A boat trip to see dolphins in Madeira? Tourist trap that is worth it

The Portuguese island of Madeira offers a myriad of activities, whether it’s hiking, swimming, climbing a lava river or watching the sunrise. Equally popular activities include watching dolphins in the open sea. Several companies offer this trip for a few hours, most of them based in the capital, Funchal. One of them is Magic Dolphin, which we can recommend after our visit to Madeira in the autumn of 2022.

The most popular trip through this company is a 3-hour eco-catamaran trip, always with guides who are able to talk about dolphins for hours. In fact, there are several species of dolphins around Madeira and each one is unique in its own way. So your guide is ready to tell you the story of each species, including timely warnings on which direction to look from the catamaran so you don’t miss anything.

On our trip we came across a very rare species of rough-toothed dolphins, which we first observed from the catamaran from a distance, but after a few minutes they came closer to the boat and swam just a few centimeters away from us. A great experience was thus taken care of.

Dolphin watching in Madeira is quite affordable, for the mentioned 3 hours on the boat you will pay 30 EUR per adult (in 2023). Although at first glance it may seem like a so-called tourist trap, in case you are lucky enough to see one or more species of dolphins, you will definitely not regret it.