Flexible Thames River Cruise - One Way

London, England

High interest

Booked 4 times today.

1 to 2 hours (approx.)
Mobile ticket
Offered in: English

Why travelers loved this

4.1

· Emma_C ·

Jun 2026

Very informative, great service, food and drink on board too. Lovely way to see London by water. Plenty of time slots available

· Katherine_M ·

May 2026

Great way to see the city. You can get a guided tour if you want but don’t have to. Also great way to get from one area to another. Plus you get some very unique views and picture opportunities seeing the city from the river

Overview

Discover a unique perspective on London’s landmarks—and enjoy a relaxing way to explore—on this Thames River boat tour one-way ticket. Enjoy the flexibility to board and disembark when you want from four convenient piers. Take in the views from the upper decks or relax within the cozy indoor salons, and learn more from the accompanying multilingual commentary.

See the sights from London from the perspective of the Thames River
Convenient piers at Westminster, London Eye, Tower, and Greenwich
Learn all about the city’s highlights from the live commentary or the app
Choose to purchase drinks and snacks from the onboard cafe bar

What's Included

Live Commentary on board (English) or language commentary via City Experiences app
A flexible ticket for a single journey
Onboard activities for children, including activity books
Enjoy a fully stocked café/bar on board

Meeting and Pickup

Meeting points

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End points

This activity ends in a different location. See details below:

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Itinerary

Houses of Parliament (Pass By)

London Eye (Pass By)

SEA LIFE London Aquarium (Pass By)

National Theatre (Pass By)

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (Pass By)

HMS Belfast (Pass By)

The Shard (Pass By)

Tower of London (Pass By)

Tower Bridge (Pass By)

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking
Wheelchair accessible
Stroller accessible
Service animals allowed
Near public transportation

Most travelers can participate
Board from Westminster Pier, Tower Pier, London Eye or Greenwich Pier
Tickets are valid between 10am - last available cruise
This tour/activity will have a maximum of 15 travelers

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Cancellation Policy

You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.

Traveler Photos

Gallery picture 1 (from a traveler's review)

Gallery picture 2 (from a traveler's review)

Gallery picture 3 (from a traveler's review)

Gallery picture 4 (from a traveler's review)

Gallery picture 5 (from a traveler's review)

Featured review

Alan_B

The Thames River cruise was the highlight of our London trip. We saw so many historic sights at that level. The ride was very smooth. The tour guide was humorous and informative. We learned so much in a fun way. We highly recommend the Thames River cruise!

Reviews

4.1

based on 268 reviews

Total reviews and rating from Viator & Tripadvisor

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Tips for the Tour

Maria_B, Jul 2026

Wonderfully informative tour. Be sure to start at Greenwich and end at Westminster for the full tour. Bring a hat to sit on top if you go in the summer. Also bring a few pounds to tip the tour guide if you like him or her - not required but appreciated.

Thames boat ride

Seetha_A, Jul 2026

Nice ride on a large boat. Good way to see the London attractions from the river. Live commentary was good.

Lovely day

Emma_C, Jun 2026

Very informative, great service, food and drink on board too. Lovely way to see London by water. Plenty of time slots available

Fun time

Erica_H, Jun 2026

The guide was excellent and so were the views, especially of the Tower Bridge. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get a good view of the Houses of Parliament

An enjoyable experience.

Alison_S, Jun 2026

A very clean vessel and the staff were polite and helpful. Very pleased with the commentary as we sailed along the river too.

Disappointing

Patti_J, Jun 2026

Rude gentleman at the booth- my phone stopped accepting internet just an hour before- I was able to show him the confirmation from you but couldn’t access the tickets so he wouldn’t let us go. This was at 4pm on Friday June 5th. The only time we had available to do the cruise so we weren’t able to do it. I had great experience on all your other tours. My grandson was upset that we couldn’t do this one, as was I. Please refund this money, thank you! Patti.

Thames River

Katherine_M, May 2026

Great trip, comfortable boat.

