Gateway Arch Riverboats

We had a good time. Food was alright but super salty green beans. The trip is pretty late at night so it was very dark and you don't get to see a lot. Not sure there's a ton to see except for the arch. I thought the service and live music was good.

Great boat ride! Not a working sternwheeler (diesel engine) but very enjoyable to ride on a historically themed boat. Very informative tour to learn about St. Louis history, including local industry/economy, interesting facts, and notable structures. Would do again. Combined tour with arch tram tour.

Would agree with other reviewers that the picture part was absurd and highly priced. They’d sell a lot more and reduce waste (they print all the photos) if it was more reasonably priced such as $15 package or so. $35 is ridiculous.

We went on the cruise as part of a family road trip, after visiting the Gateway Arch and the museum. The cruise was generally pleasant and relaxed, with a nice breeze on a hot summer day.

It's well organized, the staff is helpful, and it was interesting to hear explanations about what we were seening (mostly the back side of old industrial buildings). We did get some great views of the Gateway arch.

The main downside is the high price, and the very wasteful practice of taking photos of each party, then printing them very large, and trying to sell them for $35, very unreasonable.

It would be much better to only take photos of people who are interested in buying, and to offer different size prints, like 4x6 or 5x7. Otherwise printing and throwing out hundreds of large photos every week- is very wasteful and foolish.

Overall- the cruise is nice if you have a lot of time, but not a 'must'. A visit to the zoo may be more fun, and admission is free.

I basically just wanted to get a boat ride on the Mississippi, the actual tour part you have to understand there's not really much to see along the river. We went under three bridges and got the history of the bridges, some history of St Louis and the expansion of America west of the Mississippi. I mean what does anybody expect? You can see from the river it's not very scenic, it's industrial. A lot of people are complaining about it. What did they expect to turn a corner and see pyramids or something? Anyway I thought the staff was friendly. It is hard to navigate the boat if you have disabilities. I had a Diet Coke it was reasonably priced. I was sitting near the speaker so I was able to hear pretty well.

The one thing that I absolutely did not like was them taking a picture of you before getting on board and then walking around while you were trying to listen to the narration and trying to hawk the silly picture of you to you, for $35!!! I told them no way. That's more than I paid for the tour which I thought was a little overpriced at 26 dollars.

I have no regrets about going. Others are upset over the lack of things to see. I suggest maybe going down to Memphis and getting a boat ride there.

There was a need for more chairs outside. Had to scrounge some up from here and there.

The cruise was fun and educational. The crew was pretty friendly. We don’t get the dinner cruise.

It was fun for a tourist or someone who hasn’t experienced it but it was one time thing.

My daughter and I took the riverboat cruise today at 4:30 PM and it was fantastic. It had been raining most of the day and I actually thought that we would get rained out but we didn’t. The clouds broke and the sun even peaked out for us on the cruise.
On our tickets, they asked us to show up 30 minutes early and we did. I think that’s a good call so you can get checked in and get on the boat.
Has three different levels that you could sit on the first and second floors have indoor seating the second floor also has outdoor seating and the top floor is only outdoor seating. The weather was nice so we sat on the top floor.
The boat ride is about an hour. Start heading north going up the river and then you turn around and come back down the river. Our riverboat guide was great. He had a lot of information that he shared with us about the surrounding area so we were able to learn a lot about St. Louis. You can even buy snacks on board. We ended up getting a pretzel with cheese. There are also restrooms on board if you need. And if you visit in the summer and it’s hot, you can rest assured that there’s air-conditioning.

I did the 6 pm cruise tour and it was cool overall. They didn’t talk at all about the importance of steamboats to the development of the Mississippi region or to St Louis which I was surprised by. The staff were great and the views of the arch and riverfront were lovely. I wish they would’ve talked more about the importance of the river, history of steamboat travel, etc. Most of the landmarks they pointed out were the factories and plants that are shut down. So it was a bit of a bummer of a talk. They did talk about the barges and lock system of the river which was super interesting!

The boat had a lot of indoor, air conditioned seating, and some outdoor seating (I wish there had been more). The concession stand has popcorn, soda, drinks, nachos, pretzels and more for reasonable prices. We went really slow and the boat didn’t rock much at all, so I wouldn’t be too concerned about motion sickness.

Overall, a nice way to see more of the city and learn a bit of the history. But I think there was a lot left to be desired.