Perito Moreno Glacier Boat Tours Compared

Hours, prices and access verified by the Perito Moreno Glacier Tours team — last checked August 10, 2026.

Three different boats, three different days

“Boat tour” at Perito Moreno covers three unrelated things, and booking the wrong one is the most common expensive mistake made here.

The boat safari

This is the hour that people remember. Added to a walkway day at checkout, it puts you on the water in front of an ice wall five kilometres wide and sixty to seventy metres high, among floating brash ice, close enough that the scale finally registers. Almost every review that mentions it says the same thing: take it.

North wall or south face?

Here is the detail the listings bury. Different operators sail different sides. One tour describes sailing the Rico arm along the glacier’s wall; another states it approaches within 150 metres of the south face; a third runs the north wall through the Canal de los Témpanos.

It is not a small distinction. One traveller who sailed the southern side wished they had been told the northern face is the more photogenic one, with deeper blue water. If you have a preference, read the itinerary before you book rather than the tour title.

The multi-glacier cruise

An eleven-hour day from Puerto Bandera, 47 km from El Calafate on a different road from the walkways. The ship works past Glaciar Seco, stops at Spegazzini — the tallest ice face in the park — and Upsala, the largest, before turning for Perito Moreno through the iceberg channel. Lunch is included, either a box or a four-course sitting depending on deck.

It is a comfortable, well-run day and it suits families and anyone who would rather sit than hike. But the itinerary allots thirty minutes at the Perito Moreno front, which is the fact that should drive the decision.

The Upsala caveat

Three separate travellers make the same complaint: the boats no longer approach Upsala closely, while the marketing images suggest otherwise. Bring binoculars, and set your expectations to a distant view of a very large glacier rather than an ice wall overhead.

The ice-trek crossing

Not a boat tour, but it is twenty minutes on the water each way and it passes the south face at close range. If you book minitrekking or Big Ice, you get this crossing as part of the day whether you wanted a boat or not — which is why some travellers on the treks feel no need to add a safari as well. The trek comparison sits in our guide to minitrekking against Big Ice.

Weather, and what happens when it turns

Every boat here is weather-dependent. Wind on Lago Argentino cancels departures, and fog closes the safari. Operators generally offer an alternative date or refund the boat portion, and reviewers confirm prompt refunds when a leg is scrapped.

• Build a spare day into an El Calafate stay if the boat matters to you.
• Dress for open decks: the bow is the coldest part of any Patagonian day.
• Sunglasses and sunscreen — glare comes off the water as well as the ice.
• Expect crowding at the rail. Boats turn so both sides get the view; be patient rather than pushy.

Which to book

• One day in El Calafate? Walkway tour plus the boat safari.
• Two days and a taste for glaciers? Walkways with the safari on day one, the cruise on day two.
• Prone to seasickness? The walkways alone still deliver the ice wall and the calving.
• Want to stand on the ice? Book a trek; the crossing is included.

Every option, with its own itinerary time at the glacier, sits on the key facts page, and photographs from each on the gallery page.

What an hour on the water actually shows you

From the balconies the glacier reads as a photograph: framed, static, comprehensible. From the water it stops being any of those things. The wall rises above the deck rather than sitting across a channel, brash ice knocks against the hull, and the blue in the deeper fractures turns a colour that does not survive a camera.

The other thing the boat gives you is sound at close range. Calving is audible from the walkways, but on the water the crack arrives without the softening that distance provides, and the wave that follows moves the boat. Travellers who describe the safari as the highlight of the day are almost always describing that, not the photographs. The gallery page gives some sense of the difference between the two vantage points.

Practical booking notes

• Choose your tour option at checkout — the boat is rarely addable on the day through a reseller.
• Passport details are required at booking for the boat portion on several listings.
• Shared safari vessels carry between 65 and 160 people depending on the boat allocated that day.
• The cruise from Puerto Bandera leaves from a different port and needs its own transfer.
• The park entrance fee applies to all of them and is never included.

Seasickness and comfort

Lago Argentino is a lake, not open sea, but it is a large one and the wind builds a genuine chop. The one-hour safari is short enough that most people are fine. The eleven-hour cruise is a different question, and the enclosed saloons make it manageable. Neither is a reason to skip the water if you were otherwise keen.

What each boat costs, how long it runs and how much of that time faces Perito Moreno is tabulated on the key facts page. Practicalities for the day — hours, fees, what to wear — sit on the visitor information page, and the questions travellers ask most often are answered on the FAQs page.