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About Thames River Boats

Thames River Boats operate cruises from Westminster Pier, Kew Pier, Richmond Landing Stage & Hampton Court Landing Stage with a fleet of traditional River Thames passenger boats. Our services make the perfect day out whether you are visiting the City of Westminster, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the bustling town of Richmond or Hampton Court Palace. Our boats are perfect in any weather & have indoor & outdoor seating, fully licensed bars, toilet facilities & heating for colder days. Our boats are also available for private hire & are ideal for corporate events, birthdays, celebrations, wedding receptions, sightseeing cruises & river transfers.

Our Services

We are currently cruising on a regular basis from Westminster Pier, Kew Pier, Richmond Landing Stage & Hampton Court Landing Stage. Our sailing times can vary from day to day due to the tides. Click the link below to view our upcoming sailings. Tickets can be booked online through our booking system or at our ticket offices.

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Westminster Pier

Richmond Landing Stage

Hampton Court Landing Stage

Testimonials.

My daughter has gone twice now and it is so worth it. For the price to I would definitely recommend. Peaceful atmosphere lovely staff also beverages are served downstairs.

Special Offers

• Cockney Sparrow

The Cockney Sparrow was built in 1976 at Eel Pie Island. She is a two level boat with a deceptively large enclosed saloon and an open top deck. 

M.V Connaught was built by Salter Brothers of Oxford in 1911 & has been cruising between Westminster, Kew, Richmond & Hampton Court for over 100 years. Connaught regularly operates on our services & is also available for private charters.

• Princess Freda

Princess Freda was built in 1926 by T.C. Letcher on the Isle of Wight, and has been restored to a particularly high standard.

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Scheduled river services on the River Thames

Be informed and in control using london's river services.

Ask most Londoners about the scheduled river boat services on the River Thames and they will probably know little of what you're talking about.

The service is there though and should be hugely attractive to visitors to London. You can even use your Oyster card or Travelcards to enjoy discounts on fares.

For visitors the key stretch of river is between the London Eye and Tower Pier in the shadow of Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

The popular London hop-on, hop-off open top sightseeing tours also include a river cruise in their tickets on this stretch of water.

Commuter service   Leisure service   BOOK London river cruises   HOHO + cruise   Summer service to Hampton Court

London river commuter service

The route of the London Commuter Service is shown on this London River Services map .

Schedules are broadly every 20 minutes Monday to Friday and 20/30 minutes at weekends, but there are different operators with different rules and regulations.

Generally, you need to get your ticket from a pier ticket office before boarding a boat. However, if the ticket office is closed you can buy it on board.

If you use a Travelcard, you can get a third off most River Bus fares. Oyster pay as you go is accepted on Thames Clippers services, and it gives you a 10 per cent discount on most single journeys.

BOOK A RIVER CRUISE IN LONDON

City Cruises - London's No 1 sightseeing cruise on the Thames

• Hop-on hop-off river pass • Sightseeing cruises • Lunch cruises • Afternoon tea • Showboat dinner cruises • Thamesjet speed boat ride • Themed cruises for Christmas, Jazz, Elvis, Murder Mystery and more...

London river leisure service

Specifically aimed at leisure visitors is a service that links Westminster Pier (Big Ben, Westminster Abbey), London Eye, Tower Pier (Tower Bridge, Tower of London) and Greenwich.

The service operates year round with winter and summer schedules.

It is these river services that the popular London hop-on, hop-off open top sightseeing tours use as part of their day tickets. You get a voucher that allows one cruise between Westminster Pier or the London Eye to Tower Pier in front of the Tower of London.

The whole cruise on this sector non-stop takes about 30-40 minutes. It is certainly worthwhile taking advantage of as it gives a totally different perspective of London and many of the top attractions that the boats pass.

You can buy individual tickets or there are day tickets where you can use the boats as a hop-on, hop-off service.

