Bateaux Parisiens review: Seine river cruise and dinner cruise

Sightseeing cruise, Notre-Dame, lunch and dinner: what you see, what you pay and where the catches are. To see how Bateaux Parisiens stacks up against the rest, start with our Seine cruise companies page.

Who Bateaux Parisiens is, and what it sells

Behind the brand sit two companies registered at Port de la Bourdonnais, SEVPTE and Seino Vision, both part of the Sodexo Live! group. According to Wikipedia, the company dates from 1956 and has belonged to Sodexo since 1987; the French travel trade press adds that Sodexo Live! also runs the Batobus and Yachts de Paris.

The range comes in five families. The one-hour sightseeing cruise from the Eiffel Tower, with its variants (a Les Incollables® quiz for kids, a crêpe add-on). The Notre-Dame & Champagne cruise, a separate product that boards at Quai de Montebello from April to September. The 12:45 pm lunch and the 6:15 pm and 8:30 pm dinner cruises. The holiday dates, covered on our Christmas and New Year's Eve page. And, on the quay itself, the restaurant Le Bistro Parisien, sold as a package with a one-hour cruise.

A word on names, because it confuses a lot of visitors. In French, "bateau-mouche" is used loosely for any sightseeing boat in Paris, but in English Bateaux Mouches is a company name, and Bateaux Parisiens has nothing to do with the Compagnie des Bateaux-Mouches®, which sails from Pont de l'Alma.

Sightseeing

GetYourGuide1 hourEiffel Tower

Paris: Seine Cruise departing from the Eiffel Tower Web Rate

4.4 (91,857)

from €18Check dates

Combo

HeadoutEiffel Tower

Combo: Paradox Museum Entry Tickets + Bateaux Parisiens Seine River Sightseeing Cruise

4.7 (12,206)

from €45Check dates

Dinner

GetYourGuide2.5 hoursEiffel Tower

Paris: 3-Course-Dinner Cruise on the Seine with live music

4.7 (8,948)

from €115Check dates

Lunch & brunch

GetYourGuide2 hoursEiffel Tower

Paris: Lunch Cruise with 3-course menu from the Eiffel Tower

4.7 (5,401)

from €79Check dates

Sightseeing

TiqetsEiffel Tower

Seine River: Cruise by Bateaux Parisiens

4.3 (9,984)

from €18Check dates

Lunch & brunch

HeadoutEiffel Tower

Bateaux Parisiens Seine River Lunch Cruise with French Menu

4.6 (4,411)

from €79Check dates

Bateaux Parisiens on GetYourGuide →Bateaux Parisiens on Tiqets →Bateaux Parisiens on Headout →Prices checked on October 17, 2026

The route: upstream first, turning at Île Saint-Louis

From pontoon 3, the sightseeing cruise heads upstream, east. It runs past Les Invalides, the Assemblée nationale, the Musée d'Orsay and the Institut de France, slides past Île de la Cité (the Conciergerie, Notre-Dame), carries on to Île Saint-Louis and turns. The return leg follows the right bank: Hôtel de Ville, the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, the Grand Palais, the Palais de Chaillot and the Eiffel Tower. In an hour you pass under about 20 bridges, not under all of the 37 that Paris has.

The Statue of Liberty on Île aux Cygnes is not promised on the one-hour cruise: the company's own pages contradict each other, so we do not guarantee it. It is, however, part of the longer "black route" used by the 12:45 pm lunch and the 8:30 pm dinner, which run from the statue all the way to the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The 6:15 pm dinner follows the shorter "orange route" of the sightseeing cruise.

When the river is in flood, the route can change without notice. The monuments, bank by bank, are on our what you see from the Seine page.

The fleet: glass trimarans and restaurant boats

The sightseeing boats are named after French stars. The four trimarans, Pierre Bellon, Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau and Isabelle Adjani, are fully glazed, with an open top deck and outside walkways. Alongside them run the launches Jean Marais (107 seats, the Notre-Dame boat) and Yves Montand, and two panoramic boats, Juliette Gréco and Brigitte Bardot. For dining there are the Bretagne, Diamant II, Cristal II and Onyx.

In practice you do not get to pick your boat: it is assigned according to how full the departure is, and the company does not publish capacities. On the sightseeing cruise you are guaranteed a seat, but it may be on the heated, glassed-in lower deck or on the open upper deck. In summer the top deck fills up as soon as boarding starts, and that is where you want to be for photos.

Every boat has restrooms; on the restaurant boats they are down a flight of stairs, and the accessible restrooms are on pontoons 5 and 7. According to the regional tourist board, Pierre Bellon, Juliette Gréco and Brigitte Bardot are step-free.

Bateaux Parisiens prices: official site, ticket office and booking platforms

On the company's website the sightseeing cruise costs €18 per adult and €9 for ages 4 to 11 online, against €20 and €10 at the ticket office. Under 4s ride free; from 12, it is the adult fare. The crêpe version starts at about €21 per adult, and the Les Incollables® quiz costs €12 per child online. The Paris tourist office's ticket shop even lists it from €17.

