What actually happens between the jeeps
The safari travels as a convoy of open-top 4x4 jeeps, each carrying 8 to 10 guests with a professional driver at the wheel — guests never drive. Somewhere along the mountain tracks, water starts flying between the vehicles, and from that moment the convoy is at war with itself in the friendliest possible way.
The fights flare up wherever the jeeps end up close enough to reach one another, and nobody announces them in advance. There is no scoreboard and no winner: the point is the ambush, the counter-ambush and the shrieking, and an open jeep in a summer month is a forgiving place to drip dry.
A summer-only tradition
The rule is simple, and it follows from how the jeeps themselves change with the seasons. In summer the convoy runs open-top jeeps, and summer departures include the water fights between the jeeps. In winter the convoy uses covered jeeps, and there are no water games at all.
That makes the choice honest in both directions. If the water battle is the part of the day you are booking for, come in a summer month; if you would rather keep the mountains and skip the soaking, a winter departure is dry by design. And if you are still weighing up dates, the season guide covers which month suits your jeep safari best.
Why children treat it as the high point
A water fight asks nothing of a child: no skill, no strength, no equipment and no shared language with the jeep next door. It is one of the few moments on any excursion where a child is not being asked to wait, watch or keep still — and where soaking an adult is not merely allowed but celebrated.
The pricing is built for families anyway: 20 EUR per adult, 10 EUR per child aged 4 to 12, infants aged 0 to 3 free, with lunch at the lakeside restaurant included for everyone. And if you want help to plan the whole day with children — the seats, the swim stop, the pace of it — the family guide goes through all of that properly.
Can you opt out of getting wet?
You can keep your hands dry; your shirt is another matter. Nobody is obliged to throw water, and you decide how far you and your children join in. But you are sitting in an open jeep inside a convoy that is having a water fight, so on a summer departure we will not promise anyone a dry ride — you cannot fully opt out of being splashed.
If arriving back dry genuinely matters to you, the honest answer is a winter departure: covered jeeps, no water games, the same mountains. On a summer date, the better strategy is not avoidance but preparation.
Phones, cameras and the dry bag
The water fight has exactly one victim it should never claim: your electronics. Seal your phone away before the first splash, not after it, and treat anything you would not take swimming as something that lives in the bag.
- A sealed waterproof pouch for your phone, money and documents — closed before the convoy leaves the asphalt.
- A full dry change of clothes for the drive back to the hotel.
- A towel, which earns its place twice: after the water fight and at the swim stop in Oymapınar village.
- Swimwear worn under your clothes, so neither the battle nor the swim stop needs any wardrobe planning.
- Shoes you do not mind getting wet and dusty.
Everything else worth packing
The tour team also takes photos and videos during the day, and these are sold separately rather than included in the tour price — one more reason your own phone can safely sit out the battle inside its pouch. For everything beyond the wet-day essentials, the full packing list for a jeep safari day sits on its own page, from sun protection to what to leave at the hotel.
Where the fight sits in the eight-hour day
The water fight is not a scheduled stop, and that is exactly its charm: it is a thread running through the day rather than an item on the programme. Around it, the eight-hour Side jeep safari with lunch included does everything it says on the ticket — hotel pickup, the old Roman bridge where the asphalt ends, riverbed crossings on the off-road sections, the orchards, the viewpoints over Green Lake and Green Canyon, the swim stop with freshly made Turkish pancakes in Oymapınar village, and lunch at a lakeside restaurant.
After lunch there is an optional one-hour boat trip on Green Lake at 5 EUR per person, paid on the day, which takes the day to 25 EUR per adult. If you want to see how the whole day unfolds stop by stop, the full walkthrough covers it — without spoiling the ambushes.
Water fights beyond Side
The tradition travels. In the Alanya area, the Alanya jeep safari to the Dim River runs the same summer water fights between the jeeps: eight hours at 30 EUR per adult and 17 EUR per child aged 4 to 12, with pickup across the whole Alanya area from Kestel to Okurcalar, in season from April to November.
And if being soaked is the whole point of the day for your group, the rafting and jeep combinations put a river in the middle of it: seven hours from Side at 28 EUR per adult and 17 EUR per child, or the nine-hour versions from Evrenseki, Kumköy and Manavgat at 40 EUR per adult and 24 EUR per child. There the water comes from the Köprülü river rather than from the jeep next door.
Booking a summer soaking
Booking works the same way whatever the season: the reservation is free, there is no prepayment and no card is taken online, and you pay in euros on the day of the tour. You can cancel free of charge up to 24 hours before departure, so a change of plan costs nothing — the only thing you genuinely risk on a summer departure is a wet shirt.