The best hours of a trip are usually spent afloat.
Which canal cruise keeps the drinks coming. What an hour on the Seine really costs. Whether the cave boat turns back when the swell gets up. Reviews of boat trips on six continents, priced and timed.
Four boat trips people cross oceans to take.
A river, a strait, a city skyline and a sea cave. What each costs to board, and what the people who took it said afterwards.
01The one-hour classic1-Hour Seine Cruise departing from the Eiffel TowerAn hour on the Seine from the foot of the Eiffel Tower. More travellers board this one than any other boat trip on the site.
02Dinner on the waterBosphorus Dinner Cruise & Show with Private TableThe Bosphorus after dark with a table held in your name, Europe on one shore and Asia on the other.
03A city explainedChicago Architecture River CruiseNinety minutes up the Chicago River with an architecture guide. The skyline makes sense from the water and nowhere else.- 04Into the rockPortimão: Benagil Caves Speed Boat Tour with Sunset OptionA small boat through the arch at Benagil, into the cave with the hole in its roof. Go early, before the swell shuts it.
Six kinds of day afloat, and what each one is actually for.
A river boat is a moving window on a city. A catamaran is a swimming platform with a bar. A cave boat is a twenty-minute thrill you remember for years. Start with the kind of day you want, not the vessel.
More boat trips run on rivers than on any sea.
The Seine, the Danube, the Douro, the Thames, the Chicago River, the Vltava. An hour of current costs less than a museum ticket in most of these cities and shows you more of them.
The United States has more boat trips on this site than any other country.
Three different arguments for getting on a boat in America: a river that explains a skyline, a harbour that explains a city, and a coast that is only worth it in the last hour of light. Prices are per person and start where the cheapest bookable seat starts.
The boat trips more travellers take than any others.
The whole catalogue, boat by boat →Demand is the one signal a supplier cannot fake. These are the sailings with the longest queue of people who have already been.
1
1-Hour Seine Cruise departing from the Eiffel Tower
Take a one-hour round-trip cruise from Port de la Bourdonnais beneath the Eiffel Tower. You will see Notre Dame, the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, and more from an indoor or open-air deck. Commentary comes by audio guide or smartphone web app in several languages. Go near sunset for especially fine city views.
From · $20
Read our review →
2
Bosphorus Dinner Cruise & Show with Private Table
from $28
3
City Highlights Sightseeing Cruise
from $18
4
Unlimited Prosecco, Beer and Aperol Spritz Cruise
from $29
5
50-Minute Sightseeing Evening Cruise
from $21
6
From Marrakech: Ouzoud Waterfalls Guided Hike and Boat Trip
from $17
7
Amsterdam Classic Saloon Boat Cruise with Drinks and Cheese
from $21
8
Amsterdam Luxury Canal Cruise + Unlimited Drinks & Bites option
from $18
A sunset cruise is a timetable, not a boat.
The hull barely matters. What matters is leaving the dock ninety minutes before the sun goes and coming back after it has. Check the departure time against sunset for the date you are actually there, then look at the drinks list.
Every sunset sailing →
What an hour on the water costs, three price bands deep.
Every priced trip on the site, sorted by the cheapest seat it sells. The gap between a city river hour and a whole-day charter is wider than most people expect.
City river hours, canal loops, harbour ferries and the short hop out to an island.
Full days with lunch aboard: island runs, reef boats, whale grounds and the cave coasts.
Overnight cabins, liveaboard reef trips and the boat you take alone with a skipper.
Three places the only sensible arrival is by boat.
Plenty of sights are easier by boat. These three are effectively closed without one, and the boat is the reason people remember them.
Sea caves
A sea cave only works from the water, and only in a hull small enough to fit the arch. The light is the whole show: it comes in under the surface, bounces off pale sand and pushes back up through the water, which is why the blue looks lit from below. Swell decides everything. An hour of chop and the skipper turns back at the mouth, so morning departures and a flexible ticket are worth more than any upgrade.
