Paris Seine — Restaurant in Paris

We boarded and all was well but things went downhill from there. They assign the seats....85% of the seats are along the windows....15% are in the middle..this is where you don't want to be. We were seated in the absolute worst table in the middle (away from the windows) and right by the table with all the wine and liquor. Also right by the table where the staff corrals all of their dishes. Bottles clanking, plates and utensils banging around all night literally inches away from our table. When the professional photographer came by our pots were with bottles and dirty dishes int he background....everyone else on the boat got their photos with scenic Paris bridges or river views. There's not really anyplace else to go to get photos other than right at your table. You can't go outside...the windows are closed. All photos that you take and everything that you see is through glass........with corresponding reflection in the glass in your photos.

It took forever before we could get some water to drink...I figured water of some kind must be included? Wrong!.....we ordered a large bottle of water for 11 Euro! What a rip...for $71 Euro each you think you might get tap water for free. A bottle of water costs 15% of the trip!

The menu had four main course choices...chicken, cod fish, steak and vegetarian. I was taken aback because if you wanted the steak.....it was $7 Euro extra!. I paid $71 Euro PP for a cruise and dinner and I'm getting nickel and dimed for water and steak! Cheese plates with $6 Euro extra. Wine was something like $37 Euro for a bottle if you wanted that.

Two Asian guys were at the table in front of us...apparently they wanted to change seats to an unoccupied table near a window and I heard the waitperson say no problem...for an extra $20 Euro!

We had the worst seats int the house and their was an unoccupied table for four near a window,,,,,,no one offered to move us. The table sat empty all night.

Forget about ordering drinks.....we we lucky to get water because the wait people seem overworked and underpaid. Our water was gone and the appetizer course had already been served before we were offered any other drinks. If you wanted another drink ..forget it trying to flag down your waitperson...she was almost non existent.

Then things got worse....the cruise left at 9:15 PM...it took 25 minutes for the appetizer to arrive. Then we were abandoned. We saw every other table get their main courses, then their dessert course and we waited and waited and waited for our main course. At 10:35 the waitperson apologized and said 5 more minutes. We were starving and everyone else on the boat was done with dessert. The crusie only goes until 11:15...it was more than an hour from our appetizer to the main course. It seems they didn't make enough food and we, the people in the worst possible table, din't get fed on time. Finally the food arrives...I think they had to cook it special for us ...like they have never done this cruise before and it was the first time. The chicken was disappointing...dry...overcooked. The vegetarian meal was just ok and the cod fish was fairly decent. But we were ready to gnaw our arms off we were so hungry watching everyone but us eat (No..I didn't pay the extra $7 for the steak).

The waitress said we could have a bottle of wine complimentary...I politely told her no...we want our money back. She said she would send the manager over...no one bothered to come by..we and our concerns were ignored.

Also, there is zero narration about what you are cruising by...everyone is on their own to identify the sights..this cruise just played music.

Three years ago in Paris we took a Bateaux Parisian dinner crusie ...it was much better than this cruise. We could go outside and we had a better seats, better meal, much better service and a bigger boat that we could go outside if we wanted to. Bateux Parisian also had some narration so we knew what the heck we were cruising past.

This cruise was a...

The experience was a comedy of errors. While waiting to board you could see the staff rushing to set up. Normally I would be lenient in my review because they obviously had some issues this day but they never seemed to care about the experience of the guests so I will provide the actual account.

Boarding didn’t start until 10 minutes late and was extremely slow. Several guests were in line for the wrong boat which slowed the boarding process. When we finally boarded (at 9:15 the scheduled departure time) they were only half way through the line of people waiting to board. Since the other boat had left those who were in line on our boat were squeezed in. There was barely any space to get in our out of our table as the chairs were completely pushed up against the chairs behind us on both sides.

We got to our table which was only set for 3 guests (although I had booked for 4). Unfortunately (fortunately?) my husband wasn’t feeling up to coming at the last minute so there were only 3 of us. Thankfully I had preordered a bottle of champagne that was on our table otherwise we wouldn’t have had anything for an hour into the trip. The waiter that seated us got distracted by the fact we only had 3 chairs (they never brought a 4th) and disappeared never to be seen for the remainder of the cruise, so I wound up opening the bottle of champagne myself and serving it to our party. He also forgot to leave us with the menus.