On our three partner platforms we found the company's online fare, €18. The table compares the prices we recorded with the official ticket-office fare.

For the meal cruises, the price gap mostly comes from the service you pick. A platform's cheapest offer may be the 6:15 pm dinner (from €99) rather than the 8:30 pm one (from €115), so check the time before comparing. On the company's site the 8:30 pm dinner then climbs from €115 (Étoile) to €245 (Premier Baie Vitrée). Our platform-by-platform comparison is on GetYourGuide, Tiqets or Headout.

Booking and boarding: open tickets, dated meals, no cancellation

Sightseeing cruise tickets are open-dated: no departure time, valid for a year, good on any sailing, and no reservation needed for groups under 20. Once you are inside the boarding area, your ticket is for the next boat, and if you leave, you cannot come back in.

Meal cruises and the Notre-Dame cruise are dated, and here Bateaux Parisiens is the strictest company in Paris: its terms and conditions say every booking is "final, non-cancellable" and non-refundable. A date change is sometimes accepted by phone, possibly for a fee; if the boat cannot sail, you get a pro-rata reduction. On holiday dates, you pay everything at booking. On a platform, the conditions depend on the listing and are shown before you pay.

On the day, the sightseeing ticket office is at pontoon 3; meal-cruise check-in is at pontoons 5 (Bourdonnais) and 7 (Debilly). Take Métro Bir-Hakeim (line 6) or Trocadéro (6, 9), or RER C to Champ de Mars–Tour Eiffel. Drivers should use the public car park of the Musée du Quai Branly. Bags are checked and suitcases refused, with no left-luggage. The other piers are in our Seine pier guide. Main switchboard: +33 1 76 64 14 45 (the reservations line is premium-rate).

The experience, product by product

The one-hour sightseeing cruise

The flagship does its job well. On the lower deck you get a wired audio guide in about 14 languages, backed by a hostess on the microphone; a web app takes over on your phone if you bring earphones. From April to September, boats leave roughly every 30 minutes from 10 am to 10:30 pm (none at 1 pm and 7:30 pm), until 11 pm at weekends and every day in July and August. From October to March, about one an hour from 10:30 am to 10 pm, with longer hours at weekends and in school holidays. How it compares with the other companies: one-hour Seine cruise.

At night, on the same cruise

The evening departures are the same cruise at the same price. 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. A boat that leaves 20 to 25 minutes before the hour usually brings you back facing the tower at the right moment. The details are on our Eiffel Tower sparkle page.

Notre-Dame & Champagne

From April to September, four departures (5 pm, 7 pm, 8:30 pm, 10 pm) leave Quai de Montebello, facing the cathedral, on the Jean Marais. One hour with a live guide, in French and English only, and a glass of champagne, a beer or a soft drink with a biscuit. On the company's site: €39 per adult, €30 for ages 4 to 11, free under 4. Tickets are dated and non-cancellable; if you miss your Notre-Dame boat, the ticket is accepted at the Eiffel Tower pier, but never the other way round. No wheelchair access. Other glasses on the water: Seine champagne cruise.

The 12:45 pm lunch and the dinner cruises

Lunch (every day except 1 January) and the 8:30 pm dinner (back at 11 pm) follow the long route; only the dinner has live music. The 6:15 pm service is shorter, with no music and no birthday or romantic options. Drinks and wine are included, and there is always a vegetarian menu. A window table is guaranteed only in Privilège or Premier Baie Vitrée, and the €40 child price exists only in Étoile. The dress code is smart: jeans, sneakers, flip-flops, shorts and caps are refused. See our pages on getting a window seat, dinner cruises with live music and the early dinner cruise.

Who Bateaux Parisiens suits best

A first Seine river cruise near the Eiffel Tower. You leave a few steps from the tower, boats are frequent, and the open ticket lets you choose the time on the day: it is the simplest choice for a first trip to Paris.

Groups that speak different languages. An audio guide in about 14 languages is the widest offer we could verify; the live guides at the competition speak French and English.

Families. A child fare up to age 11, the Les Incollables® quiz (the kit is in French), restrooms on board. See also our Seine cruise with kids page.

The full-length dinner. The 8:30 pm sailing, with two and a half hours on the water, live music and the long route out to the BnF, is in our view one of the most complete dinner cruises on the Seine. The 6:15 pm works if you like to eat early.

Skip it if you want to be able to cancel a dinner (Bateaux Mouches refunds you more than 72 hours ahead), if you plan to dine in jeans, if you want a live guide on the sightseeing cruise (Vedettes du Pont Neuf, Vedettes de Paris), or if you use a wheelchair and have your heart set on the Notre-Dame cruise.

The verdict: strengths, weaknesses and our rating

Bateaux Parisiens FAQ