Guided Boat Trip In Ghent

The boat tour was a fun way to see the city from a different perspective. We did it after doing a walking tour and appreciated the additional experience!

The captain was great - informative and funny as he told us about Ghent and the buildings. He spoke in all 3 languages of the guests on board. The company also honoured a previous day’s tickets due to train delays. A wonderful way to begin our stay in Ghent!

Beautiful city, nice little canal tour seeing the city from the water was very nice. Inexpensive and please tip the tour Guide.

Tour guide was great fun, lots of humour & historic information

Our guide Luke was wonderful. He shared some great stories about the history of ghent, and kept us engaged by asking us if we knew the answer to his trivia questions. There was a heatwave that week, still comfortable on the boat, umbrellas are provided if its too sunny.

The guide spoke multiple languages seamlessly, was great for me as a refresher in French. She was very friendly and knowledgeable.

The guided boat tour in Ghent was a fun experience. We really enjoyed our guide. She was very funny and informative. We learned a lot about the history of Ghent and some very interesting stories. It was definitely worth the time and money and we highly recommend.

The driver of the boat was fantastic. Great tour of Ghent from the water. Multi languages were used on the tour. Would prefer a single language boat

This was a nice way to see Ghent. The boat operator was knowledgeable regarding the sights to see and spike several languages which was nice for foreign travelers. We took a boat tour around 11am and the line and wait was minimal.

Great live commentary. Route along the river and canal took in a lot of notable sights which were pointed out with some interesting history and stories.

This boat tour of Ghent was fairly good, but a little less than I expected. The trip over the River Leie was beautiful and although it was nice to see Gravensteen and Graslei, the tour felt a bit short. The guide's explanation was good, but not always clearly heard. Also, the seat could be a little more comfortable. All in all, it can be tried once, but with too much expectation, be a little disappointed.

Amazing experience! Tour guide was personable and knowledgeable. We had a small group so much more personal trip.

The tour guide was talking in Flemish and English (probably about 70% Flemish which was okay but you did get the sense you were missing a bit. My daughter lives in Ghent and speaks fluent Flemish and confirmed this as the case). A man in the boat with his family reasonably asked for more English and the tour guide just EXPLODED. He started raging, shouting aggressively at this guy, denying that he was prioritising Flemish. He turned the boat around and raced back to the bank and demanded this man and his family exit the boat, which they refused to do. The uncontrolled violence of this man was a complete shock to us all (we had our 3 kids with us). It was the level of a road rage incident. Eventually we carried on the tour but everyone was too scared to talk - even to each other - and his fake friendliness and jokes from then on felt very empty.... Pretty much the worst tourist experience ever, borderline traumatic. This man needs therapy - I really hope he has been fired. Huge recommend to avoid unless you want your family traumatised and to feel properly afraid.

The guide was absolutely fantastic, 5 languages seamlessly. Great stories, a few good jokes. A memory we will share for decades.

Great activity if travelling solo in Ghent. Boat tour was fun, informative, and a great way to meet other travellers

What a lovely experience. Our tour guide was informative and witty. A great way to see some of Ghent. A good price for a great experience.

Informative and relaxing canal tour. A very nice way to get accustomed to the layout of the village. A must do before doing a lot of walking around.

It was a scorching hot day in June when we were in Ghent and being on the water offered us a little cooler temperature. Our City Card offered us a free canal boat tour(9.5 euros without card). You can catch a canal tour on either side of the canal at Graslei or Korenlei. The tour was about 45 minutes and it gave you a completely different perspective from the water. Some of the bridges you had to duck your head so watch out but overall it was a really peaceful ride.

Steven was the guide on a 40 minute canal tour, he spoke in English with a few jokes which most on the boat missed. Adults 10 euro which seems to be the rate for all trips.

Voucher location was unclear and not accepted. Had to pay for another boat. Would never use trip advisor again for this service.