- 1Portimão: Benagil Caves Speed Boat Tour with Sunset Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 11,663 reviews
- 2Blue Cave Small-Group Boat Tour from Dubrovnik★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 9,360 reviews
- 3Best Niagara Falls US Tour W/Boat Ride, Cave & More Wonders!★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 8,372 reviews
Overnight bays
Halong, Lan Ha, the Nile between Aswan and Luxor. The day-trippers leave at four and the water goes quiet, which is the entire argument for paying for a cabin. Judge these on the boat rather than the route, because everyone sails the same water: cabin size, whether the balcony is real, how many other passengers, and what happens on the second morning before the transfer back.
- 12-Day Halong & Lan Ha Bay 5-Star Cruise with Balcony★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 3,300 reviews
- 2Top Tier: Overnight Ha Long Bay Cruise 5-Star, Balcony Cabin-2D1N★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,251 reviews
- 34-Day 3-Night Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor&Abu Simbel+Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,023 reviews
The Douro
The valley was terraced for wine by hand, and the river is still the only way to see the whole slope at once. Boat days out of Porto run as far as Pinhao and usually bolt a tasting and lunch onto the sailing, which makes the price look steep until you price the three parts separately. The return leg is often by train, and that is the better direction.
- 1Douro Valley w/ Boat Tour, Wine Tasting & Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 19,061 reviews
- 2Complete Douro Valley Wine Tour with Lunch, Wine Tastings and River Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 12,920 reviews
- 3Douro Valley with Winery Lunch, Tastings & Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 7,002 reviews
Four boats that sell out before the flight lands.
Most boats can be booked the night before from a bar near the harbour. These four cannot. They run one or two departures a day, they cap the deck, and the good slot goes to whoever booked from home.
- 01Portimão: Benagil Caves Speed Boat Tour with Sunset OptionOne arch, small boats, and a sea that closes it without warning. The morning departures sell out first because they are the ones that get inside.
- 02Cozy Bay Halong 5-Star Day Cruise, Buffet, Cave, Kayak, SwimmingOvernight cabins are a fixed number and the balcony cabins go months out. Nobody sells you one at the pier.
- 03Chicago Architecture River CruiseOne guide, one boat, a season that shuts in winter. Weekend departures fill days ahead.
- 04Bosphorus Dinner Cruise & Show with Private TableA table with a view is a different ticket from a seat on the same boat, and the window tables are allocated at booking.
The five questions that decide whether a boat day works.
Nobody sends you a warning about any of this, and every one of them has ruined somebody's morning. Sea state comes first: an open-water crossing in a small hull is a different experience at force four, and cave and reef trips are cancelled or cut short by the same swell. Then landings. A wet landing means over the side into knee-deep water with your bag over your shoulder, which rules out some shoes and some knees. Then swim stops, which sound standard and often are not, so read the itinerary rather than the headline. Then who is driving, because a skippered day and a bareboat hire are priced alike and are nothing alike. And last, minimum numbers: a shared charter that fails to fill can be cancelled the evening before.
By country, where the fleet is biggest
Pick the shape of the day first
Eight cities where locals would tell you to skip the bus.
Amsterdam
Budapest
Mallorca
MaltaThe newest boat trips on the site.
Newest reviews, still drying off →
Whale Watching and Dolphin Watching Yacht Cruise
Read our review →
Small Group Golden Circle from Cruise Terminal
Read our review →
Rethymno: Sunset Cruise on a Wooden Pirate Boat
Read our review →
Rethymno: Sunset Catamaran Cruise – Sushi & Open Bar
Read our review →
Rethymno Premium Catamaran Cruise: Healthy Lunch & Open Bar
Read our review →
From Hervey Bay: Remote K’gari Tour by Boat with Lunch
Read our review →
Rethymno: Pirate Boat Cruise with Swimming Stop
Read our review →
Regensburg: Klinger’s Sightseeing Boat Tour to Walhalla
Read our review →
Quicksilver Outer Barrier Reef Full-Day Cruise
Read our review →
Queenstown Lake Cruise and Walter Peak Farm Tour
Read our review →
Milford Sound Small-Group Tour w Cruise & Lunch
Read our review →