Organized Tours

Reef Cruises -- Fantasea Cruises (tel. 07/4946 5111; www.fantasea.com.au) makes a daily trip to Hardy Reef from Shute Harbour, near Airlie Beach, in a high-speed, air-conditioned catamaran. The boat has a bar, and a biologist gives a marine ecology talk en route. You anchor at the massive Fantasea Reefworld pontoon, which holds up to 600 people, and spend up to 3 1/2 hours on the Reef. The day trip costs A$176 (US$141/UK£70) for adults, A$150 (US$120/UK£60) for seniors and students, A$30 (US$24/UK£12) for children 4 to 14. Up to five children may travel with each full paying adult. Guided snorkel safaris cost A$25 (US$20/UK£10) extra or A$75 (US$60/UK£30) for a family of four. Cruise-dive packages are available for A$89 (US$71/UK£36) extra for both introductory and certified dives, or you can book one on board for A$95 (US$76/UK£38) for first-time divers and A$80 (US$64/UK£32) for certified dives. Cruises depart at 8am and pick up passengers at Daydream and Hamilton island resorts. Passengers from Long Island can connect by water taxi.

A fun alternative is Fantasea's 2-day, 1-night ReefSleep, during which you spend the night on the pontoon. This gives you a fabulous chance to snorkel at night when the coral is luminescent in the moonlight and nocturnal sea creatures get busy. The trip includes a marine biologist's slide presentation, two scuba dives, plenty of night snorkeling, two buffet lunches, dinner under the stars with wine, and breakfast and more snorkeling on the second day. You can stay in a clean, comfortable bunkroom for four for A$395 (US$316/UK£158) per person, or in the double cabin, which has a king-size bed, for A$495 (US$396/UK£198) per person. With so few guests per night, you have the Reef all to yourself.

Sailing & Snorkeling Trips -- A cheaper alternative to skippering your own yacht -- also called "bareboating" -- around the Whitsundays is a journey on one of the many yachts offering 3-day, 2-night sailing adventures around the islands. You can get involved with sailing the boat as much or as little as you want, snorkel to your heart's content over one dazzling reef after another, beach comb, explore national park trails, learn to sail, stop at secluded bays, swim, sunbathe, and generally have a laid-back good time. A few companies offer introductory and qualified scuba diving for an extra cost per dive. Most boats carry a maximum of 12 passengers, so the atmosphere is always friendly and fun. The food is generally good, the showers are usually hot, and you sleep in comfortable but small berths off the galley. Some have small private twin or double cabins.

Prices usually include all meals, Marine Park entrance fees, snorkel gear, and transfers to the departure point (Abel Point Marina or Shute Harbour). In the off season, the boats compete fiercely for passengers; you'll see signboards on the main street in Airlie Beach advertising standby deals.

Among the better-known operators are Ragamuffin (tel. 07/4946 7777), a 17m (56-ft.) oceangoing yacht; and Prosail (tel. 1800/810 116 in Australia, or 07/4946 5433; www.prosail.com.au), which runs trips on a fleet of 28 yachts. Prosail's 2-day, 2-night guided sailing trips through the Marine and Great Barrier Reef Marine parks cost A$340 (US$272/UK£136) plus A$30 (US$24/UK£12) in marine park fees. All trips include sailing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and bushwalking, and you can sail on maxi-yachts such as Matador, Condor, Apollo, Broomstick, and Hammer. The company also offers 3- and 6-day packages. Contact Tourism Whitsundays for details on other charters.

Island Hopping -- Day-trippers to Hamilton, Daydream, South Molle, Club Crocodile Long Island, and Hook Island resorts can rent the hotels' watersports equipment, laze by the beaches and pools, scuba dive, join the resorts' activities programs, hike their trails, and eat at some or all of their restaurants. Club Crocodile's Long Island Resort is rather noisy but unpretentious, with plentiful watersports, picturesque hiking trails, wild wallabies, and a large beach-cum-tidal flat where you can relax on sun lounges.

You can get to the islands on your own by ferry, or take an organized day trip that visits one, two, or even three islands in a day. Fantasea Cruises (tel. 1800/650 851 in Australia, or 07/4946 5111; www.fantasea.com.au) and Whitsunday Island Adventure Cruises (tel. 07/4946 5255 for the booking agent) all offer them, as do several yachts.

Scenic Flights -- Expect to pay around A$300 (US$240/UK£120) for a 30-minute flight over the Whitsundays (a spectacular sight from the air), a seaplane flight to a Reef pontoon to snorkel for a couple of hours, or for a helicopter to drop you on an island with a champagne picnic and snorkel gear. Hamilton Island Aviation (tel. 07/4946 8249) and Air Whitsunday (tel. 07/4946 9111) offer a range of tours.

Ecotours -- Visitors to the Whitsundays can get up close and personal with crocodiles in their natural habitat with Proserpine River Eco Tours (book through Fantasea Cruises, tel. 07/4946 5111), which combines an open-air wagon ride through the pristine Goorganga wetlands and a boat trip on the river to learn more about one of Queensland's major crocodile-breeding grounds. This is the only place to see crocs in safety in the wild south of the Daintree. Bus pickups operate from Airlie Beach, Cannonvale, and Proserpine for the tours, which run about 4 hours, depending on tides, and cost A$89 (US$71/UK£36) for adults, A$57 (US$46/UK£23) for kids 4 to 14, and A$235 (US$188/UK£94) for a family of four. Back on land, you'll enjoy billy tea, the best damper I've ever tasted (and they'll even give you the recipe), and a talk on native wildlife over a barbecue lunch.