The question arrives in my inbox in almost exactly these words, usually from an American family planning their first Greek summer: what is a crewed luxury yacht charter, and what does it actually cost once everything is added? It deserves a straight answer, because the trade has a habit of answering it in fragments, a base rate here, an acronym there, and a number that turns out to cover one guest only. This page is the whole answer, in one place, with the yachts named.
What is a crewed luxury yacht charter?
It is a private yacht, hired by the week, that arrives at the quay with her professional crew already aboard and stays yours, and only yours, until she returns. The captain runs the yacht and the itinerary. The chef runs the galley from a preference sheet you fill in before you fly. The stewardess or stewardesses run the service, the cabins and the table. On the larger yachts a deckhand or two run the tender and the toys. You bring your party, your appetite and an idea of where you would like to wake up. Everything else is done for you.
Three words in the phrase carry weight. Crewed separates it from a bareboat, where you are the crew, and from a skippered week, where one professional drives and you do the rest. Luxury is not a marketing adjective here: it describes the level of the yacht, the standard of the food and the depth of the crew, and it is why the fee is what it is. Charter means the yacht is hired, not owned, under a contract that has protected charterers for decades. This house writes every week under the MYBA form, which is the same agreement used on the Riviera and in the Caribbean.
One more thing separates it from every other holiday: the price attaches to the yacht, not to the head. A crewed week is one fee per yacht per week whether you fill every cabin or bring two people to a yacht for ten. That is the single most misunderstood fact about crewed chartering, and it changes the arithmetic completely once a party is six or more. The full picture of how this house works is on the crewed yacht charter page, and the glossary entry has the short definition. This article is the long one.
Who is aboard, and what does each of them do for you?
The crew scales with the yacht, and the rate cards of the yachts I represent show the ladder plainly. On SEA U, a 22 metre Riva 72 for six, there are two: a captain who also handles the lines and the tender, and a cook-hostess who runs the galley and the table. On SEABARIT LX, an 18 metre Moon 60 catamaran for ten, three: captain, chef and stewardess, which is the point at which cooking and service become two people rather than one. On ALTEYA, the 21 metre Sunreef 70 Power, four, with a deckhand added to run the water toys and the tender so the captain never leaves the helm at anchor.
Above 30 metres the crew becomes a household. PANDION, a 37 metre Heesen for ten, carries seven. NAIA, a 38.5 metre Sanlorenzo for ten, carries eight. LA PELLEGRINA 1, 50 metres for twelve, carries nine. At that size the roles divide, and the difference you feel is that nobody aboard is ever doing two jobs at once. The service becomes invisible, which is the whole art of it.
The chef is the crew member guests ask about most, and rightly. On every yacht in this article the chef cooks from your preference sheet, provisions at each port from what the market has that morning, and adjusts the menu daily. Dietary requirements, from kosher to allergies, are briefed before boarding and honoured all week; I wrote separately on how a kosher week at sea works, and the same logic covers any diet. A crewed week is, among other things, seven days of a private restaurant that moves.
What does luxury actually mean on a crewed week?
It means the yacht, first. The yachts on this list are builders whose names mean something on the Riviera as well as in Athens: Riva, Pershing, Heesen, Sanlorenzo, Sunreef, Fountaine Pajot, Lagoon. It means a master cabin with its own bathroom and a real bed, not a berth. It means a saloon you would happily sit in on a rainy afternoon, which in a Greek July you never will.
It means the anchorage. A crewed yacht with a captain who knows these waters spends her nights in bays that have no road to them, not in marinas alongside forty other yachts. That is the decision that changes the character of a week more than any other, and it is the captain's to make well. The guides to the Cyclades, the Saronic and the Ionian on this site describe what those anchorages are.
And it means the pace. On a luxury crewed week nobody is chasing a ferry or a table. Breakfast is when you wake. The captain proposes the day at breakfast and adjusts it to the wind, and the yacht moves while you swim or read. Dinner is aboard, laid on deck, or ashore at a taverna the crew already called. The luxury is not gold taps. It is that seven days pass and you made no arrangements at all.
How is a crewed luxury charter priced, and what does all-in include?
