Ganvie Stilt Village | Tourist Attraction

Benin

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Verified:
15 days ago
Altitude:
15.7 masl

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Ganvie is a Town built on Stilt Huts 8 km out on the Lake. You can't reach the Village by Road, it's a Boat only Tour. On Arrival they wanted us to pay 20.100 CFA for two People... The official Sign says 5.050 CFA pP "including all services". We negogiated hard and ended up with the 5.050 Transport pP plus a Guide for 2.000 (thy won't let you go without). Parking was 1.000.

To sum it up: we paid 13.100 CFA for 2 People on a 1,5 Hours Tour out on the Lake to the Village and back. It was very nice and definitely worth it.

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Great interesting boat tour which we can highly recommend. We did a private tour and paid 5000 p.P. The tour is 1.5 hours including lunch, but you can give tip to the guide and ask to extend the tour. We enjoyed 3.5h relaxing trip and did lots of nice pictures. Very authentic tour and only two other tourist boats.

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Beautiful and surprising village on stilts very close to Cotonou.
- We didnot pay anything for the parking.
- Special attention to the "guide". He showed up "all of sudden", not even introducing himself, right after we bought the tickets for the group (4 adults, 3 kids : 2, 4 and 9 yo -> we paid CFA 15,250 ie 3,050 per head, the 2 youngest kids didnot pay). We made ourself very clear before he "invited himself" on board that we did not need a guide, which was a good thing since he did not actually know the village and he couldnt give any explanations. We felt bad for him when we got back to the pier but still being honnest with ourselves. We don't want to be part of this "guiding" joke. Only regret, is that we couldn-t explain to him our point of view, because he runs away from us as soon as we got back to pier. That was our experience with this specific "guide" but we couldnt see any one showing a proper ID an proposing a real guided tour.
- Another point is the restaurant of the village that the skipper took us straight to. Standard meals are CFA6,000 or CFA7,000. Triple the price of any fair place in Cotonou.
- Last thing, we did not feel comfortable in taking pictures all over the place. People are not likely to play the game of being snapped by tourists. We do not really advise to do so, unless you manage to speak and connect to the people, which is not easy considering all the boat companies carrying tourists around. Or stick to snap general photographs of the public places or selfies, as we did.
At the end of the day, the village itself is stunning and we recomand to visit the place but only for the nice boat ride around the surprising buildings on stilts.

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price for a traditional boat is 4050 CFA pp and for a motor boat 5050 CFA pp.
nothing to pay for the parking.
ignore the guys who straight away come to your car and want to sell the tour for the double price :)

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Beautiful place to visit! Prices are fixed now so no need to negotiate. 2 hours return trip or faster with a motorboat if you pay a little more. Our guide wasn’t great (no information at all, pointless for him to be there) but that didn’t stop us to really enjoy the place! You can park for free next to the hut where the ‘Reception’ is. Also worth walking through the market, they have a fetish section as well. You can’t take pictures (unless you pay) but it was interesting to see!

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Great but busy place.
Still same prices in 2022. But we didn't have to pay for carpark and the guide was great profesional and not asking anything more... His name is Edmond.

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to Ganvie, only 500cf from Dantokpa.
more beautiful on the waterway.

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- parking ticket : 500fcfa (ask the ticket;-)

we loved Ganvie and the visit but 4 bad things :
- the guide is included in the tour. But he is waiting a big tip. so we said to him, we prefer to go without him because we will not give a big tip. he let us going with only the boat driver!
-we were wednesday and we bought no motor boat ticket at 4050fcfa pp. after 20 minutes waiting, the guide wanted we pay 5050 fcfa pp to reserve the motor boat, saying nobody was free without motor!!! we refused and waited : after 10 minutes, we obtained our no motor boat ;-) so be patient and insist!!!
- 2 stops in Ganvié was included in the tour. After the first stop, the boat driver wanted to come back to the pier. we insisted saying we were paying for 2 stops. finally, he did it. So insist!!!
- to come back to the pier, the driver change our boat for a motor boat. we said ok and took too many locals in the boat, but we argued we will not pay for the motor and we didnt pay more ;-)

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We took a motor bike from Cotonou to the docks early in the morning for 1000 each. When we arrived, we requested the motor free boat, but were informed that this was only offered on weekends. My partner negotiated for quite some time trying to get the cheapest and most low key option, but we ended up going with the motor boat for 5,050 each. We considered asking a local fisher person, but thought they might not want to show us around the way a tour boat would. Our guide, Eric was great. He brought us to His house in Ganvie in a motor boat, and then we switched into one of his small canoes to tour the area. We paddled with him and were able to explore the small waterways. We didn’t pay for a guide but he spoke the whole time and gave us a great tour. Afterwards we sat at the big red restraint and each drank a delicious papaya juice for 500 each. We were out for over 2.5 hours total, and it was lovely. I was a little hesitant about the price tag attached to this activity but it was worth it. So cool!

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We paid 4050 pp for a non-motorised boat (could have paid 5050 for one with an outboard but thought it nice to not have the noise)

Offered a guide but said we didn't want one and there was no pressure to do so and the boat man was happy to answer questions anyway.

Nice trip, about 2hrs total with a quick stop for a drink in the cafe at the village. Worth seeing!

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4.050,- pp no guide. Was not really easy to get this tariff. Man in the last office in first building right-hand side from the entrance will sell the tickets. People in Ganvie are normal, won't them call unfriendly but maybe because of Sunday...

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We payed 4050 cfa pp for ticket for boat without motor engine (which is more fun). We argued and said we don't need guide who can't speak polish :) we didn't pay for guide at all :)
parking is 500, you'll get a receipt. Don't pay more!
Locals in village don't like tourists. Probably they don't get anything from your ticket. We were blocked by few boats on the way and had to pay 100 cfa, which is not much but situation wasn't comfortable at all.

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As described, 5050/person. also the guide is not included in this fee and they're asking for 10,000, but they'll go for 5000, maybe less if you negotiate hard. We gave 500 for parking.

It's nice to visit although the residents of ganvie are clearly not in love with tourists and their cameras.

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Really worth visiting, although it's a tourist thing to do! They will try to get money out of you every chance they get! Entrance is 4.050 or 5.050 CFA/ person (depending if you take a motorised boat or not) - there they tell you everything is included and it's full service! Once you're in the boat and on the water the guide will tell you he needs to be paid separately! He started at 10.000 CFA, which we could negotiate down to 3.500 CFA.
So be aware they try to rip you of the money... the village itself is really lovely and a nice experience

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Ganvie is a Town built on Stilt Huts 8 km out on the Lake. You can't reach the Village by Road, it's a Boat only Tour. On Arrival they wanted us to pay 20.100 CFA for two People... The official Sign says 5.050 CFA pP "including all services". We negogiated hard and ended up with the 5.050 Transport pP plus a Guide for 2.000 (thy won't let you go without). Parking was 1.000.

To sum it up: we paid 13.100 CFA for 2 People on a 1,5 Hours Tour out on the Lake to the Village and back. It was very nice and definitely worth it.

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