It was my family's firts trip to Paris and I thought that taking the vaunted Bateau Mouches would be an exelent way to see the sights and fit in dinner. After all, they've been doing this forever! Let's start with the menu: You are offered three choices of starter, entree, and dessert as well as wine, which is fine, but limiting. The portions (which I don't usually worry about) were pretty meager, though. Our waitress was extreamly brusk and rude even though we could speak some French and went so far as to ignore us activly and drop food off the plates while serving. Pretty abominable. Then there was the "kid's option." Dear Lord. My children are aged 10 and 12 and aren't big on heavy sauces and so opted for the children's meal which was listed as "chicken fingers." What they got was one grape tomoato sliced in half, a pinch of iceberg lettuce, a puddle of katsup and THREE PRE-FROZEN CHICKEN NUGGETS. Seriously. Look at the accompanying picture I posted on Yelp. Just search for it there. This cost €35 a plate. It was McDonalds fare for $40... but less of it. We complained. My wife wanted off the boat. We were polite but outraged because we feel that we had been tricked.
Another waiter stepped in since the man running yhe floor couldn't speak english and our French is shakey and tried to help. He offered the children real meals, free of charge, some new drinks and an adult dessert, (which were pretty mediocre lava cakes which I susspect are pre packaged). He tried and we appreciate that, but still SHAME ON BATEAUX MOUCHES for trying this!
The cruise itself was loud from the engine noise and made conversation difficult. The boat traveled at a very fast pace so things sort of flew by and made the dinner feel rushed and high pressured. Also, there was no narritive or explination of what we passed so if you didn't know what you were looking at, that was your problem. I see in other rewiess that they had a narrating guide, so maybe we just couldn’t hear it over the engine.
I would never reccommend this to anyone. They failed on all aspects and charged a fortune for the experience. If I were you, I'd pick a nice restaurant on the Seine and enjoy your meal and then take a small tour with a guide if you want to hear about this beautiful city.`