About 30 minutes into the cruise, after at least half the boat had been served appetizers, a server brought us 2 plates of bread. This server was the only person who was polite and personable, I wish I would have gotten his name but he was a young man who seemed to be new. He brought us 2 plates because we were supposed to have 4 people at our table. We started eating the bread, one of our guests broke off a piece and placed the remainder of the roll back into the serving bowl as there were no bread plates. Another server walked by, seemed mad we had 2 bowls of bread and snatched the second bowl (with the half eaten roll) off of our table.

About 10 minutes later a server came by with appetizers, however they were not for our table because we had not ordered yet. After this another waiter came by with 1 copy of the menu for our table. We did eventually place our order (with yet another waiter) and were finally served (the last table to be served). The fish was good. The guest who had beef (€9 up charge) could only tolerate half because it was extremely chewy and not very well prepared. The chicken was ok but dry.

We had also preordered the cheese plate (€8 per person for 4 people). However since only 3 of us were there we had asked for the €8 to be applied to the €9 beef charge. The manager argued with us that he would not do this. Even though we had also paid for 4 guests and only 3 actually came. Small thing in my opinion, but we wound up losing the argument and paid the €9.

After we finished our champagne, sometime before the cheese course, we had looked for a waiter to assist us with more drinks. We were even out of water by this point. No one ever checked on us to see if we needed anything else. They were too busy.

As I mentioned at the beginning it was obvious they had something go wrong prior to the cruise and if that had been all of it I would have laughed this off and had a good time, however things never improved. This experience was €500, with the “VIP window seat” which was crushed in between other tables, was the last to be served, and every table with more than 2 guests was a window table. Nothing VIP about this up-charge.

I would not recommend this company. There are many other options available, I suggest you try one if...

Wow was this place bad. With the exception of the non-service crew and the singer, this was the worst experience that I have ever had and was a complete waste of money. If you are reading this, click the back button real quick and find something - really anything - else. The fact that Viator has this on their site and recommends this is making me reconsider ever purchasing anything through them again. If you are still here and want to know why I vehemently recommend that you run away... here goes.

This is not the boat in the picture. Also, you like how it looks nice and spatious? Also not how it is going to be. Seems super romantic, right? Ha, that's not happening either. You may get a bottle of champagne and some flower petals for your 9:15 pm cruise, but you'll constantly be distracted by the young kids on the boat - and I mean actual children, not "kids" in the crotchety-old-man sense - and the people moving all around you, as well as the people that are practically sitting at your table because of how close you are.

Oh, and the romance? Yeah, that'll be ruined by the group parties getting hammered and belting out whatever song the singer is working through like it is some karaoke night headlined by screeching monkeys. Speaking of the singer, she was one of the few highlights of the evening, but it was unfortunately overshadowed a number of times by the speakers in the back half of the boat going out leaving this weird voyeuristic experience.

The food looks good though, right? Guess again - there was something that was supposed to be beef on our plate, but you couldn't tell by either the taste or the consistency - they also charge an extra 9€ for that slop. Also whatever that side was supposed to be, it looked and tasted like some puréed baby food mess. The chicken had no flavor, but thankfully I could tell that it was chicken. The burrata was good, as was the cheese plate for 8€ extra. I think the bread was fine as well.

How about the drinks, you say? If you do order something, buy it bottled. The mixed drinks were something out of bar rag rung out over a drinking glass and filled with ice. How can you screw up an Old Fashioned? And what in the world was that Rive Gauche drink? It tasted like a Aperol Spritz met a salt lick. We sent back both drinks in exchange for a bottle of wine. Despite sending it back, we were still charged for both of the drinks as well as the wine. That is what we call, insult to injury.

The last highlight to this evening was the desserts. We had both the Eiffel Tower chocolate dessert and the crème brûlée. Both were very tasty.

That takes up the "dinner" portion of the dinner cruise. And honestly, the cruise was perfect. The sights were awesome and it was a wonderful perspective to see everything from the water, but you cannot have a one succeed and the other fail, otherwise you need to call it what it is, a "cruise with something akin to food." I truly hope that you have not read this far and have backed out completely, but if you are still here, I will give you one final piece of advice...

Book a boat cruise separate from the meal for the cool sights, and then book dinner at an actual restaurant on a separate night. This dinner cruise was more expensive than our Michelin star restaurant the previous night and I would put this place solidly beneath the worst fast food restaurant you've ever had - yes, even that one that you are thinking about right now. Final...