Jayne_G, May 2026

Comfortable. Clean. Waiter service with QR code. Lovely staff. Staff member, Greg, gave 'free' commentary, told us that he wasn't a professional and it wasn't his job, but would give us a little knowledge as we travelled if we wanted it. At the end of the trip, he suggested a donation would be appreciated, he would have a silver bucket at the exit. He even gave "an idea of how much" referring to a meal, a meal with a pudding, or a meal with a drink too. But said that £5 or £10 would be "acceptable". We really enjoyed his commentary, but gave nothing, because he not only asked for a donation, but had the audacity to suggest an amount. NOT acceptable.

Fab river cruise on Thames in London

Alex_N, May 2026

Guide was great. Staff were very friendly and helpful. Great way to see London’s cityscape and history

Great way to see the sites

Connie_L, Apr 2026

If you want a great view and information regarding the sites along the Thames, this excursion is for you. We took this trip from Westminster Pier to Greenwich. This is a great way to get to the Royal Observatory. It is a steep walk to the Observatory but worth it. We also took the river cruise back to Westminster.

Great view

Katy_D, Apr 2026

Our 'guide' who's not a guide was excellent. Spoke very clearly, pointed out the sights with some nice, sometimes funny, little anecdotes. It's a great way to get yourself down the river for a little more sight seeing once you get there. We did millennium pier to Westminster (which comes up as London eye) but you can just pop across the bridge. We went on to The Graffiti tunnel from here.

River Views

Brenda_S, Mar 2026

A nice way to relax, get a history lesson, and view beautiful architect. It was nice to have the choice of sitting up top or down below where it was much warmer!

Nice

Gowrisankar_A, Nov 2025

Good I booked wrongly . Easy to booking that nice . When near to london eye it easy to go pier very good

Response from Host, Dec 2025

Hi, Thank you for your lovely review, we are so happy you had a great time on your cruise and got to experience the magic of the river! We hope to see you on board again soon kind regards City Cruises

Very Safe and Convenient....

Jean_D, Nov 2025

Very Safe and Convenient. Enables you to travel from on Pier to another whilst sightseeing with a different view from the River Thames. Reasonably priced too, including the items at the bar. The staff were friendly and the lady that did the commentary on our trip was great too!

Beautiful Fall morning on the Thames

Harald_S, Oct 2025

A al fresco way to view London from the Thames & glean snipits of the some of the area & the surrounding buildings along the route from the boat captains dialogue.

More expensive than anticipated.

Diana_R, Sep 2025

If you want to start and end at the same pick up point you must buy a return trip ticket. The tour itself was okay but the unexpected cost of having to purchase a return trip was not.

Response from Host, Nov 2025

Hello, Thank-you for your feedback, If you'd like to discuss your experience further, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at customercomments@citycruise.com. We’d love the opportunity to make things right and welcome you back in the future. Kind regards City Cruises

Thames River cruise was awesome!

Alan_B, Sep 2025

I would give minus stars...

Elizabeth_M, Aug 2025

I would give minus stars if I could. Did not get to do this experience as I never received my tickets.

Response from Host, Nov 2025

Hello, We are very sorry your experience didn't go as expected. We would like to hear more about this. Please can you kindly contact customercomments@citycruises.com and we will get back to you. Kind regards

Perfect Ending

Rhonda_F, Aug 2025

This is a must! We caught our boat as a last minute ride from tge Tower of London to Westminster. The boat was packed and we had no where to sit. We ended up standing in the upper deck in the very back of the boat. It was spectacular!!! The views were awesome. It was right before sunset on a very warm and sunny day. We were able to see venues in a completely different way. Up close and panoramic views. Landed at Westminster Pier right before Big Ben chimed at 19:00. Perfect end to our six day visit.

Thames river cruise

DrTerra_F, Jul 2025

It was a little shorter than I expected but I may have not read the fine print. = ). I loved that they had drinks and food as well

Felt mislead and incredibly rude staff member.