Hop-on, hop-off sightseeing buses (with free river cruise)

London's popular open top hop-on, hop-off tour buses all offer a free cruise as part of their standard tour ticket. This covers a river cruise in the centre of London giving a different and informative perspective to London's delights.

These buses offer comprehensive coverage covering nearly all the main sights in London and operate at very high frequencies. In the peak summer months just stand at any of the key attractions and there will probably be one in sight.

Westminster - Kew - Richmond - Hampton Court summer service

From April to October there are at least two services a day in each direction for the three-hour trip out to Hampton Court . The timetable means there is not enough time to do the river trip in both directions and have time for a visit to Hampton Court itself, so you would need to organise a hotel or transport for your return to London separately.

The service has many stops including Kew Gardens, Richmond and Kingston (the latter are major suburban shopping centres). If you require a full day at Hampton Court Palace it's best to get the underground out to Richmond then catch additional services for the one-hour trip onto Hampton Court.

There are frequent trains from London's Waterloo Station to Hampton Court that take a fraction of the time of the boat. Waterloo is only about 10/15 minutes' walk from Westminster Pier where the boats start from.

Official website of the London river services

BOOK DISCOUNTED TOURS FROM LONDON

£140 - Windsor Castle, Stonehenge & Bath

£114 - Stonehenge & Bath

£65 - Stonehenge half-day tour

• Exclusive prices including admission to attractions • Air-conditioned tour coaches with free Wi-Fi

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Thames River Sightseeing Timetable

Temporary timetable on wednesday, 20th of march 2024, daily from 3rd january to 29th february 2024.

* These last departures are only weekends and from Westminster Pier to Tower Bridge Quay returning to Westminster (No Greenwich service)

**(One-Way) – These departures are one-way only without return service

Daily from 1st of March to 22nd of March 2024

* These last departures are only from Westminster Pier to Tower Bridge Quay returning to Westminster (No Greenwich service)

Daily from 23rd of March to 31st of May 2024

Daily from 1st june to 1st september 2024, daily from 2nd september to 27th october 2024, daily from 28th october to 31st december 2024, book your next adventure today.

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40 million up: what does the future hold for London’s Thames Clippers?

This October, London’s river bus operator, MBNA Thames Clippers, celebrated carrying its 40 millionth passenger. What role is the service playing for tourists and commuters, and what steps are being taken to expand the service for the future?

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No picturesque London postcard is complete without the river Thames – the 95-mile long waterway that passes through the nation’s capital and to the North Sea beyond. And over the last two decades, the super-sleek river buses that trundle stoically up and down the river have become an increasingly welcome sight for tourists and commuters.

Since coming into being in 1999, the MBNA Thames Clippers service has moved from a one-boat service to a hardy squadron of 17 catamarans, charting a course from Putney in south-west London to Royal Arsenal Woolwich in the east. Every 20 minutes, a boat sets down at various piers spanning a number of London hotspots, including Greenwich, Canary Wharf, Tower Hill, London Bridge, Westminster and Waterloo.

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Recently, the Clippers announced a major milestone: more than 40 million passengers have set foot on the river-buses since the first boat set off nearly 20 years ago.

“If someone had just said to me ‘did you know you are up to your 40 millionth passenger?’ I probably would have looked a bit surprised,” says MBNA Thames Clippers CEO and co-founder Sean Collins. “But actually when it’s been worked out you can see how it’s true.”

Since its inception, Thames Clippers have proven that the river can be an asset for passenger travel, alongside its burgeoning freight successes. But what does the future hold?

Rolling on the river

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Passenger numbers have “ebbed and flowed” on the river, says Collins. However with an increase from around 30,000 annual passengers at launch, to more than four million today, an appetite has definitely developed.

Collins says that the major contributors to the upsurge has been a combination of adding new boats to the fleet, expanding routes and services and the success of both commercial and residential developments alongside the river.

