Seine River Cruise in Paris: How to Pick the Right Boat

What a Seine river cruise actually is

The idea is simple. You board at the foot of a landmark, the boat heads upstream toward Île de la Cité and Île Saint-Louis, turns around, then comes back down the other side of the islands. An hour later you are back where you started, having passed the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Palais, Les Invalides, Place de la Concorde, the Musée d'Orsay, the Louvre, the Conciergerie and Notre-Dame. From the Eiffel Tower piers and from Pont de l'Alma, boats always set off upstream first, toward Notre-Dame; only the Pont Neuf company does the opposite and heads downstream to the Eiffel Tower first.

A sightseeing boat does not pass under all 37 bridges of Paris: a one-hour loop goes under about twenty of them, including Pont Alexandre III, Pont des Arts, Pont Neuf (the oldest) and Pont de Sully, where the boat turns. Boats move slowly, because commercial traffic is limited to 12 km/h inside Paris, which leaves plenty of time for photos.

All the big boats have a covered, heated lower deck and an open upper deck, and they sail all year. In French, people say "bateau-mouche" for any sightseeing boat: the word has become generic, a bit like "Kleenex". But Bateaux-Mouches® is also a trademark, the name of a single company that boards at Pont de l'Alma. So if a French friend tells you to "take a bateau-mouche", any of the boats below will do; if you buy a Bateaux Mouches ticket, you are going to the Alma pier and nowhere else.

The six main companies and where they board

Six companies cover nearly everything that gets booked. The first four sell the one-hour narrated sightseeing cruise, the fifth is a hop-on hop-off shuttle, and the sixth only does dinners. The prices below are the lowest adult fares published on each company's own website.

Watch out for the two Eiffel Tower piers: Bateaux Parisiens and Vedettes de Paris are neighbors, but Pont d'Iéna stands between them. Check the company name on your ticket before you walk down to the quay. The interactive board below lists every company, with the prices we found on the three booking platforms and the official fare.

Sightseeing, night, dinner or private boat: how to choose

You have an hour and a small budget: take the narrated sightseeing cruise. It is the most reviewed option in Paris, around €15 to €20 online, with departures roughly every 30 to 45 minutes. Our side-by-side comparison of the four companies is on the one-hour Seine cruise page, and the relaxed "just get on a boat" approach is covered in Paris boat tours.

You want to see Paris lit up: the same cruise after dark, at the same price. In our opinion it is the best deal in town. Everything is explained in Seine night cruise.

You want dinner: budget around €60 for a simple menu and well over €100 for the big names. At the two largest companies, the early sitting (6 pm or 6:15 pm) lasts about 1h15, while the 8:30 pm sitting runs over two hours, under the lights. See Seine dinner cruise.

You are celebrating something: a small private boat with a skipper, a few hundred euros for a group, your playlist and your champagne. See private Seine cruise.

The table below shows that the most booked sightseeing cruise in Paris, the one run by Bateaux Parisiens, costs the same on all three platforms we compare.

Book the 1-hour cruise from the Eiffel Towerfrom €18Affiliate link: if you book, we earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

What a Seine river cruise costs, option by option

On the companies' own websites, the one-hour narrated cruise costs €15 online at Vedettes du Pont Neuf, €17 at Bateaux Mouches, and €18 at both Bateaux Parisiens and Vedettes de Paris. At the ticket window, add €2 to €3: €20 at Bateaux Parisiens and Bateaux Mouches, €21 at Vedettes de Paris, €17 at Pont Neuf. Children pay roughly half price and under-4s ride free, but the age bands change from one company to the next.

The 24-hour Batobus pass costs €23 and lets you hop on and off at its nine stops, with no commentary. Drinks cruises (one glass, some music) sit between €20 and €40. With a meal, lunch starts around €70 to €80; dinner starts around €60 at Paris en Scène (water only), €75 on the Capitaine Fracasse, €90 to €115 at Bateaux Mouches and Bateaux Parisiens, and goes up to €250 before drinks on the Michelin-starred Don Juan II. A private boat for six costs €390 to €800 for an hour and a half.

