Green Island Tours from Cairns

Green Island is a small coral cay about 27 km off Cairns, 45 minutes away by fast catamaran. It is a national park with a resort, a rainforest boardwalk across the middle, white sand around the edge and reef you can snorkel from the beach. Because the water off the beach is shallow and the crossing is short, it suits families and first-time snorkellers well, and it is one of the lowest-priced ways to reach the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns.

Our top pick: Great Adventures

Two companies run the crossing. The Great Adventures Green Island cruise (our breakdown) is our top pick, from $79 and rated 4.4 by 1,917 guests. Boats leave Cairns at 8:30am and 10:30am and return from the island at 2:30pm and 4:30pm, so the same ticket can be a half day or a full one with up to seven hours ashore. Great Adventures passengers get a marine biologist’s reef talk and island walk, and the use of the island swimming pool, which the other company’s guests don’t share.

Read the fare options carefully. The starting price is the cruise alone. Snorkel gear or a glass-bottom boat tour is an add-on you choose when booking, and if you want both, the Great Adventures snorkel and glass-bottom boat fare (our breakdown) bundles them from $109.

Big Cat’s cruises

The Big Cat full-day Green Island cruise (our breakdown) is $77, rated 4.5 by 1,722 guests, and includes your choice of snorkel gear or a glass-bottom boat tour in the fare. A buffet lunch and a semi-submarine ride can be added as options. Big Cat also runs shorter trips at the same starting price: a morning half day, an afternoon half day with around two and a quarter hours on the island, and a later-start full day leaving at 11am. The Big Cat half days and the later-start day exclude hotel pickup.

Green Island with more

For a quieter day, the Ocean Freedom sailing tour (our breakdown) takes up to 25 guests on a classic sailboat to a reef site that only its guests snorkel, then to Green Island’s beach, with 4.5 hours split between the two. A smorgasbord lunch, snorkelling tours with a marine naturalist and a glass of wine on the sail home are included, from $203, and it rates 4.8 from 411 guests.

To see the outer reef as well, the Green Island and outer reef pontoon day (our breakdown) spends two hours on the island and three at a platform on Moore Reef; it is on our pontoon page. The Seawalker helmet dive combo ($203) adds a walk on the sea floor about five metres down, from age 12. Big Cat’s two-island day ($138) visits Fitzroy Island first, though at 4.0 it rates lowest of the Green Island trips here.

On the island

The beach snorkelling is the main draw, with coral gardens and green turtles often seen in the shallows, though sightings are never promised. Away from the water there is the rainforest boardwalk, and Marineland Melanesia, a crocodile habitat, sits on the island too. Great Adventures lists scuba diving, offshore snorkel trips, Seawalker, kayaking and helicopter flights as paid extras. Stinger season runs roughly November to May, when a Lycra suit is the sensible thing to swim in; check whether your fare includes one.

Where to go from here

Fitzroy Island is the other easy island day, with hiking trails and a granite coast; compare the two on our Fitzroy Island page. If you want the outer reef on its own, see the snorkelling tours, and for a group with non-swimmers, read the guide for non-swimmers.

Ready to go? Check availability for the Great Adventures cruise.