Four lines make up the true cost, and a serious broker shows you all four in writing before you commit. The base charter fee is the yacht and her crew for the week; it is the figure on the rate card and the one you see on every yacht page on this site. The APA, the Advance Provisioning Allowance, is your own money paid ahead for fuel, food, drink, dockage and everything consumed during the week, spent by the captain against receipts and reconciled on the last day; on the yachts I represent it runs 20 to 30 per cent of the base on catamarans and 30 to 40 per cent on motor yachts, where fuel weighs heaviest. The APA is explained in full here.
Greek VAT on a weekly crewed charter is invoiced at the yacht's certified rate, 5.2, 6.5, 7.8 or 12 per cent, with 13 per cent the statutory ceiling and 24 per cent applying only to short charters and bareboats; the rate is a property of the yacht and is written into your quote, never guessed. The 2027 VAT position is set out here. The gratuity is custom rather than contract, 10 to 15 per cent of the base, handed to the captain on the last evening for the crew; the gratuity guide has the reasoning.
Put together, an all-in week on a crewed catamaran lands at roughly 1.35 to 1.6 times the base fee, and on a motor yacht at roughly 1.45 to 1.7 times, the spread depending on the yacht's certified VAT rate, how far and how fast she runs, and how generous you are on the last night. Those are the multipliers used for every figure that follows. If you want the exact lines for a specific yacht and week, the charter cost calculator runs them from the live rate cards.
How much does a crewed luxury yacht charter cost in Greece, all-in?
From about EUR 30,000 a week to a little over EUR 300,000, per yacht, and the honest way to answer is a ladder with names on it rather than a range. What follows is the fleet I represent this season, taken from each yacht's own rate card at the low end of her season, with the all-in arrived at by the multipliers above. Peak weeks in late July and August sit at the top of each card, so read every figure as a starting point. The full band structure by type and size is on the Greek Charter Index 2026, which is where these cards are compiled.
What does a crewed week from EUR 30,000 all-in look like?
It looks like SEA U: a 22 metre Riva 72, six guests in four cabins, a crew of two, and a top speed of 32 knots that turns Alimos to Hydra into a morning. Her card opens at EUR 21,000 a week, which is about EUR 30,500 to 35,000 all-in. For eight guests the equivalent is Explorion, an Aquila 54 power catamaran with a captain, a chef and a deckhand, from EUR 21,000, about EUR 28,500 to 33,000 all-in. And SEA YA, an Azimut 66 for six with three crew, from EUR 24,000, lands around EUR 35,000 to 40,000.
This is the tier I mean when I say a crewed luxury week is not out of reach for a couple or two. It is a real yacht from a real builder, a crew who cook and serve, and the whole of the Saronic or the western Cyclades in a week. What it is not is a twelve-guest superyacht, and a broker who lets you expect one at this figure is not doing his job.
And at EUR 50,000 to 80,000 all-in?
This is where the newest hulls on the list sit, and where most of my own recommendations start. SEABARIT LX, a Moon 60 sailing catamaran launched in 2024, ten guests in five cabins, captain, chef and stewardess, opens at EUR 31,000, about EUR 42,000 to 48,500 all-in. ONE, a 27 metre Pershing 90 refitted in 2024, ten guests, four crew, from EUR 45,000, about EUR 65,500 to 75,000. ALTEYA, the Sunreef 70 Power, eight guests, four crew, from EUR 49,000, about EUR 66,000 to 77,000. Just Marie 2, a Lagoon Seventy 8 for six in three cabins with four crew, from EUR 49,000, the same all-in and the most space by the head I have on the list.
ELLY II, a Fountaine Pajot Power 70 delivering new for 2027, is the one card in this tier that states its own lines: EUR 59,000 base, VAT at 6.5 per cent, APA at 25 per cent, which with a gratuity lands at EUR 83,500 to 86,500 all-in for ten guests. At this level the chef is a chef, not a cook, the toys are aboard rather than borrowed, and the itinerary can hold two island groups in one week on a power catamaran or a fast motor yacht.
What does a crewed superyacht week cost, at EUR 100,000 and above?