Routes pass through major commercial, residential and leisure hotspots. Tourists, for example, can hop on at Westminster after a good gawk at the Houses of Parliament, and sail eastwards to gawk at Greenwich’s Royal Observatory instead. Battersea Power Station was added to the network in 2017, providing a new stop-off for residents, workers and visitors.

“We’ve had some real key attractions and developments very close to the river that have contributed to driving that footfall – and where we’ve added the capacity, and where we’ve added the routes, the footfall has come running,” says Collins.

Bringing commuters on board

Convincing commuters to come aboard has been a challenge, but Collins says that efforts to improve the riparian areas around piers and information and announcements have borne fruit. Better integration with other services run by Transport for London (TfL), which licenses the Thames Clippers, has also proven beneficial. From November 2009, MBNA Thames Clippers services began to accept Oyster pay-as-you-go and contactless payments across its services, allowing it to dispense with the complex ticketing system that was in place.

Enhancements extend to the ferries themselves. At the end of October, MBNA unveiled the name of its 18 th vessel – the Catamaran Venus Clipper – set to launch in early 2019. The new boat will feature more space and 50 extra seats when compared to its immediate predecessors, the Mercury Clipper and the Jupiter Clipper .

Existing vessels in the fleet have recently had an interior retrofit, but Collins says that boats tend to not deviate too far from the arrangements of the original craft so as to provide “a consistent level of standard” across the fleet.

Thames riverboat services recently came under fire when environmental organisations claimed that more stringent emissions rules for buses and trains had not been reflected on the river. Collins says the service worked with naval architects on a sleeker hull format to reduce the power needed to operate its vessels by up to 20%.

“We can only purchase from the engine suppliers what is on the market and we are making every effort to purchase the suitable engine for our operation with the least impact,” he says.

New waves of development

In October 2019, Clipper services will begin running to the new Royal Wharf, a massive new neighbourhood on the north bank of the Thames being developed by Ballymore and Oxley. Other major housing developments to the east of central London, such as Barking Riverside, could present opportunities for expansion in the future.

“These examples demonstrate the [rate] at which housing is going to develop down the Thames corridor, and as those developments do take place, river transport is obviously going to be a major part [of that],” he says.

“Bridges are going to be a lot less frequent the nearer you get to London because of the width of the river and the size of the ships’ ply. So there is a significant difference in the future to transporting large volumes, if not into central London, onto other mass transit modes.”

Collins says that piers need to receive money to encourage outside investment from companies, or at the very least make sure they have good access channels and are being managed properly. But while private investment in piers has proven a major boon, TfL money could well be running dry.

Fickle finances

At the time of writing, the organisation is suffering a £1bn deficit, bolstered by a freeze on public transport fares introduced by current mayor Sadiq Khan. The delayed opening of Crossrail, London’s multi-billion pound railway project, will reportedly cost £200m – a further squeeze on TfL.

“Without the continued investment in piers and infrastructure, as well as signage and marketing of interchangeability with river against other modes of transport, it will suffer,” says Collins. “Both the Port of London Authority (PLA) and TfL need to recognise the importance of these factors to allow the infrastructure of such services to operate, to meet the customer needs and demands and also achieve the passenger footfall they have set as a target.”

“I think the biggest single thing that TfL can do is include the River line in the tube map – that will really demonstrate to people how the river and other forms of transport can be connected.”

MBNA Thames Clippers is one of many stakeholders participating in the PLA’s Thames Vision , which highlights key targets for the river’s future – one of which is doubling the number of river passengers by 2035. However, Collins says that there needs to be more clearly defined targets to build momentum towards this goal.

“Imagine the number of mayors between now and 2035,” he says. “There should be four yearly targets at the very least that are aligned with the mayoral terms, and that way you can measure how much support has been given to the river in every aspect, and how much the PLA and operators can support them.”

“At the end of the day the vast majority of this infrastructure – both piers and boats out to the west and out to the east – is being delivered by the private sector. There are not many other forms of transport in London having that done. So in these times of financial pinch, we should be looking at the private sector.

