Questions about this site

James Whitfield, a London river and travel writer, working independently of every operator on the site. He crews no boat and runs no cruise company, and no page claims otherwise. Vessel details, menus, timetables and policies come from the operators' own published pages and the live listings, reported as those sources state them, and the regulatory facts come from the Port of London Authority and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. The about page sets out the boundary in full and explains how each listing is checked.

No. This site sells nothing, holds no reservations and takes no payment. Every card opens the operator's own listing, and the booking, the confirmation email, the boarding pass and the cancellation window all live on that side. If you have already booked, your confirmation email is the document that matters, not anything on this site.

Through affiliate commission, and no. Links to sailings carry a partner tag, and if you book after clicking one the booking platform pays us a share of its own commission, at no extra cost to you: the fee comes out of the platform's margin rather than being added to your ticket. Nothing here is sponsored, no advertising runs on the site, and no operator has been offered a position. Where a category leads with one sailing, that sailing is the most-reviewed in its category, which anyone can check against the numbers on the cards. The affiliate disclosure names the platforms and sets out the whole arrangement.

They are current from-prices read off each live listing, not live quotes. A from-price is the floor: the cheapest per-person option on that sailing at the moment it was read, in pounds. On the Thames the meal decides the price far more than the boat does, so a sightseeing seat and the same operator's dinner sailing are different tickets at very different numbers. Your real total also moves with the date, the option you pick and the currency the platform shows for your region, since these listings display in pounds for a UK visitor and in dollars or euros elsewhere. The listing is always the authority.

They are the booking platforms' own published figures, copied exactly as displayed, including the unflattering ones. Each was read on two independent passes rather than one, and nothing is averaged across platforms, rounded up or quietly rewritten. No testimonial appears anywhere here unless a real traveller published it on a real listing.

Because the two platforms count different crowds. The same boat can carry one rating and review pool on one platform and a different pair on the other, and both are real: same boat, same route, two separate sets of reviewers. Every rating here was therefore checked on two independent passes, and when they disagreed the live listing read is what prints while the discrepancy stays on file. Nothing gets averaged into a tidier figure, and a price that reads differently in two places usually means one of them is showing you a localised currency rather than a changed fare.

Because some operators list the identical departure on both, each page with its own review count. Showing both would inflate the lineup with duplicate trips and split one boat's reputation across two cards. So each departure is treated as one option, and its twin is used only to point you to whichever platform happens to have the better page. It is also why review counts matter: a listing with a few dozen reviews tells you far less than one with thousands, and the pages say so.

Central London has several landing stages and they are not interchangeable. City Cruises lists its London piers as Westminster, London Eye, Tower and Greenwich. Uber Boat by Thames Clippers, which runs the river bus and the day pass, counts Greenwich, Canary Wharf, Tower, London Bridge City, Embankment, Westminster and Battersea Power Station among its staffed piers. The speedboat and RIB trips board at the London Eye, Embankment, Westminster or Tower Millennium pier depending on the route, so the pier printed on your ticket is the one that matters. On timing, City Cruises asks passengers to arrive at least 15 minutes before departure and to allow longer if buying at the ticket office; Uber Boat recommends arriving 10 minutes before boarding. Getting off at the wrong pier is a short walk, turning up at the wrong one is a missed boat.

The Port of London Authority looks after the tidal Thames, 95 miles of it from Teddington to the North Sea, which covers every sailing on this site. Vessels working commercially on that stretch must be licensed by the PLA under the Port of London Act 1968 unless they are certificated by another recognised authority, such as the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, another navigation authority or a local authority. The PLA says its surveying and licensing teams inspect and licence nearly 800 commercially operated vessels a year, using standards developed by the MCA and the industry. Masters of commercial passenger vessels on inland waters, rivers and estuaries included, must hold a boatmasters' licence, and operating without the right one is a prosecutable offence. The MCA itself is an executive agency of the Department for Transport.

The Thames through London is tidal, and the PLA publishes official tide tables and a tide prediction service for it. Sailing times on some routes genuinely move with the tide: Thames River Boats, which runs the upriver Westminster to Hampton Court service, states plainly that its times vary from day to day because of the tides, and Uber Boat notes that at three of its piers the brow can become too steep depending on the tide. That is not true of every cruise, and the central sightseeing timetables do not attribute their departures to tides, so check the time on your own booking rather than assuming either way. Ordinary rain rarely stops anything: City Cruises says all its boats have inside seating and are fully heated. If the operator does cancel because of weather, the booking price is refunded.

Not through us, and this is worth being blunt about: we hold nothing and can move nothing. Your reservation sits with the operator and the platform you booked through from the moment you paid. On most cruises the platform norm is free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure for a full refund, but that is a default rather than a promise, so check the cancellation line on the listing before you pay and treat the window on your confirmation email as the one that governs. Booking direct is often stricter, not looser: City Cruises says direct bookings are non-refundable and non-transferable within 48 hours of the cruise, though sightseeing tickets can be rescheduled free up to and including the day of travel before 17:30, and Uber Boat asks for 72 hours' notice to refund a ticket bought online. Amendments, dietary notes, access questions and a late-running party all go through the operator, not through us.

There is no formal dress code on the mainstream London cruises, so casual clothes are fine, and only the smarter dinner sailings tend to draw people who dress up a little. The practical advice matters more, and it splits by boat. On the big sightseeing and dining boats you can sit inside in the warm, and the top deck is the choice rather than the sentence. On a speedboat or a RIB you are outside for the whole run at up to 30 knots, so a jacket you do not mind getting damp beats anything else you could bring, whatever the forecast said at the pier.

Children pay less on most boats and sometimes nothing, but the bands are set by each operator rather than by any river-wide rule. City Cruises prices its sightseeing cruises with infants aged 0 to 4 free, a child fare from 5 to 15 and adults from 16, while its lunch and afternoon tea cruises use different bands again: free for 0 to 2 unless the child needs a seat, a child fare from 3 to 12, adults from 13. Its evening cruise lists bands of 13 to 17 and 18 plus, charges every ticket at the adult price, and suggests the whole party be over 18. Uber Boat by Thames Clippers carries children aged 4 and under free, up to two per ticketholder, with 5 to 15 at half the adult fare, and requires children up to the age of 10 to be accompanied by an adult at all times. For the fast boats, check the listing before booking for children, because those age rules are set per operator too. On whether it works: the shorter circular cruises and the RIB rides are the honest answer for younger children, since nobody has to sit through a long meal and there is always something happening out of the window.

It varies sharply by operator, so take the operator's own words rather than a general claim about the river. Uber Boat by Thames Clippers says all its piers are step-free and wheelchair accessible except Cadogan, London Bridge City and Wandsworth Riverside Quarter, where the brow can become too steep depending on the tide, and it recognises the Sunflower Lanyard scheme. City Cruises asks passengers to disclose a disability at the time of booking, says all passengers must be physically able to walk on to the boats with an able-bodied helper, does not permit electric wheelchairs, and has a maximum of two wheelchair spaces per boat. Those two positions are genuinely different, which is exactly why nothing here says "Thames cruises are wheelchair accessible". If mobility is a factor, message the operator through the listing before you pay.

Set expectations first: the lunch, afternoon tea and dinner cruises serve a set menu cooked in a galley on a moving boat, and they are a good evening on the water rather than the best table in London. If the meal is the point, the city has stronger restaurants ashore and a sightseeing fare exists for exactly that reason, at a fraction of the price. On dietary needs the boats vary, so flag vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free or allergy requirements to the operator through the listing when you book rather than assuming a galley can adjust on the night.