Story by Derek Doeffinger, Photos by Derek Doeffinger and Gary Whelpley
With the arrival of warm weather, one thing is certain: in the next few months, there’ll come a moment when all you want to do is escape the house for an afternoon or evening of relaxation. It may occur when your Pennsylvania friends drop in unannounced as they’re returning from a Maine vacation. Or it might arrive when the tsunami of yard chores leaves your back aching, your neck kinked and your kids laughing at your sore shoulder football tosses.
When that time arrives, you will have a great option: a Finger Lakes or canal cruise. A multitude of cruises await you. Some trips go to wineries, waterfalls, osprey nests, canal locks and past historic houses. Want some action? Take one that drops you off for a return towpath bike ride or entertains your kids with eco-centric activities complete with microscopes. Nearing meltdown mode? Then pick one that glides through the fading sunset as you dine on a delicious meal.
You might even find romance or adventure on a two-masted schooner with sails billowing under a freshening breeze.
Choosing your cruise
Finding the right cruise will likely come down to just a few criteria. Ignoring cost – since that depends largely on how many people come along – here’s a few things to consider: duration, port of departure, size of the boat and theme (meals, music, education and more).
You may want to prioritize one or two of these features. Do you want a cruise that lasts an hour, two, or three? Do you want the one closest to you or in a location with additional activities? Do you want a meal, and, if so, what kind? Some offer full courses, while others tender sandwiches, snacks or nothing. Concerned about the weather? Choose a boat big enough to offer shelter and a smoother ride.
If you’re going to propose, network, party or exfoliate, you may want the privacy provided by a boat that you can charter. One boat, the Patrick T. Kennedy (ithacaboattours.com) is a refitted PT boat (up to 49 passengers) that only accepts charters – at a surprisingly reasonable hourly rate. For groups up to 11, onkeuka.com offers two boats for charters and they provide water taxis with departures possible at several points along Keuka Lake.
Duration
Most of the bigger boats offer a variety of cruises lasting anywhere from 45 minutes to three or four hours. The longer times typically indicate the serving of a meal, sometimes live music or both.
Although they all post the length of the ride, none of the boats let you search for a cruise based solely on its duration. For example, the Teal out of Ithaca offers rides with a variety of durations: about an hour for a simple out and back cruise with some narration, two to three hours for educational and participatory (think kids) environmental outings, and a four-hour ride and hike to Taughannock Falls. The Seneca Spirit (60 passengers) in Watkins Glen provides sight-seeing 50-minute daytime rides and 90-minute sunset outings.
The glorious, two-masted 67-foot schooner True Love dishes the spice of romance and adventure, or the pleasure of special wine and beer outings with the thought that time will simply slip by – so they all last two hours.
Other large boats that post rides of widely varying lengths include the canal cruiser the Colonial Belle (two to three hours), the Canandaigua Lady (1-1/2 hour narration cruise, two-hour lunch cruise, three-hour dinner cruise). And in Skaneateles, the double decker Judge Ben Wiles gives you three options: 45 minutes, 2-1/2 hours (fine dinner) and three hours.
Where to cruise
For many, taking a cruise may simply be the dessert at the end of a tiring day trip to a favorite destination. For others, it may not only be the metaphorical main course but a real main course. So, you have to figure out if you need to synchronize or prioritize a preferred location with the type of cruise.
For example, you can ride the Genesee River on the Riverie in Rochester, and then finish up within walking distance of the noisy but aromatic atmosphere of the Dinosaur Barbecue, Uber over to the sophistication of the George Eastman House, or take a longer walk or short drive to the Genesee Brew House with its waterfall views, beef on weck and a fresh Genesee draft.
Since most of the tours begin at a tourist destination town, you can likely find all sorts of local food, lodging and sauntering opportunities that might influence where to take a cruise. Starting from north to south and west to east, here are the towns that offer most of the tour boats: downtown Rochester on the Genesee River; Pittsford and Fairport on the Erie Canal; Canandaigua, Hammondsport, Watkins Glen, Ithaca and Skaneateles for the Finger Lakes; and then back to the canal in Camillus, where the trip also includes a canal museum.
If one of those towns really appeals to you, combine a cruise with land sightseeing. The sidebar on the opposite page shows the boats at each location, lists boats’ capacities and provides contact information.
Offerings and themes to choose from
These are surprisingly diverse. Probably the most tempting will be the full meals covered further on.
