Illinois Travel Guides (Updated September 2026)

I enjoyed the tour, only problem was the weather but of course that didn't make any difference about my experience. Definitely worth the tour and the time it took.

Great river boat ride and the crew are very friendly

We learned a lot about the city’s history and the architecture. The tour guide was incredibly knowledgeable about the city.

This was great! Since the sunsets earlier in September we got to see the city lit up. This is the cruise to go on

Great time. Sam s was a super entertaining and knowledgeable guide for the tour.

Ethan (?) The tour guide was great ! I would give him 10 stars, if I could. The pickup spot was a little sketchy, but the tour was great !!

Fun and educational. Saw parts of the city that I had never seen and learned an incredible amount about the Chicago gangsters from an upbeat, fun, knowledgeable tour guide (Marie).

Beautiful views of the skyline and great music made our evening! The host provided some interesting commentary and history about Chicago, but didn’t talk the whole time so we were also able to enjoy our own conversation. We arrived about 25 minutes before the boat was scheduled to leave and there were a ton of people lined up. Seating is first-come, first-serve, so arrive earlier if you want to get prime seating on deck near the edge or back of the boat for the best photo ops. The back will give you the skyline as the boat drives out of the city onto Lake Michigan. Either side will give photo ops as the boat drives up and down Lake Michigan a couple times each after dusk. People move around a lot, so you can still get good photos no matter where you sit, you may just have a bunch of people in your photos. This was a great experience!

If you’re good with heights and motion, it is an AMAZING experience and way to see downtown Chicago. I recommend doing Flyover after you’ve been around downtown. day or two so you recognize some of the buildings as you fly. The one thing that would make it better is if they had a little better customer service and communicated about the number of stairs or even verbally offered an elevator option instead of just ushering everyone to the stairs. There are already a lot of stairs in Chicago so taking what seemed like 2-3 flights of stairs (as in going down to the L) was a surprise. The ride made up for this. It was so cool to fly all around the riverfront and downtown area. At one point, I put my hands in the air because it felt like we were on a rollercoaster drop. So much fun!

Wow!! Cliff was INCREDIBLE. Don’t book with a bigger vessel. This one is special. Worth the money

Informative guide and a great small trip with plenty to see. Good facilities on board and good weather was a bonus!

Very good choice to see both Lake Michigan and the river. The guide is fantastic.If I have anything to recommend improvement, I'd say that the returning half is a bit boring, comparing to the first part when everything is so new. Also it does not match very far to the river, I was expecting to see more of the river.A good 2 hours spent!

Doug the tour guide was great. He knows how to portray the characters he’s talking about to make them interesting!

Great sense of humor, very knowledgeable about the architecture of the city and chicago history. Very entertaining and professional. I would recommend bringing a long sleeve shirt or sweater as it can get chilly even on a warm day.

David was an excellent guide. Very knowledgable.

Our tour guide, David, gave a fantastic tour! It was a great blend of crime stories tied to the architecture we were experiencing. It was the right pace - not too fast or too slow - and good mix of humor to complement the stories. Definitely recommend!