On our partner platforms, the price shown is usually the company's own online fare: booking through us does not cost you more. Cancellation terms depend on each ticket and are shown before you pay. Every fare table is on Seine river cruise tickets and prices.

Night cruises and the sparkling Eiffel Tower

In the evening the Seine looks like a different river: the quays light up, the Conciergerie turns gold, the bridges are reflected in the water. The Eiffel Tower sparkles for five minutes at the start of every hour after dark, until at least 11 pm; on some evenings, especially in summer, it carries on later — check the tower's website for the day.

No company times its departures to the sparkle, but a boat that leaves 20 to 25 minutes before the hour usually has the tower in view at the right moment, on the way back. In winter it is dark before 6 pm, so a 5 pm departure is already a night cruise; in June you have to wait until nearly 11 pm. The best compromise, in our view, is September: sunset around 8 pm, first sparkle at 9 pm, and a single hour on the boat to catch both.

The table below gives, month by month, the time of sunset, of nightfall and of the likely first sparkle. For more detail, read Seine sunset cruise and Eiffel Tower sparkle.

See the evening cruise with musicfrom €25Affiliate link: if you book, we earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Dinner, lunch or brunch: Seine cruises with a meal

A dinner on the Seine is not one product but a dozen very different companies. The two big operators at the Eiffel Tower and Alma run an early sitting of about 1h15 (6:15 pm at Bateaux Parisiens, 6 pm at Bateaux Mouches) and a longer 8:30 pm sitting with music: 2h30 at Bateaux Parisiens, about 2h15 at Bateaux Mouches. Bateaux Parisiens turns away jeans and sneakers in the evening; the other companies are more relaxed, and the Capitaine Fracasse, the Diamant Bleu and the Théo have no dress code at all.

Drinks make all the difference to the price: the entry menu at Bateaux Mouches' 8:30 pm sitting includes water only, while Bateaux Parisiens includes wine from its first menu. A window seat is guaranteed only with certain menus. Our pages on the budget dinner cruise, the luxury dinner cruise and getting a window seat sort all of this out.

At lunchtime, Bateaux Parisiens sails every day at 12:45 pm, Bateaux Mouches only on weekends and public holidays; on Sundays the Capitaine Fracasse serves brunch while cruising. It is all on lunch and brunch cruises.

Book the 8:30 pm dinner cruise from the Eiffel Towerfrom €115Affiliate link: if you book, we earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

With kids: children, strollers, wheelchairs

An hour on a boat is one of the few Paris visits that holds a six-year-old's attention from start to finish: things move, there is a lot to see, and you can step out on deck. Under-4s ride free with all four sightseeing companies. After that, the child fare stops at 11 at Bateaux Parisiens and Vedettes de Paris, at 12 at Pont Neuf, and runs through age 12 (under 13) at Bateaux Mouches.

Some cruises are designed for them: the Bateaux Parisiens "Les Incollables®" quiz (booklet in French), the Vedettes de Paris family cruise for ages 6–13 with a captain's certificate, the afternoon-snack cruise at Vedettes du Pont Neuf, and an amphibious bus sold on the platforms which, according to the listing, drives through Paris and then splashes into the river at Sèvres.

For wheelchair users, the two best-equipped companies are Vedettes de Paris (ramp from Pont de Bir-Hakeim, dedicated space on board) and Bateaux Parisiens (limited spaces, mention it when booking). Pont Neuf, with its stairs, is difficult. For strollers, bring a folding model and check with the company. All our advice: Seine cruise with kids and best Seine cruise for families.

Small private boats, Batobus, the canal and combos

Small private boat: in Paris, every private boat on the Seine comes with a skipper, because license-free boats are banned on the river inside the city. Expect €390 to €800 for 1h30 for up to six people, more on a yacht. Proposals and birthdays have their own pages: proposal cruise and bachelorette and birthday cruise.