Above 30 metres the fee buys crew depth as much as length. PANDION, 37 metres, ten guests, seven crew, 35 knots, from EUR 62,000, about EUR 90,000 to 103,500 all-in. NOEMA, 33.5 metres, twelve guests, six crew, from EUR 72,000, about EUR 104,500 to 120,000. ChristAl MiO 80, a Fountaine Pajot Thira 80 power catamaran new in 2026, twelve guests in six cabins, five crew, from EUR 70,000, about EUR 94,500 to 110,000, and the largest catamaran party the twelve-guest rule allows.
RIANA II, a 37 metre Sanlorenzo SL118 with eight crew, from EUR 105,000, about EUR 152,500 to 175,500 all-in. NAIA, the 38.5 metre Sanlorenzo with eight crew, from EUR 135,000, about EUR 196,000 to 225,500. And LA PELLEGRINA 1, 50 metres, twelve guests, nine crew, from EUR 180,000, which lands between EUR 261,500 and 300,500 all-in for the week. The superyacht page and the Cyclades superyacht guide go deeper on this end of the list, and the twelve-guest rule explains why a 50 metre yacht carries the same number of guests as a 33 metre one.
Is a crewed charter the same as an all-inclusive charter?
No, and the difference is only in how the bill is written. A standard crewed charter under the MYBA form separates the base fee from the APA, the VAT and the gratuity, so you see each line and pay the running costs as they are actually incurred. An all-inclusive charter folds the running costs into one fixed price agreed at booking, which some owners offer and some clients prefer for the certainty. The yacht, the crew and the week are identical. What changes is whether you would rather see the fuel receipt or not.
How does a crewed charter differ from a skippered or bareboat week?
A bareboat is a yacht with nobody aboard but you: you hold the licence, you sail her, you cook, you find the anchorage. A skippered week adds one professional at the helm and leaves the rest to you. Both exist in Greece and both are a different product at a different price, and I wrote about the middle tier and where it ends. A crewed luxury charter begins where the second professional comes aboard, at the point where cooking and service are somebody's job and not yours. On this list that point is EUR 17,000 base for a 15 metre catamaran with a captain and a cook-hostess, and every yacht named on this page sits above it.
Where does a crewed luxury week in Greece go?
Three grounds, all from Athens. The Cyclades for the islands everyone has heard of and the anchorages nobody has, best on a motor yacht or a power catamaran that treats the Meltemi as a detail. The Saronic for the five-night week and for anyone who wants Hydra by lunch on the first day. The Ionian for calm water, green islands and families, boarding at Corfu or Lefkada. Every yacht in this article is based at Athens except where her page says otherwise, and the full list shows the home port of each.
When is a crewed luxury charter not for you?
When you want to sail the boat yourself: a crewed week gives you a captain, and a captain who does his job will not hand you the helm in a crowded anchorage. When you are two people who genuinely prefer a hotel: the yacht will be lovely and half empty, and a suite ashore with day boats may serve you better, though I would still make the case for a couple alone on a yacht. When the budget is under about EUR 25,000 all-in: below that figure the crewed weeks on this list run out, and I would rather say so than sell you a boat that disappoints. And when you want to hop between three island groups in seven days: the yachts can do it, but you will spend the week under way, and the point of a crewed charter is to stop.
How do you book a crewed luxury charter, and what does the broker do?
You send dates, party and budget, and you tell me what the week is for. I come back with two or three yachts, not twenty, with the four cost lines written out for each, and I tell you which one I would take and why. Once you choose, the MYBA agreement is drawn up, a 50 per cent deposit secures the dates, and the balance is due four weeks before you board, with the APA. The preference sheet goes to the chef, the captain proposes an itinerary, and on the day you walk down the pontoon at Alimos to a yacht that is expecting you. The step-by-step page has the timeline, and the 2027 lead-time article explains why the yachts on this page book six to twelve months ahead for August, and the largest a year or more.
This house is an IYBA Charter Active member operating from a Wyoming LLC, which matters to American clients for the contracting and the wire, and my own credentials are on the credentials page for anyone who wants to verify them before we speak. I place every yacht on this page personally, and I have been aboard them. If you are planning a Greek summer and you want the honest version of what a crewed week will cost and feel like, that is the conversation I am here for.
