Songo River Queen II — Attraction in Naples

I honestly feel duped. The website and Google Photos make a big show of the “Songo River Queen II,” but what we actually boarded was its sad little cousin: the “River Princess.” Picture a single-deck boat with a fake paddlewheel, plastic folding chairs, and battered old flea-market tables. It’s more backyard graduation party than river cruise. And funny enough, you’ll find almost no pictures of the “Princess” online. That’s no accident.

The onboard commentary? Dull enough to make an audiobook of the phone book sound thrilling. And the “scenery” was basically a slow crawl past the front and back yards of wealthy lakefront homes — punctuated by shirtless, leather-skinned boomers pounding drinks on their party boats. Congratulations, you too can gawk at someone else’s landscaping (and questionable tan lines) for an hour.

I booked this as a birthday surprise for my wife, brought our kids, and instead spent the trip silently apologizing. Maybe the “Queen II” delivers something closer to what’s advertised, but the “Princess” was a royal letdown.

If your idea of fun is drinking cheap beer in plastic folding chairs while riding what can only be described as the Temu version of a riverboat, you might actually enjoy it. Oh, and snacks? Don’t worry — they’ve got you covered: Swedish Fish. Or… Swedish Fish.

For us, it was less “river cruise” and more “River Disaster.” A total waste of...

A nice way to spend a couple of hours relaxing on the water. I took the 12pm-2pm trip on a Friday in late August. What I wish I knew in advance: There is food available on the boat but it’s limited: slices of pizza, steamed hot dogs, and I heard there were burgers but I didn’t see anyone ordering or eating them. There were small bags of chips, etc. There was soda, water, and alcoholic drinks. Only one person staffed the bar where all food and drink was sold so there was a wait to get your order. If I go again I would bring my own drinks and sandwiches. I did bring a light jacket and I needed it at times. There are bathrooms on board the boat (none on the dock). The price was reasonable: $35 each for adults. Boarding started a half hour before departure. Also: the FRONT of the boat is butt up to the dock so this is good to know if you want to sit in the front of the boat. We went up to the top deck and were surprised to see that a small number of people took ALL of the seating at the front. The red benches which should have easily accommodated 2 people were all taken up by only 1 person. This was disappointing. Overall, though, it was fun and I would...

The Good: Not a bad cruise for the price and the tour guide and captain were helpful and friendly. The kids liked the cruise since they were given the chance to drive the boat and the onboard bar with snacks was nice. Overall pleasant cruise even on a rainy day, which was the case when we went.

The Bad: We had a couple of elderly people in our party and due to the rain they could not attend the cruise. I was very disappointed when the owner refused to refund us the tickets from our online purchase ahead of time. I do not expect the public daily cruises to fill up and would NOT recommend anyone purchasing tickets online ahead of your trip. I also expected the boat to travel the whole length of Long Lake, but it only went half way and back. It would have been nice to see a cruise travel plan on the website to set expectations. Also there were a lot of elderly/seniors on board that were very rude to the younger...