Affiliate Disclosure

Plainly, and before anything else: Airlie Beach Tours may earn a commission when you book through a link on this site, at no extra cost to you.

What that means in practice

The tours listed here are sold through Viator. When you follow a link from one of these pages and go on to book, the platform pays us a share of its own commission. You pay the same fare either way; the price on the booking page is the operator's price, not a marked-up one.

What we are not

We are not a tour operator. We do not run any of these boats, flights or buses, employ any of these crews or hold your booking. Your contract is with the operator, through the platform.

We have no connection with Tourism Whitsundays, Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Whitsunday Regional Council or any operator, marina or airline.

How tours get listed

Operators cannot pay for placement, position or a badge. A badge on a card is a measured claim: Top rated only on a tour rated 4.9 or higher, Best seller only on the tour with the most reviews, Best value only on the cheapest. Ocean Rafting's Whitehaven Beach day carries Best seller, Red Cat's snorkel cruise carries Top rated, and the Cedar Creek Falls bus carries Best value.

Prosail sells its two-night trip on sister yachts, Hammer and Condor, with the same itinerary and price. Both appear because each is separately bookable, and they are never shown side by side as if they were different days.

The featured tours at the top of the homepage are three different kinds of day: an ocean-raft day to Whitehaven Beach from Coral Sea Marina, a guided jet ski from the South Village, and an hour over the reef from Whitsunday Airport.

Prices, ratings and how current they are

Prices, star ratings and review counts belong to the operators and were taken from their own listings on 21 September 2026. They move, and the figure at checkout is the one that counts. The hinterland bus, the Tongarra sail and the full-day Whitehaven Beach cruise from Shute Harbour carried an end-of-September offer on that date, and the offer price is the one shown. Every tour fare is quoted in US dollars because that is the currency the listings were captured in; nothing is converted at an exchange rate. Every fare here is per person except the private charters, which price per boat of up to eight, and that is the listings' own statement rather than our reading of it.

The facts about the town, the lagoon, the walks, getting here and the seasons are Tourism Whitsundays' own, read from its pages. The facts about the islands, Whitehaven Beach and safety in the sea are Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service's own, read from dated archived copies of its park pages because the live site refused our requests. The climate figures are the Bureau of Meteorology's own averages for Proserpine Airport and Hamilton Island Airport. Where a detail comes from an operator's listing, such as a meeting point, a group size, an age limit or what lunch includes, it belongs to that tour.

What we deliberately do not publish

• A dollar figure for the reef charge. Several fares include the Environmental Management Charge. Its current amount is the marine park's to publish, so we say only which fares include it.
• Tide times, sunrise, sunset and the water temperature in the lagoon. They change daily or are not published, and a figure copied from a review is not a source.
• Flight schedules, ferry timetables and fares, or how many airlines fly to Proserpine. The tourism board's own page gives a count it does not match with names, so we name the carriers and leave the count out.
• Marina parking charges. One listing says a parking fee is payable and gives no figure.
• Rankings. "The best beach in the world" and "the number one jet ski tour" are a reviewer's and an operator's words, not a measurement.
• A boat trip to the outer reef or Heart Reef. No boat listed here goes there; the reef you snorkel is the fringing reef around the islands, and Heart Reef is seen from the air.
• "Admission included" at Cedar Creek Falls. Some listings count entry fees at the falls in their fare. The falls are free, and no card here repeats the claim.
• A Travelers' Choice badge. No listing in this capture carries that award, so the badge is not shown on this site.