The Best Excursions in Tenerife: What to Book, What They Cost and in What Order

Tenerife sells more excursions than any other Canary Island, and the prices span a wider range than the marketing suggests: from €28 for a kayak trip to €92 for a full Teide tour. All figures below were checked on 19 August 2026.

If you book only one thing, make it the whale watching. The waters off this coast hold a resident, year-round population of short-finned pilot whales, which means the sighting is not the seasonal gamble it is almost everywhere else in Europe. Nothing else on this list is as difficult to get elsewhere.

All twelve, by price

Each row links to our full guide for that activity, which covers the rules, the timings and the costs the ticket leaves out.

Prices move, and the ones above are a snapshot rather than a rate card. Use them to rank options, not to budget to the euro.

On the water: the island's genuine speciality

This is where Tenerife beats its neighbours, and all three options are cheap relative to what they deliver.

The whale and dolphin safari at €30 is the pick, for the reason given above, and it is the booking box at the top of this page. Most short trips leave from Los Cristianos rather than Los Gigantes, which is the assumption most guides get wrong.

The kayak and snorkel trip at €28 is the cheapest thing on this list and arguably the best value. Green turtles feed on seagrass meadows close to shore along this coast year-round, and paddling above them is a different proposition from watching from a deck.

Scuba at €75 is the deep version of the same coast, and the key point is that it needs no certification. It is a try dive to around 12 metres with an instructor beside you, not a course.

Volcano days: two prices, two very different days

Teide is the island's signature, and how you do it changes the cost enormously.

The full Teide tour with cable car at €92 is the most expensive item here and the most comprehensive: transport, the cable car and a guided day. It is also the lowest-rated of the twelve, which is worth knowing rather than glossing over. Long coach days with fixed timings suit some people and frustrate others.

The jeep safari at €68 covers Teide and Masca in seven hours with a maximum of eight per vehicle, which is the better-value volcano day for most people, provided you understand it is a road convoy rather than off-road driving.

The quad trip at €60 is the one where you do the driving, and it carries a hard requirement the others do not: a full category B licence and a driver aged 18 or over.

Family days: the two parks, and which age each suits

Siam Park and Loro Parque both run €44 and are the island's headline paid attractions, owned by the same group and sitting at opposite ends of the island.

Siam Park is the water park, and its height minimums matter more than the price: most of the big slides need 125cm. Loro Parque is the animal park, and it is in Puerto de la Cruz in the north, which makes it a full day rather than an afternoon.

Aqualand Costa Adeje at €37 is the cheapest of the three and the right answer for younger children, with shorter queues and a dolphin show inside general admission. Which of the three suits your family is mostly a question of heights and ages, and our Tenerife with kids guide gathers every threshold in one table.

Adrenaline, in ten-minute and one-hour formats

Parasailing at €54 buys roughly ten minutes of flight time behind a boat off Costa Adeje. That is not a criticism, it is the format, but it does mean the price per minute is the highest on this list and it works better paired with something than as a day.

Jet ski at €40 is the better-value hour on the water, with one rule worth knowing before you book for a group: you can ride solo from 16, but you must be 18 to carry a passenger.

One evening worth booking

The Castillo San Miguel medieval show and banquet at €52 is the only evening item here, and it is the rare organised night out that works for a mixed group of adults and children. Jousting, falconry and fire-breathing, with a three-course banquet eaten largely by hand.

Book it for the spectacle rather than the cooking, and check dietary requirements when you book, since a fixed medieval banquet has little room to improvise.

One other night-time option sits outside this list because it prices well above everything on it: a Teide stargazing tour runs into three figures for the format that bundles the cable car in, with cheaper self-drive versions also on sale.

Booking order, if you are planning a week

Two of these genuinely sell out or run on capacity, and the rest do not.

Book Teide ahead if you want a specific day, because the cable car sells timed slots that run out in high season. Book the dinner show ahead for a weekend date. Everything else on this list can generally be bought a day or two before, and buying early saves queueing rather than saving your place.

If you would rather read about the island before deciding what to book at all, the things to do in Tenerife guide is the informational version of this page, covering the permit rules and what to skip.

FAQ – booking excursions in Tenerife