Thomas_E, Jul 2025

When booking this, please note that even if it says 1-2 hours, it’s not! Half an hour max when the boat actually starts moving. It as well advertised that you will be dropped off at the same meeting points. This is as well not the case. Instead we were dropped off at another pier and when we contested this, we were met by an incredibly rude guy who just said get off the boat and when we informed him on what their conditions we brought the tickets at, he walked away and just randomly starting shouting for us to get off the boat. We reported this to a nicer staff member who informed us that the 3rd party we booked on, is the one to blame and it’s not the accurate information related to their boat tour and apologised on behalf of the claims that he is one of the drivers and he’s always like this?? Disgraceful customer service and feeling robbed with the misleading advertising of their service. And now looking at other reviews, it seems to this is a frequent problem but they fail to address or fix any of the issues reported.

Great experience

Shivani_S, Jul 2025

Very nice experience Great views Staff was very friendly I traveled with kids but it was very smooth and comfortable ride. Thanks

Shockingly short.

Joelle_S, Jul 2025

The tour finished before it started. Advrrtised as lasting between 1 to 2 hours, ended up being less than 20 minutes long. A rip off.

Not as advertised

Anonymous, Jul 2025

There are actual boarding times that are not provided on the tickets or email communication. You cannot just drop by whenever you want. We were under the impression that this would be a round-trip that would take, in total, one to two hours. We got on board at the London Eye. We took a half hour journey to the Tower of London pier. Unfortunately, it started to pour and all the guests ended up on the bottom floor, so as to be covered. Unfortunately, the tour guide remained on the top floor, and we could not hear any of his commentary. When we stopped at the Tower of London, the guide announced that the boat would then proceed to Greenwich, where it would dock for another half an hour before taking the half hour trip back to the Tower of London. It would then proceed back to our boarding point. We were taken aback by this new information that the boat would stay docked for 30 minutes. We had not accounted for this timetable. This tour was not what was advertised and we ended up disembarking at the Tower of London. We basically paid for a 30 minute boat ride in the rain. At the end, the tour guide asked repeatedly for folks to provide him with a tip. What a disappointment.

Response from Host, Jul 2025

Hello, Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review about our flexible sightseeing ticket. We are sorry if there were some misunderstandings with the timetable. The flexible ticket if for all sightseeing cruises but you have to look at the timetable. We run an every 40 minute schedule. We are sorry about the weather but this is something we cannot control and understand it can be busy on the lower deck. Kind regards City Cruises

Beautiful experience

Stewart_S, Jun 2025

Except for being a little hard to find the actual port we left from, it was an outstanding excursion

Response from Host, Jun 2025

Hello, Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review, we are delighted to hear you had an outstanding experience! We appreciate your feedback and will look into ways to improve our signage if you found it difficult to find us. Kind regards City Cruises

Viator disappoints

Mariana_S, Jun 2025

Fully flexible is a farce. The boat company cancelled the boat that worked best alongside my full itinerary and then Viator did nothing to refund me. You buy flexible so that the time that works best for you is there. Very disappointed in Viator who gave no notice of the cancellation and refused to refund. Instead we were left scrambling to get to our next tour on time.

Response from Host, Jun 2025

Hello, Thank you for leaving us a review. We are sorry your experience didn't go as planned. We would like to look into this further. Please could you kindly message our customer relations team customercomments@citycruises.com. Kind regards City Cruises

Make sure you have printed tickets.

Karen_F, May 2025

Got to the pier. The app was supposed to go to the email with the ticket on it but I didn’t have an email. I had a booking reference and evidence I had booked but no go. And Contact Support? Yeah don’t bother

This was a fun way to see...

Beth_F, Apr 2025

This was a fun way to see many of the sights in London. Our guide Dave was funny and knowledgeable. It was very easy to use the flexible timing of the tickets.

Worth the ride, even in freeing temperatures!

Julie_L, Jan 2025

Staff snack bar was extremely friendly. Commentary was informative with a comedic touch. Would take the trip again.

Short but sweet

Christine_l, Jan 2025

Short journey from the Tower of London to Westminster, but the captain of the boat was engaging and friendly. He gave interesting information about the various sites we passed.