Batobus: a shuttle, not a guided tour. Nine stops from the Eiffel Tower to the Jardin des Plantes, a loop of about two hours, and a 24- or 48-hour pass. Ideal if you want to get around by boat between two museums. See Batobus.

Canal Saint-Martin: a different, more intimate atmosphere, with four double locks (nine chambers) and a tunnel of about 2 km under Bastille. Cruises there are one-way and take about 2h30. See Canal Saint-Martin cruise.

Combos: a museum ticket and a sightseeing cruise sold together. The most logical pairing is the Musée d'Orsay, a three-minute walk from Port de Solférino. See museum + cruise combos, and for the holidays, Christmas and New Year's Eve.

Piers, weather, floods: the practical side

Arrive 15 to 20 minutes before departure: bags are checked at Bateaux Parisiens, which turns away suitcases, as does the Batobus (there is no luggage storage on site). Bateaux Parisiens and Bateaux Mouches sightseeing tickets are open-dated and valid for a year; meal cruises are dated and leave at a fixed time.

It is cooler on the water than in the streets. In winter, stay on the heated, glassed-in lower deck and step out for five minutes for photos; in summer the upper deck is in high demand, so board among the first. The best months to go from daylight to darkness in a single cruise are April–May and August–September.

Floods are a winter and spring affair: above 4.30 m on the Austerlitz gauge, navigation is banned through Paris and every cruise stops, usually for a few days. Before that point, some arms of the river close and the route is shortened without notice.

The piers, their metro stations and how to reach them are described one by one on Seine cruise piers. What you see, bank by bank, is on what you see from the Seine, and the "how long, which day, what time" question is answered on how long and when to go.

Paris to Rouen, Honfleur or Le Havre over several days

A "Seine river cruise" can also mean a multi-day river cruise from Paris to Normandy on a floating hotel. That is a different product: usually seven nights, with Rouen, Caudebec, Honfleur or Le Havre as the furthest point, and more than a thousand euros per person, often several thousand (CroisiEurope lists its eight-day itinerary from about €1,659). We have no partner for these cruises: we present them honestly, line by line, and send you to their own websites.

Our Seine river cruises to Normandy page compares the lines, the ships and the furthest point of each itinerary; Rouen and Honfleur explains how to see those towns on a day trip. If you are arriving by cruise ship at Le Havre or by Eurostar from London, the from London or Le Havre page tells you which cruise to fit into a day in Paris.

Our reviews of the companies, and the rest of the guide

We have taken the sightseeing cruises and the dinners, read the terms and conditions and checked the piers. Each company has its own review: what it does well, what to know before booking (evening dress code, cancellation, window seats, wheelchair access), and a score out of five. The big four sightseeing companies come first: Bateaux Parisiens, Bateaux Mouches, Vedettes de Paris and Vedettes du Pont Neuf. Then come the restaurant boats, the Batobus and the canal companies.

Two things worth knowing. Cancellation terms vary a lot: no cancellation at all at Bateaux Parisiens, a refund up to 24 hours before at Vedettes de Paris for a timed online ticket, a sliding scale at Pont Neuf. And no platform is "the official website": we compare GetYourGuide, Tiqets and Headout on this page, and the full list of companies is on Seine cruise companies.

If you are still undecided, our pick of the best Seine river cruise decides for you by traveler type, and the Seine cruise catalog sorts every offer by type, with filters by pier and by platform. The pages below cover each big question.

CruisesAll cruisesfrom €18 Cruises1-hour cruisefrom €17 Evening & nightNight cruisefrom €17 At the tableDinner cruisefrom €59 Private & combosPrivate cruisefrom €80 CombosMuseum + cruise combosfrom €29 PracticalTickets & pricesfrom €17 PracticalBest Seine cruisefrom €18 PracticalWith kidsfrom €17 PracticalPiersfrom €18

Frequently asked questions