A busy week for River Thames Boat Hire and Boat Cruises on the Thames

This week has been the busiest week on the River Thames – all thanks to the glorious sunshine we’ve been having. All our cruises on the Thames have been in hot summer sunshine this week. Our guests always say we must have arranged the weather just for them as it really has been lovely out on the River.

One of our crew members, featured in the photo, is very popular with our guests on boat GINETTA. This is Toffee and he has been with the company for 5 years with the very important post of Head of Security. As our guests will testify, he is very hardworking and spends his time sunbathing on the back deck. When we have Children’s Birthday Parties, he assumes the role of ‘Old Sea Dog’ especially in our children’s pirate parties. The children and adults seem to love him and Toffee certainly enjoys the fuss they make of him.

This summer has been a difficult one for everyone in the British tourist industry but we are pleased to say we have managed to overcome the challenges thrown at us by the weather and rising river currents that have prevented many River Thames cruises from occurring, due to the fast stream conditions. We certainly did our best to ensure everyone still had a boating holiday. As you can see from the photo, the river was quite fast, unusual for June and July.

Our narrow boat holiday hire boat GINA spent the first part of the summer season on the kennet and Avon Canal. We are particularly grateful to the Canal and Tipee Experience Company for all their assistance during this time. Our day cruise boat GINETTA suffered a broken propellor when she struck an under water log. Ginetta had to be towed all the way from Henley-On-Thames to Caversham by her sister boat, GEANNA. This was a difficult tow and again, we are in debted to our new friends at Canal and Tipee experience in coming out to help us with this. Ginetta was crane lifted out of the water to have a new propeller fitted.

We’d also like to thank all our guests who’s cruise dates had to be moved due to the weather this summer. Everyone affected understood the conditions we faced and we are delighted that when they did have their cruise on the new dates, the weather was perfect!

Boat GEANNA has had an exceptionally busy summer with many guest bookings coming from overseas. Several guests booked boat Geanna for the Olympics and Paralympics games. Staying on Hotel boat Geanna were the families and friends of some of the Olympic competitors. We also had hen parties staying on the boat and school reunion parties. We even had a jazz band stay!

September is normally a month when River Thames boat cruises start to wind down. However, the Indian Summer we seem to be having now has made September one of the busiest months of the year.