The cruises compared here
Three daytime sightseeing tickets cover the same water east of Westminster. Two are fixed routes run by Thames River Sightseeing. The third is a City Cruises ticket that lets you pick your piers. None includes food, all have an open upper deck and an indoor deck, and all cancel free up to 24 hours ahead.
The differences are how far you go, where exactly you land, and whether you can change your mind on the day.
1The short run to Tower Bridge
The Westminster to Tower Bridge cruise takes 35 minutes and is the cheapest ticket here, from €16.46. On the way you pass the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, St Paul's, Shakespeare's Globe, the Shard and the Tower of London, with live commentary in English from the captain.
It finishes at Butler's Wharf Pier beside Tower Bridge. With the round-trip option you normally get off there and wait for the next boat, which makes about 1 hour 10 minutes in all. Only the last departure of the day returns without a change, in around 50 minutes.
Its score is the lowest of the six cruises, 7.2 from 269 reviews. Expect a functional river bus with commentary, not an event.
2The full hour to Greenwich
The Greenwich cruise is the same operator and the same start, extended past Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf to Greenwich Pier, next to the Cutty Sark. One way takes an hour, the round trip two. It starts from €20.23.
The listing gives the 2026 timetable: every 30 minutes from Westminster between 10 am and 5 pm from 7 September to 1 November, then every 40 minutes from 10:20 am to 3:40 pm until the end of December. Winter days are short, so start early if you plan to come back by boat.
It is a newer listing with only 14 reviews, so its 8.1 score rests on thin evidence. The audio guide app covers 6 languages.
3What the flexible ticket adds
The City Cruises ticket is the one to pick for a hop-on, hop-off style day. It works at four piers: Westminster, London Eye, Tower Millennium and Greenwich. That matters if your morning starts on the South Bank or you want to step off right at the Tower of London.
Read the name carefully, though. The listing sells a one-way or a round-trip ticket, not an unlimited day pass, so 'flexible' means you choose the piers and the departure. City Cruises quotes 40 minutes from Westminster or the London Eye to Tower Pier and 70 minutes to Greenwich. The price starts from €17.64, and the listing does not say which journey that lowest price covers.
It is also the best choice for non-English speakers, with an audio guide in 14 languages according to the listing, and the only one of the three that Civitatis explicitly marks as wheelchair accessible on request.
4One way or round trip
For Greenwich, one way is usually enough. The operators' pier pages put Cutty Sark DLR station about six minutes' walk from Greenwich Pier, so you can ride the boat out and take the train back, or the reverse.
For Tower Bridge, a one-way ticket and a walk along the river makes more sense than waiting on the pier for a return boat over the same water.