours leave from Marina Piccola.
The tours that leave from Sorrento
The benchmark product is the boat trip to Positano and Amalfi with transfers: 8 hours, 4.9 average from 4,615 reviews, the most reviewed on the entire coast. It ran in English on every departure we checked. No starting price was displayed on the listing on the day we looked, so read it directly on GetYourGuide.
If you would rather have a shorter, swim-focused day, plenty of people staying in Sorrento take the morning ferry to Positano and pick up the tour with snorkelling and drinks there, €95 per person, 4.9 from 2,429 reviews: you lose the transfer and gain an hour of coastal cruising. The same logic is set out on the tours from Positano page.
For groups, the private tour with prosecco and snorkelling leaves Amalfi at €715 per boat for 6 hours: split eight ways that is about €89 each. The full shared-versus-private comparison is on the private tours page.
| Option from Sorrento | Price | Length | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Positano and Amalfi with transfers | price on GetYourGuide | 8 h | Transfers, cruising, free time in both towns |
| Snorkelling and drinks (boarding in Positano) | €95 per person | 4–8 h | Swim stops, kit, drinks on board |
| Private from Amalfi | €715 per boat | 6 h | Route to order, prosecco, snorkelling |
| Scheduled ferry | €18.00–23.00 one way | 40 min | Transfer only, no stops |
The ferry as an alternative
If all you want is to see Positano or Amalfi, you do not need a tour. The scheduled companies run the route daily from April to early November: Sorrento–Positano costs €18.00 with Alicost, €19.00 with Alilauro Gruson, €20.50 with Lucibello and €23.00 with NLG, around 40 minutes' sailing; Sorrento–Amalfi starts at €20.00 (Alicost, via Positano) and €26.00 with NLG, in about an hour. Figures taken from the companies' own websites — full fares are on Alicost and NLG.
The practical difference: the ferry moves you, the tour takes you into the coves and stops for a swim. With two days to play with, the cheapest way to use them is one ferry day and one boat day. Every land timetable and fare is on the getting to the Amalfi Coast page.
The tuff cliffs below Sorrento: the first twenty minutes of every trip towards the Amalfi Coast.
Getting to Sorrento
- From Naples airport: the direct Curreri bus, €10 one way and €18 return, eight departures a day, about 80 minutes to Sorrento station. The ticket desk is outside arrivals at Terminal 1, open 06:30 to 20:30. It takes suitcases in the hold and is the simplest option after a flight.
- From Naples by train: the Circumvesuviana from Porta Nolana or Garibaldi, roughly every 30 minutes, first departure between 05:36 and 05:39 and last around 22:14, 50–75 minutes depending on the number of stops. Fares are quoted at €4 to €5 depending on the source. Carriages are old, crowded and have no luggage racks.
- Campania Express: a tourist train with reserved seats, €15 one way between Sorrento and Napoli Garibaldi. It runs only in season — in 2026 EAV suspended it from 1 October — so check the current calendar.
- By car: possible, rarely worth it. On the coast the SS163 runs an alternate number-plate scheme (targhe alterne) every day from 1 August to 30 September between 10:00 and 18:00.
If you are coming from the city or from the capital, the from Naples and from Salerno pages compare door-to-door times.
When to sail and what to expect
The season runs from April to early November. Ten-year averages for sea temperature at Amalfi give 19.0 °C in May, 23.1 °C in June, 26.0 °C in July, 26.7 °C in August and 24.9 °C in September. From Sorrento, which faces north, the water feels a touch cooler in the early hours.
The time of day matters more than the month. The first departure finds flat water and empty coves; from 13:00 the thermal breeze comes in from the west and the run back round Punta Campanella turns choppy. Anyone prone to seasickness should pick a product that is back by 14:00, or a gozzo rather than a speedboat.
Li Galli, halfway between Punta Campanella and Positano: zone B of the marine protected area, where anchoring is banned.
The route: what you actually see
From the pier the boat heads west along the tuff cliffs, passes below the Bagni della Regina Giovanna and rounds Punta Campanella, the headland that closes the Bay of Naples and gives the marine protected area its name. Beyond it the coast changes character entirely: no more level citrus groves, just vertical rock.
Past the headland come Li Galli, the three islets — Gallo Lungo, La Rotonda and Dei Briganti — in private hands, and owned for twenty-six years by Rudolf Nureyev. They sit in zone B of the protected area, where anchoring is forbidden, so boats slow down and circle rather than stop. A few minutes later Positano opens up, reading from the water as the amphitheatre it is, far better than from the road.
From Positano the route continues past Praiano and Marina di Praia to the Fiordo di Furore at kilometre 23 of the SS163, its bridge some thirty metres above the inlet, and on to Conca dei Marini and the Grotta dello Smeraldo (Emerald Grotto). The 8-hour tours carry on to Amalfi and leave a couple of hours ashore.
Swim stops are usually made at two points, chosen by the skipper according to the day's wind. If you want the more interesting sea floors, the snorkelling page has the details.
How to spend less
- Take the half day rather than the full day if you have already seen Positano and Amalfi from land: you pay less and the best part, the cruise along the cliffs, is identical.
- Ferry out, tour back, boarding in Positano: that saves you the transfer and an hour at sea.
- Split a private boat six or eight ways: above five people the cost per head drops below a shared ticket.
- Avoid the Ferragosto weekend in mid-August, when accommodation prices peak and the coves are at their most crowded.
- Book with free cancellation and put the boat early in your stay, so you get a second chance if the sea is rough.
If you want to pair the boat with something on land, Sorrento puts two classics within reach: the Sentiero degli Dei (Path of the Gods) in the morning with a ferry back, or a day on Capri with a circuit of the island. To stay in the water, the best stops are on the snorkelling page, and the full picture of formats is in all the boat tours.
A boat tour from Sorrento works if you accept what it is: a long day that begins with a transfer and ends with the finest coast in Italy seen from the water. Take the earliest departure available, and check current pricing and availability on the Positano and Amalfi trip with transfers or across all boat trips from Sorrento.
