Affiliate disclosure

Plainly put: when you book a Charleston harbor cruise through our links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you, and no tour operator can pay for placement.

How the affiliate links work

Every "Check Price & Availability" button, and every in-text link that goes to a tour listing, points to GetYourGuide or Viator and carries our affiliate tag. If you book after clicking one, the platform pays us a percentage of its own commission. Your price is identical to the price you would see going to the listing directly.

Those are the only affiliate networks on this site right now. If we add another, such as a hotel-booking partner, this page and the sitewide footer disclosure will name it before the first link goes live, not after.

Money that buys no opinions

• Ordering. The twenty cruises are grouped into six categories, from sunset sails to private charters, and sorted by published reviews where they exist. No operator can buy a position here.
• Inclusion. All twenty tours in the roster appear on this site, including the schooner dolphin watch with no published reviews at all.
• What we say about them. The priciest options, such as the $599 private sail on the 43ft Mystique and the $117 dinner cruise with live music, are flagged as such. Where a fact could not be verified, like the operator behind some listings, we say so instead of guessing.

Sourcing every figure we print

Every rating and review count on this site is pulled from the live listing, from the 4.4 across 3229 reviews on the narrated history cruise down to the three reviews on the 18+ party boat. Small counts stay visible, nothing is rounded or averaged. Prices are from-prices in US dollars and move with your travel date, so each tour page defers to the live booking page.

Prefer to skip the middleman

Search the operator's name, such as Sandlapper Water Tours or SpiritLine Cruises, and book through the listing itself. We would rather you took the cruise. Browsing cruises by category and the guides work fine as research whether or not you click anything.

Questions about any of this: send us a note.