But if meals on a boat take a backseat for you, there’s a lot left on the cruise menu of themes. For example, the Colonial Belle in Fairport offers canal cruises with themes ranging from murder mysteries and a wide variety of weekly live music performances to family pirate tours and a daily narrative of canal history. In addition to conventional narration cruises, the Sam Patch in Pittsford will take you looking for canal birds or a boat ride out with a 7-mile towpath bike ride back.
At the Camillus Erie Canal Park near Syracuse, on Wednesday and Saturday, you can take a boat ride over “the only rewatered and navigable aqueduct left in the World” according to their website; they can accommodate wheelchairs, too. They also have a canal museum and steam engine exhibit.
The Teal in Ithaca, the Judge Ben Wiles in Skaneateles and the Canandaigua Lady also offer several different cruises. When you go to a boat’s website, study the offerings carefully because most of the boats, especially the bigger ones, present you with many choices. The smaller boats tend to specialize in one or two areas, such as winery cruises. A big advantage of a smaller boat is that you can easily talk with crew members and satisfy your curiosity.
Before making a reservation, double check you’re signing up for the right thing.
Full meals served
You’ll find four of the bigger boats provide dinner menus. These are the Colonial Belle, Canandaigua Lady, Seneca Legacy and Judge Ben Wiles. Owners of both the Judge Ben Wiles and the Seneca Legacy also own restaurants within 50 yards of their dinner-serving boats. The Seneca Legacy proclaims an elegant dining experience that tempts with prime rib, chicken parmesan, crab stuffed sole and more. Not to be outdone, the Judge Ben Wiles counters with its own prime rib, Tuscan chicken, vegetarian lasagna, pan-seared Atlantic salmon with lemon herb creme fraiche, and special-ordered vegetarian. Menu writers sure know how to get you salivating.
The real draw of the Canandaigua Lady may be that it’s an authentic paddle wheeler that seems to conjure up Mark Twain and those 19th century paddle wheelers plying the Mississippi. The Barbara S. Wiles offers sandwiches during its entertaining water-to-shore mail delivery on Skaneateles Lake.
In Hammondsport you’ll get to ride on the historic Pat II, a beautifully restored antique mail boat. You won’t get a meal, but the fulfilling satisfaction of supporting the nearby Finger Lakes Boating Museum.
Boat-to-winery and waterfall tours
Given the popularity of wineries, it would be an oversight not to include several of the many boat-to-winery tours that ply Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. Most of these are on smaller boats – cruisers and pontoons – that hold two to eight passengers. On Cayuga Lake you can skim the waters to wineries on boats from biaconitours.com, fingerlakeswinecruises.com, captjimswinecruises.com, cayugalakewinecruises.com, and watertowinetours.com. On Seneca Lake, fingerlakeswateradventures.com takes you on whiskey/wine tours and the occasional birding tour.
For waterfall cruises, the Teal out of Ithaca, offers a Thursday trip (July and August) to Taughannock Falls State Park, where you can take the flat 3/4-mile trail to the great Taughannock Falls. And fallingwatersboattours.com in Hector tours the southern portion of Seneca Lake and then gives patrons refreshments on a lovely patio that’s only steps away from the base of the large Hector Falls; bring a bathing suit because on a warm day you can bask in its cascade.
Focus on the kids
Although several boats offer one or two kid-focused cruises, the Teal, out of Ithaca, truly specializes in educational/environmental tours that kids love. The Teal refers to itself as a “floating classroom” (with a bathroom). You can choose from several educational cruises, including one that explores water quality, complete with kids taking and analyzing water samples and peering through one of the several microscopes for a closer examination of tiny water critters. Another tour takes you to view ospreys nesting lakeside. And to ramp up the sense of adventure for adult kids, you might opt for one of its sunset or “astronomy” tours, where some or most of the cruise is in the dark.
Cruise preparations
Most of the boats carry water and snacks, but I also like to bring my own supply along, just in case. Read the fine print as a few boats discourage bringing food. Other necessities include a hat and light jacket or long-sleeved shirt for wind or sun protection, sunscreen and sunglasses. You probably won’t get wet but depending on your port of departure you may want to have a change of clothes, towel and swimsuit in your car for a little splash at a lake beach. The bigger boats provide restrooms and some boats are wheelchair accessible but their bathrooms likely are not.
Half the fun is trying to figure out which option best suits you. As you narrow down your list of potentials take some good notes and before you click that “pay” button, double check that the date and theme are the ones you decided on.