For our tour, we had a very small crowd. (About 6 of us on the boat-which is a plus to me at least) Still, our guide was very informative, witty and charming. My boyfriend and I learned a lot of fun little facts about Ghent we likely wouldn’t have known otherwise. We had fun and it was very relaxing! Our guide gave us time and made sure to put us in the best angles to get good photos on the water. The tour was relatively short (approx. 40 min) so it was perfect for our extended layover and gave us time to sneak that into our schedule while still touring much of the city. Would recommend to anyone and would definitely do again whenever Ghent calls us back.

Great experience, I really enjoyed this tour, the staff were really helpful and knowledgeable, it was super easy to find.

You must do this boat ride at least once while you are in Gantt Belgium. It was beautiful to see all the city from the water and it was very informative and interesting.

We enjoyed this 40 minute boa tour through the canals of Ghent. Our guide was very knowledgeable and the boats were lovely. We learned a lot about the city and could see most of the major sites from the water. Highly recommend this for kids as well. My 9 & 12 year olds both enjoyed it.

Kind tour guide accompanying and funny as well :) I’m glad to have gone on this tour and learn the history of this beautiful city

This was so enjoyable and Henk made it fun and informative at the same time. We learned a little about the history of Ghent and the wonderful buildings that line the two rivers. Highly recommend it!

Our guide was great had a nice sense of humor. It was difficult to hear / understand him at times. Couldn’t have asked for a nicer day!

We booked for 16:00 online, we came at the activity 15 minutes before and they told us there was no place at 16:00, we had to wait the next at 16:30.

The boat tour was highlight of our trip to Ghent. The tour was well-organized, and the staff was friendly and knowledgeable. Our guide shared fascinating insights about the city’s history and landmarks, making the journey even more enjoyable. They even let my 6 year old son drive the boat for few minutes that absolutely made his day.

Lovely calm boat ride along the river and canals with running commentary on the buildings and other sites we passed. The trip lasted about 40 minutes. All up an enjoyable tour

The historical facts and humour were on point making a very enjoyable boat tour. Our guide was well versed not only in facts but had great linguistic skills.

Copy of BigBen clock and the whole view of Gent. While inside the boat was soo beautiful . I have been in Ghent for more than 10yrs but still love it when i visit.

The history and stories with humor it was very crowded tho and festival setting up ruined photo opp’s

Very iteresing, by the choose of passengers the guide spoke in english, in french with most important mediaval things, kings, characters, with some jokes

A great boat tour! The boats had roofs for a wet day! The guide was very informative and funny. Led our tour in three languages. We really felt like we got to learn a lot about the city on this tour and oriented ourselves well for things we wanted to see after. It’s worth taking a break to do this tour.

The boat trip was well worth the time and money. The guides information was great but the view from the water was phenomenal.

Our female captain was fun, knowledgeable and thoughtful. We were fortunate to have a small group of women on our boat in the morning sunshine on our tour. It was a delightful way to see Ghent and to learn more about this beautiful city.

