Operators and reviews: booking sites, boats, parks and transport in Tenerife

When you book a whale-watching boat on GetYourGuide, your contract isn't with GetYourGuide: the platform acts as an intermediary and the contract is with the boat company. That's why this section keeps the two apart. The platforms are judged on price, cancellation and customer service; the operators, on what happens on the water, on the road or at the ticket office.

How we write the reviews

Each profile starts with what can be checked: registered company name, base, fleet or facilities, licences and public registers. Then we compare the direct price with the platforms' price, read the cancellation terms exactly as they're written and sum up what customers praise and criticise most. We finish with a score from 1 to 5 and who should book and who shouldn't.

We earn a commission from GetYourGuide, Tiqets and Headout when you book through our links; from Viator, Civitatis and Klook, we don't. We judge all six by the same criteria, and that includes saying things that don't flatter our partners: Tiqets doesn't refund Siam Park or Loro Parque tickets, Headout doesn't name the company that runs the activity, and GetYourGuide has the worst Trustpilot score of the six. All the details are in the affiliate disclosure.

The reading is simple: Trustpilot mostly collects complaints and the app stores mostly collect happy users. GetYourGuide gets the worst score on the first and the best on the App Store, level with Viator. No single figure is enough to decide on.

Barco Azul, licences and labels: what they mean

Every company that goes out to watch whales and dolphins needs an authorisation from the Canary Islands Government that lasts a year at most, a specialist tourist guide on board and the Barco Azul ("Blue Boat") flag on display: yellow, 80 × 50 cm, with two white pilot whales inside a red-and-white lifebuoy and, below it, the authorisation period in blue figures. A faded flag with an old year on it is a bad sign, and Turismo de Tenerife links to the list of authorised boats from its whale-watching page. When an advert says "Blue Flag certified" it means that same compulsory flag, not the Blue Flag awarded to beaches and marinas. "No chasing" and "eco" aren't labels either: chasing the animals is banned for every boat, and the only voluntary label is Turismo de Tenerife's Sustainability Charter, which reviews its member companies every year. On land and in the air, look on the company's website for its active-tourism registration number, which starts with TA. And since 1 October you can't hire any boat in Spain without a boating qualification; skippered trips are unaffected.

Booking platforms: GetYourGuide, Viator (Tripadvisor) and the rest

Six websites sell most of the island's excursions. GetYourGuide has the deepest catalogue for boats, kayaking and quads, and it's the only one available in all ten languages of this guide. Tiqets is strong on museum and smaller-park tickets, Headout on park tickets with pay-later, Viator (Tripadvisor's booking platform) on full-day excursions with pick-up, Civitatis in the north and on Spanish-speaking guides, and Klook has hardly any reviews for Tenerife. GetYourGuide, Tiqets, Viator and Klook acknowledge in writing that what they earn on each product affects the order of their results.

Before you pay on any of them, look on the listing for the line naming the activity provider: that's the company you're contracting with. The price and cancellation differences between platforms are in compare prices.

Boat and activity companies

At sea is where who takes you out matters most. The boats carry anything from 6 to more than 100 passengers, leave from different ports, and no company guarantees in writing that you'll see whales or dolphins. Some names are confusing: the best-selling "Eco No-Chase" boat in Los Cristianos belongs to Mar de Ons, not Bonadea, and several companies with their own fleets operate in Los Gigantes. On land and in the air we review real groups of companies rather than generic brands: the Teide buggies and quads, which can only drive on tarmac inside the national park; paragliding, whose Izaña launch site is closed; Helidream, whose flights operate under Bigas Grup Helicopters' air operator certificate; and astrotourism. To choose a boat, start with whale watching.

Parks and official operators

Here the company and the product are one and the same. Siam Park and Loro Parque belong to the same group; Aqualand and Jungle Park to Aspro Parks. The Teide cable car is run by Teleférico del Pico de Teide S.A. under the Volcano Teide brand, but it doesn't issue the summit permits, which come from the Cabildo (the island council) through Tenerife ON. Monkey Beach Club is a terrace with a restaurant and parties above Playa de Troya, not a sunbed club. And Turismo de Tenerife's official website sells nothing: it's useful for its beach and tourist-office pages, although some of its information is out of date.

Transport: buses, ferries and transfers

TITSA, the public bus company, sells the Ten+ card (€2) and tourist passes at €10 for one day and €50 for seven; the resident passes aren't valid for visitors. Fred. Olsen Express and Baleària Canarias, formerly Naviera Armas, sail to La Gomera in about 50 minutes from Los Cristianos. Transfer websites such as hoppa or HolidayTaxis are intermediaries: the quality of the journey depends on the local company named on your voucher. To choose between bus, taxi and transfer, see airport transfers.

Frequently asked questions