Chicago Gourmet Dinner Cruise

This was a beautiful boat and experience. We are glad we went on this for our anniversary. We paid the upcharge for the premier plated dinner. In these cases, servers normally take ownership of the table and service. They engage the table, provide details on dinner/evening, and periodically follow up (check up on needs). Our server was very pleasant, but clearly new and inexperienced. We saw her 3 times. Once for initial drink order, once for food order, and once for the bill. We would have ordered additional drinks. The premier dinning was about 50% filled, so not overbooked with tables. We enjoyed the overall experience and will likely come back. The whole evening was almost $500. When you have a higher lever service offering, the primary staff should have some initial training. I believe that was missed and took away from the experience.

The food was not all that great to be advertised as "gourmet". Starting from the limp shrimp cocktail and ending with a pretty common collection of desert choices. The meal itself fell short in many ways. My husbands filler was overcooked and charred on the outside. My salmon was very "wet" with the asparagus very overdone and old looking. The quinoa looked like it had been scooped out with an ice cream scoop and put on the plate. So the meal itself fell short in many aspects. Being on the boat was a great experience although the weather was cold and rainy that evening. Dancing was fun and music was good.

The food was quite good, and the view of Chicago from the lake is breathtaking. The DJ had difficulty getting the right song mix, and my wife and I were looking for more swing/foxtrot music.

Hi - We enjoyed the cruise. The window we sat by was a little cloudy. The most disappointing was that the food was barely warm and it was unclear on how/when to tip the waitstaff or settle up the "extras".

Oof. My husband and I were gifted a boat dinner cruise off of navy pier as a wedding gift. Unfortunately, the trip started off very unorganized as there was not even a single file line to get on but just a chaotic group. The food was sub par and most of it was gone by the time they released our table. They came out with fresh food but only put it on one side of the buffet line so everyone was moving in opposite directions to get it. There were only two bartenders for the entire boat and if you tried to order a drink through your server it took an hour to get (which is unfortunate because I know they would have appreciated the tips). Once our server saw we were going to the bar for drinks she stopped even coming to our table and checking in on us. The two bar tenders even raised their voices at each other in front of many guests at one point because they were also disorganized and chaotic. It felt as if it were the first trip of the summer for this crew but it was mid July when we went so I’m not sure why their ducks weren’t even close to in a row. I definitely recommend using your money elsewhere or with a different boating company. Abby M.

Nate S. This was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had. We initially set up our experience for 08-06-21, but had to change it to 08-20-21. I spoke to a representative to do the changes for us and we’re told we were all set. We were told that the cruise started at 8 o’clock and we needed to be there by 7 and that they would stop loading at 7:30. I printed out the instructions which was about four pages and was told that we needed them in order to get on the boat. As we sat near the entrance we noticed that people were getting on the boat at 6 o’clock. We wondered why they were getting on so soon since the boat wasn’t leaving until 8 o’clock. At around 630 we decided to go ahead and get on the boat. We got in line but when we got to the boat they told us we had to get boarding passes to get on and that the cruise started at 7:00 and not 8:00. I had spoken to folks at least three times regarding the dress code and what time we need to be there and so forth, and I was never told once that we needed to get a boarding pass. All I was told was to bring the confirmation print out. We got in the other line to get the boarding pass. Went back and was allowed on the boat. Once on the boat they said they couldn’t find our reservation and was told to get off the boat and go back to the ticket booth to see if they could figure out if we could get on the boat. After several minutes and with only about three minutes left before they stopped loading folks on the boat we got different boarding passes and we’re finally allowed on the boat. We were told that we had to wait at the bar for the manager to seat us. We had to stand there looking like idiots for 20 minutes while everybody else was being served and enjoying the meal before we got a table. The salad we had had more cheese than lettuce and it was very wilted. At this point we were so disgusted we didn’t even enjoy the cruise. This was supposed to be a cruise but I think it only went out about a 100 yards back and forth. My friends been asking how was the cruise and unfortunately I cannot recommend it at all.

The food was a complete disappointment. The staff was not accommodating, they were unable to accommodate a different seating when requested for. Not worth what we paid for.