Onam on the backwaters
The overnight cruise runs right through the festival week, and the chef cooks a full sadya on board — served on a banana leaf, on the water, somewhere off Pathiramanal.
The sadya
Cooked that morning on the boat, not carried aboard from a kitchen ashore. The exact spread follows what the market had, but it always runs to the full sequence:
- Rice with parippu and ghee
- Sambar, avial and olan
- Thoran, erissery and kalan
- Pachadi, kichadi and injipuli
- Pappadam, banana chips and sharkara varatti
- Ada pradhaman to finish
Tell the desk when you book if anyone in the party is vegetarian, vegan or avoiding coconut — the chef shops that morning, so it is easily done with notice.
What it costs
The ordinary rate. There is no festival surcharge and no separate Onam package — the sadya is part of the full board that every cruise includes. A Premium 1 BHK is ₹11,000 for the boat per night, the same as any other week of the year, with the usual loading on a Friday or Saturday night.
See the full tariffBooking Onam week
Onam is the one week of the year when Keralite families travel at home, so the boats go earlier than the December peak does — often several weeks out. If Thiruvonam itself is full, the days either side of it are quieter on the water and the sadya is the same.
Boarding is at 12:00 PM and check-out at 09:30 AM, as always. The snake-boat races around this season draw crowds to Alappuzha; Kumarakom stays calm.