“London has this amazing asset and the vast majority of it is heavily underutilised,” Collins concludes. “It needs to be utilised a lot more.”

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Uber Boat by Thames Clippers

A partnership that brings together the simplicity and innovation of Uber with Thames Clippers’ long-standing tradition of safe, reliable travel on the River Thames.*

Check out the Uber app to browse the many available routes from 24 piers across the capital.

Plain sailing

How Uber Boat by Thames Clippers works

Use the Uber app to book and pay for your trip, with 24 piers to choose from.

Make your way to your chosen pier and wait for the scheduled service to arrive.

Sit back and relax with a guaranteed seat on board and make your way to work.

Explore your new commute

Journeys start from £5.60 for an adult ticket.

Sail with Uber for Business

Helping your employees commute

If your company is already signed up for Uber for Business, your employees will automatically have access to Uber Boat by Thames Clippers. If not, it’s quick and easy to register your business.

Ready to sail?

Why wait? Start sailing to work with a guaranteed seat on board.

*Please note that all Uber Boat by Thames Clippers tickets are purchased from Collins River Enterprises Limited (trading as Thames Clippers), which is an independent third party. Thames Clippers provides the transportation service to which these ticket(s) relate. Tickets are subject to Thames Clippers Terms & Conditions . These terms tell you who Thames Clippers is, how they will provide the service to you, how they may change or end the contract, what to do if there is a problem and other important information. Please take the time to carefully read and understand the Thames Clippers Terms & Conditions, before purchasing the ticket(s).

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Planned Outage for Some Cornell Lab Services

Several Cornell Lab of Ornithology services will be unavailable beginning March 19 through 6:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern time on March 21 . This is a one-time disruption while we migrate more than 1.6 billion eBird observations and additional project data to new servers. After the move, our websites will have improved reliability, stability, and room to grow. Thank you for your understanding during this outage.

Don’t worry, your data (checklists, media, Bird Academy courses, Merlin life list, etc.) will be safe during the migration and will be unaffected when we come back online.

Unavailable: The following websites and services will be down during this period:

• eBird.org , including eBird portals, eBird Alerts, the eBird API, eBird Science, and data downloads
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Partially affected: Several Cornell Lab projects will remain up but services that require a login will be unavailable:

• Bird Academy login and store will be unavailable. Users will be able to access most course materials if they were logged in to the site before the outage. Snap ID quizzes will not function during the outage.
• NestWatch and Project FeederWatch login and data entry will be unavailable both on the website and the app. Please record your data on paper and enter it after the outage ends.
• eBird Mobile app : The Explore and My eBird functions will not work during the outage. You can use the app to create checklists and then submit them after the outage ends. Your eBird data will be safe.
• Merlin Bird ID app : Sound ID will continue to work, as well as Photo ID, Step-by-Step, and Explore, using your recent locations only. You will not be able to save sightings, refresh your life list, update your location, or log in to your account. These functions will return when the outage ends and your data will be safe.

Unaffected: The following sites will continue to function as normal:

• Cornell Lab of Ornithology institutional website
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What Can I Do During the Outage?

Go out birding.

• If you already have Merlin Bird ID app installed, you can still use it for some purposes. Though you won’t be able to update your location, save sightings, or refresh your life list, the ID functions will still work with your saved locations, and you can still browse species using Explore Birds
• If you already have the eBird Mobile app installed on your device, you can start eBird Mobile checklists during the downtime and submit them once eBird is back online. Learn how to Enter Sightings with eBird Mobile

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Westbound services

Weekday timetable, weekday – eastbound services.

Services stopping at piers from Putney to Barking Riverside via central London

Weekday - RB4

Ferry service between Doubletree Docklands in Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf

Weekend timetable

Weekend – westbound services.

Services stopping at piers from Barking Riverside to Putney via central London

Weekend – eastbound services

Weekend - rb4.