When we visited Malta, we really wanted to do a day trip to explore Gozo. We chose this day trip From Sliema: Gozo, Comino and Blue Lagoon Cruise. It took us to the islands of Gozo and Comino, and to the Blue Lagoon for a swim. Every time we wanted to go on a day trip, we used Get Your Guide because of the range of tours they have. However when booking we relied heavily on the number of reviews, as well as what they said.
We’ve started a mini-series on our blog of reviews for activities we’ve done all over the world. Most of these activities were with Get Your Guide, because we love the company and find the app and website so easy to use. We felt like it would be useful to share our detailed and honest opinions of the tours we’ve done. This one will be all about our experience exploring Gozo and the Blue Lagoon in Malta.
In this post:
Tour Overview
This tour is run by Luzzu cruises and departs in the morning from their port in Sliema. The boat is reasonably sized and has bathrooms and a little café on board. On the boat journey, you’ll pass a couple of towns and it only takes 30 minutes to reach Gozo. Once there, you’ll get off the boat and onto a bus. The bus will drive through Gozo, stopping briefly at Xlendi Bay to take some photos of the incredible cliffs. From there you’ll head to Victoria, the capital of Gozo, where you’ll have an hour and a half to explore. Here you can visit the citadel and grab some lunch before getting back on the bus and the ferry.
Once back on the ferry, you’ll sail to Comino, a small island between Gozo and Malta. Here you’ll have an hour and a half at the Blue Lagoon to look around, go for a walk or swim. After, you’ll get back on the boat and head back to Sliema, passing by some caves for some photos. Back at Sliema, you can disembark and reflect on your lovely day out in Malta!
If this is the kind of day trip you’re after, check if there’s space on your dates:
Cost and Inclusions
For this tour, there are two different options when booking and both run for 7.5 hours:
- Gozo, Comino, and Blue Lagoon Day Cruise without Bus Trip: This option includes everything mentioned above, but when you arrive at Gozo you get dropped off at the ferry stop and do not board the bus to Victoria. This would be a good option if you just want to explore Gozo and make your own way around. There are public buses around the island but as you only have 3 hours on Gozo, you won’t have a lot of time to explore. This option costs €35.
- Gozo, Comino, and Blue Lagoon Day Cruise with Bus Trip: This option is what we chose and includes the bus from the ferry stop. It goes to the photo stop in Xlendi, Victoria and then drops you back off at the ferry port. It costs €40.
Highlights
Something we loved about this tour is the convenience of getting to explore Gozo and Comino. Getting to Gozo with the Maltese public transport system is possible, but it’s a bit difficult and time consuming. There is a public bus from Valletta to the ferry port but it takes over an hour. You’ll then need to get a public ferry over to Gozo and then another bus to wherever in Gozo you want to go. If you’re planning to stay on Gozo for several days, this is a great option. If you want some more information on the best places to stay in Malta, we have a post all about that here!
Since we only had one day available, we didn’t feel like we had the time to do this trip by ourselves. We loved that this tour started from a central area in Malta, quickly got to Gozo, then took us around Gozo too.
Another thing we liked was visiting the citadel in Victoria, which has a great view over Gozo. It’s free to enter and walk around and it was cool to explore all the different parts of it. However our favourite part of the tour was the Blue Lagoon. It was such a beautiful area and our boat got its own little area for swimming. The boat even had a little slide into the water that some people were using and looked super fun.
If it sounds like this is the tour for you, book it here!
Lowlights
While the Blue Lagoon was a highlight, it was also a lowlight because of the time of year we visited. Malta gets quite large blooms of jellyfish in the warmer months, and this was still the case when we visited in mid September. There were so many large brown jellyfish (we think they may have been Fried Egg Jellyfish) that were easy to spot and avoid, but there were also much smaller jellyfish that were difficult to see. It made the swimming at Blue Lagoon a bit scary, as there were jellyfish around but we didn’t know where. Krissie did get stung and while it wasn’t a very bad sting, we did stay on the boat after that.
Our recommendation would be that if swimming with jellyfish worries you, try and visit during a season they’re less common. We booked this tour quite last minute so if you’re unsure, you could also wait until you get to Malta to see how the jellyfish are before booking this tour. It is heavily based on the time of year and the direction of the wind, so it can change frequently.
Would We Recommend It?
Even despite the small jellyfish sting, we still really enjoyed this day trip. As we said before, we loved how easy it was to get to and explore Gozo. Visiting the photo spot in Xlendi, wandering around Victoria and getting to window shop and eat lunch there was great. We also did love getting to swim in the Blue Lagoon and even if we hadn’t gone in the water, it was still a beautiful place to walk around and look at.
If you’ve got an extra day in Malta and want to have a fun day out seeing a different part of the country, we really would recommend this day tip. It was well organised, we felt like we had enough time to enjoy both Victoria and the Blue Lagoon, and the boat trips were super easy.
If you think it’s the right tour for you, why not go ahead and book the day trip From Sliema: Gozo, Comino and Blue Lagoon Cruise.
To see our experience on this day trip (and everything else we got up to during our week in Malta) check out our vlog: