Boat tours and cruises, from a one-hour canal loop to a day under sail.
Which sunset trip actually stops long enough to swim. What an hour on the Seine costs before anyone mentions dinner. Whether the catamaran is worth twice the shared boat. Reviews of the boats you can book, harbour by harbour.
Start with the boats everyone else is already on.
Five trips that carry more travellers than anything else afloat, in five different kinds of water. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The one-hour classic1-Hour Seine Cruise departing from the Eiffel TowerAn hour on the Seine from the foot of the Eiffel Tower. The cheapest way to see Paris from the water, and the one nobody regrets.
02Dinner on deckBosphorus Dinner Cruise & Show with Private TableThe Bosphorus after dark, with Istanbul lit on both banks. Ask for a window table on the lower deck rather than the roof in winter.
03The canal hour75 Minute City Canal Cruise with Audio GuideAmsterdam at water level with the audio guide running. Seventy-five minutes and the shape of the city finally makes sense.
04Out past the harbourEco-Yacht Whale and Dolphin Watching and SwimmingPilot whales off the south of Tenerife, on a yacht that cuts the engine and waits rather than chasing. Swim stop on the way in.
05Into the caveBenagil Caves Speed Boat Tour with Sunset OptionA speedboat under the arch at Benagil, small enough to get inside. Go on the morning run: by afternoon the light has come off the water.
Sunset sail, canal boat or speedboat: pick the deck before the destination.
A hull decides the day more than the harbour does. Something slow and covered for a city, something with a ladder and a shade canopy for a coast, something fast and open for caves. Here is what each one actually gives you.
Boat days in the USA: a river through a skyline, or the open Atlantic.
American boat trips split cleanly. In the cities the boat is a moving grandstand - Chicago from the river, Manhattan from the harbour, New Orleans behind a paddlewheel. On both coasts it is wildlife and water: dolphins off the Gulf, whales out of Boston and San Diego, reef stops in the Keys and off Oahu.
The Seine, the Danube and the Douro are best read from a river boat.
A river boat is the cheapest hour in most European capitals and the only one where you sit down. Paris runs sailings every half hour until late; Budapest saves its best for the floodlights; Porto trades six bridges for a morning and sends you upstream to the terraces after lunch.
The boat trips travellers book more than anything else on the water.
Every boat trip we have reviewed →Sailings that run several times a day and still sell out by lunchtime, and what earns each one the slot.
1
1-Hour Seine Cruise departing from the Eiffel Tower
Board a modern Bateaux Parisiens boat at Pontoon 3 beneath the Eiffel Tower for a one-hour Seine cruise. See Notre Dame, the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, and Grand Palais from the water. Use the onboard audio guide or multilingual web app, then move between the warm cabin and open top deck for photos.
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
Amsterdam Classic Saloon Boat Cruise with Drinks and Cheese
from $21
7
Amsterdam Luxury Canal Cruise + Unlimited Drinks & Bites option
from $18
8
Classic Saloon Boat Cruise with Cheese & Wine
from $18
In Amsterdam the canal boat is not a novelty, it is the route.
A hundred and sixty-five canals, bridges too low for anything with a fixed roof, and a ring the Dutch have been steering visitors around since the seventeenth century. Open saloon boats through the summer, heated glass ones from October, and a drinks tray on most of them.
Every Amsterdam boat trip →
What an hour, a morning and a whole day on a boat cost.
Every trip on the site, grouped by what it costs to step aboard. The gap between the cheap seat and the private hull is wider than anywhere else in travel.
City river and canal hours, harbour hops, the short cave runs out of a fishing port.
The full day: catamaran with lunch, whale boats, island hops with a swim stop or two.
Private charters, crewed yachts and the dinner sailings that come with a table for the evening.
Swell, seasickness and shared decks: what decides which boat to book.
Open water moves and a canal does not. If anyone in the group turns green, take the river boat, the wide catamaran or the first sailing of the day, because swell builds through the afternoon on almost every coast. If you want the boat to stop where you ask and leave when you like, that is a private charter, not a cheaper seat on a bigger hull.
Three stretches of water that put the boat before the destination.
Plenty of places look better from the water. In these three the boat is the reason you came: there is no road to the cave, no bridge across the strait, and no other way to reach the caldera rim.
The Benagil Caves
The Algarve cliffs are undercut for sixty miles, and at Benagil the roof of one cavern has collapsed into a perfect circle of daylight over a beach you cannot walk to. Only small boats and kayaks fit through the entrance, the swell closes it for days at a time, and the shaft of light lands squarely on the sand for about two hours around mid-morning.
- 1Benagil Caves Speed Boat Tour with Sunset Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 11,663 reviews
- 2Benagil Caves & Dolphin Watching Speed Boat Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 6,316 reviews
- 3Dolphin Watching and Benagil Cave Boat Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 4,226 reviews
The Bosphorus at night
The strait is the working seam between two continents: ferries crossing at right angles to the tankers, wooden yali houses at the waterline, and three bridges lit above it. Dinner sailings leave from Kabatas and turn at the second bridge. The current runs hard from the Black Sea, so the return leg is faster than the way out.
- 1Bosphorus Dinner Cruise & Show with Private Table★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 62,058 reviews
- 2Daytime or Sunset Sightseeing Cruise & Audio Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 14,430 reviews
- 3Bosphorus Dinner Cruise & Turkish Night Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 12,954 reviews
The caldera rim by catamaran
The island is the wall of a drowned volcano, which is why the good anchorages are all on the inside. Catamarans run down the red and white beaches, tie up over the hot springs where the water turns rust-coloured and warm, and hold position off Oia while the sun goes. From the rim above you are looking at the boat; from the boat you are looking at the whole island.
- 1Volcanic Islands Cruise with Hot Springs Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 10,869 reviews
- 2Catamaran Tour with BBQ Dinner, Drinks, and Music★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 5,886 reviews
- 3Group Catamaran Cruise with BBQ, Open Bar, Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,209 reviews
Boat trips by country
By kind of boat, from canal barge to crewed catamaran
The newest boat trip reviews.
The rest of the new arrivals →
Formentor Beach, Lighthouse Cruise, and Small Group
Read our review →
Caves of Drach Tour from the North with Boat Trip
Read our review →
Caves and Coastline Catamaran Cruise to Benagil
Read our review →
Benagil Cave and Dolphin Sightseeing Boat Cruise
Read our review →
Pirate Boat Party with Foam, Disco, Lunch & Drinks
Read our review →
Luxury Pirate Boat with Lunch & Unlimited Drinks
Read our review →
Alanya Tour with Lunch, Boat Trip, and Cable Car
Read our review →