I can’t give zero stars unfortunately but I’ll explain why our experience was so bad: After booking tickets prior to travelling to Belgium, we arrived to board the boat (directions good, easy to find) and were given a ticket to return in 40 minutes for our boat. Great, no problem. We then returned and got ready to board. So far so good. But just as we were boarding, the boat guide said something to the lady in front of us about going back to the ticket office. We assumed she needed to exchange her e ticket for a paper ticket as we had done. She then asked again to board (turns out she was asking to sit at the back rather than front of the boat due to illness if she sits near the engine). Despite there being empty seats at the front and not the back of the boat, the guide was refusing for some reason. After she questioned this a second time, he jumped out of the boat, launched himself towards her, put both hands on her shoulders, turned her towards the ticket office and shoved her away, hard. He did this whilst shouting at her to leave and get on another boat. We were utterly shocked. It was so aggressive and so unprovoked, 0-60 in less than a second. She had been so calm, quiet and reasonable in her request and it was so odd how his manner was so out of proportion to hers. She calmly stated “you cannot push me, you should not put your hands on me. I’m going to call the police”. He laughed and said, “call the police!” Members of my party and one other gentleman tried to say to him that he couldn’t behave like that and this was unacceptable treatment of another person. He brushed this off and ignored us. We then disembarked before the tour left, not wanting to take a boat ride with such an agressive, unreasonable person at the helm. While the poor young woman on her own who was assaulted called the Police, we waited with her, and tried to speak to the man who worked in the boat tour ticket office. When we told him what happened, he asked “did she fall?” When we said no, he shrugged. We returned to try to get ourselves booked on another boat tour and were told we had to wait another 35 minutes. When we explained that this delay felt a little unfair and asked to take a sooner tour (there was at least one) as we had not wanted to take our scheduled tour with an agressive, nasty boat driver, the man in the ticket office didn’t care. He kept saying we had to wait. We agreed to do this but asked that he apologised to us, both for his staff member’s behaviour, and for the delay we experienced directly because of it. He refused to apologise and began to serve the people in the queue behind us. He did not reach out to the victim to apologise nor did he attempt to find out what happened from her or from his staff member. We decided not to take a tour with this company and later had a pleasant tour from their competitor, directly across the river. Luckily the police arrived very quickly and spoke to the poor girl. They confirmed that they would be speaking to the offender when he returned from the current boat tour he was on and would be taking his ID. We did later see them speak to him and also noticed that another couple who did board our scheduled tour with him and also witnessed the assault then also spoke to the police. Hopefully they were also complaining about his behaviour. Unfortunately he continued to drive boat tours for the rest of the day. If I was his boss, I’d have suspended him for treating customers that way. What is the most shocking is the complete lack of acknowledgement of his wrongdoing by the company, as if they endorsed that treatment of their customers. Unbelievable. I am certain had a man made a request to sit in a specific part of the boat, that he would not have grabbed, pushed and shoved him the way he did to this poor lone young girl. Misogyny at its finest. Shocking behaviour, and I hope that the people who chose to take a tour with this company, having witnessed this incident are ashamed of themselves. We all have mothers, sisters, daughters, female friends etc. We all have a responsibility to stand up for women’s rights. Absolutely disgraceful behaviour. Avoid this company unless they acknowledge and sack this despicable, aggressive employee.

We loved the trip but Dutch and Italian were clearly the preferred languages . I translated quite a few things for my English guests as many things were skipped

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much information. Standing (for 25+ minutes at a time) to hear something that could be said in under 5 minutes was rough. Hot day, crowded, confusing start...and then we do the cruise on our own? No thanks! Glad I met some nice people.

It was great to see the city from the canal's point of view. It was relaxing and the information was basic, which was fine for us who took a historical tour few hours before.

Fantastic guide, very informative and entertaining, saw a beautiful side of Ghent, would do again. Regards Sharyn

Great trip, I think our guide was Jan and he was really good - very informative and amusing. We were lucky as boat was only half full so plenty of space. There was another boat company on other side of bridge but their boats looked much bigger, and fuller. One of our favourite things on our short trip to Ghent, thank you!

What an excellent tour!! Worth every penny, and such a great deal. Our guide was knowledgeable, funny and local born and raised in Ghent. 100% recommend. Review from Canadians on vaca.

Our guide Matthew was great and interacting all the time with the passengers. As he was born and raised in Gent he gave us a lot of information during the tour (as a citizen that knows the history of the city). It’s a great way to see the city from a different perspective, after around 50 minutes we came back to the departure point.

The guide was very good in providing comments in English. He provided some fun information. The buildings we saw were great and seeing them from the water provides a different perspective. The person selling the tickets was off-hand and ignored us initially. The boat was clean.

The guide was funny, the history was interesting, the views were beautiful and it was well worth the money.

Recommend this trip if you don't have a lot of to e in the city. Guide tells about city in all languages that required by travelers in the boat .

Tuned up after lunch ( around 13:30) , we were lucky a boat was just getting ready to depart, we were only five on the boat. The tour guide who spoke in French and English gave us a good insight into the history of Gent in the allotted time of 40 minutes, be aware on part of the return side of the trip the guide is not allowed to speak because of a noise pollution agreement with the local residents ( I guess it must be quite annoying having a running commentary on Gent all through the day).For the nine euros we paid I would say it is good value , although in February it is quite cold on the water so wrap up warm.