North Tahoe Cruises Tahoe Gal

A wedding party I am a part of went on this boat yesterday for the day. There was 40 + of us. We had a great time & the service was good especially for such a large group.

This was the worst lake cruise I have ever been on. We were not informed that the entire cruise had been booked for a wedding party. Had we known we would have picked a different day to go. They acted like the cruise was for them and them alone. You could hear nothing that the captain said over the loud speaker and it was so crowded you weren’t even able to move around easily. The food took forever to order and even longer to get. And once we did get it, it was ice cold when it should have been hot! I would never recommend this to anyone.

Awesome crew, food and overall ambiance! I would highly recommend this to anyone looking to get a full history on Lake Tahoe or even just looking to have a fun time! Reasonable prices as well. Thanks for providing a wonderful experience on such a beautiful and exquisite body of water and it surroundings.

I am not a boat fan, in fact I don’t like boats. But the family reunion organized a boat trip, so what could I do. Well, it was fantastic. Even though it was 3.5 hours, it was chill, the food was REALLY good, and they have a bar. What can I say. The service was great. The narration/​history was very good, and we got to see things from the lake side you never would see from the road side. If you are staying on the west/​north side of the lake, take this tour from Tahoe City, don’t waste your time going to South Tahoe for those tours. By the time you drive down and back, you can do this really nice laid back excursion. I didn’t like the music on the return trip, but I am an old guy. Would have liked just quiet and the voices of the talking passengers, but that is minor. Highly recommended, but I never give 5 stars to anything, so that’s just me.

The cruise was fantastic, the crew very professional, food was great. Have recommended it to my friends. The history of the lake was very interesting. The boat was clean and appeared to be well maintained !

Had a group of 14 on the boat– Lunch time great service for food and drinks — Seniors to little ones all had a great time — If up north Tahoe this is the way to go… Great Tour!!! Thank you for making this a fun day on the lake!!!

The most awful customer experience I have ever experienced. My group of friends spent 20 minutes trying to find the location of the ticket booth but alas the instructions on the website are not very helpful. I then contacted the phone number on the website and asked for instructions and the owner who gave me the instructions were extremely vague and I asked for further clarity. The owner HUNG UP the phone. Never in my life have I had someone so unprofessional. Thank goodness that when I found the booth, the person who gave me the tickets apologized for the owners behavior. But seriously, this is no way to treat paying customers who are trying to enjoy their vacation.
I get that you may get frustrated answering questions from your customers, but you should reconsider your choice of profession if you can’t provide basic customer service.
Apart from this one individual, the other staff are helpful.

Had a wonderful time! Cammie (I think that’s her name) was wonderful an the whole staff was good too on a nice clean boat.

Great crew!!! The history lesson we received about the lake was amazing!!! Food was great! Drinks were awesome!!! We met a young couple on their honeymoon!!! The music that was played back from Emerald Bay was great!!! Love it all! Great job!!!

We had a great time on the happy hour cruise aboard the Tahoe Gal. The price was reasonable. The experience of being on the Lake Tahoe was priceless. The boat was comfortable and the crew & captain were very nice. Since we were on the happy hour cruise we bought some drinks and snacks and enjoyed them. We were so glad that we did this cruise while in Tahoe.

Very disappointed today with Tahoe Gal Dinner Cruise. I called on Tuesday to confirm their dinner cruise schedule for Wednesday and availability. On Wednesday drive all the way from South Lake Tahoe to Tahoe city, reached the place around 5.45pm (heavy construction along the west shore caused a lot of delay) and found the place closed. My family and kids were super disappointed.

Beautiful cruise. You get to see most of the California side of Lake Tahoe. The food is so/​so and a bit over priced, but not bad. The views were gorgeous and spectacular. Best of all, the captain of the boat made for a great tour guide. He was very informative and he pointed out all kinds of things on the shore and about the lake itself. I’d go on the cruise again if I could.

Big disappointment to five adults (2 small children) Our reservation was for an afternoon trip at $ 20/​person. Trip was canceled by outfit due to rain. When call came to cancel, I asked if there were any openings for the next morning. Response was «yes» so reservation was moved to following morning. NO MENTION OF CHANGE IN PRICE. When we arrived next morning for trip, we were charged $ 35/​person! After re-​arranging our plans around the trip and standing on the pier waiting to go, turning back was hardly an option. Boo! Make sure you ask for ALL details so you too don’t get scammed.

Where to start:
1– boarding they took the stroller of the baby from us, hut they never gave it back at exit, we had to go down and look for it to get it.
2– we ordered Nachos and Chips and salsa, they did jot bring the chips and salsa, but it was on the check. I told them and they said they will fix it. They came back charging everything including the chips. I complained, but they closed their computer and they can do nothing, then the lady had to give me back cash.
3– I wanted to leave 0 tips, but the tip is already included.
4– as we get to the table, it was dirty, we used the baby wipes to clean it.
5– we needed water, their common water buckets were empty, I asked the lady and she took the buckets to refill them. We left without her coming back, that is more than 45 minutes.
6– Captain is a grumpy older guy. Checking to see if my son can see his cockpit, he did say yes, but it was a yes with the look of «I wish i can throw both u and ur son off the boat». I spent 10 seconds for maybe I mis-​judge his look, but I was correct so I left.
7– take a drive around the lake will get you the same views they offered, they just sailed along the beach back and forth, no site seeing, no explanation, nothing, it was extremely boring.
Simply put, I will never ever ever try to consider riding with them again.

Once is enough. I came here with my family!
We took the 2.5 hour dinner cruise on a Monday night with a magic show.
It was $ 39 per adult & $ 17 per child under 12 yrs. of age. Totaling $ 112 total for the 4 of us.
Since the cruise was from 6:30 p.m. — 9:00 p.m. We needed to eat dinner aboard.
Luckily we had a couple of coupons from a local magazine that allowed us to buy one entrée and to receive a 2^nd entrée (of lesser or equal value) free. My daughter was having an issue with their menu. She’s not in any way a picky eater. It was very short & simple and she decided that she didn’t want to order anything, (only after ordering both potstickers & chicken skewers off the menu and being told they were already out.) Basically there was, chicken, fish of the day, and steak for the entrees. Only pizza on the kid menu. Different cocktails, dessert, soda, etc.
We ordered 2 salmon entrees which came with roasted veggies and rice. My son ordered pizza. I had 2 chocolate vodka cocktails at $ 13 each. My husband had a beer. We went upstairs to enjoy the view and were later told that the magic show is about to start & to go downstairs. When we got to the dining car, we saw a bunch of kids sipping on some interesting looking pink drinks with whipped cream on top.
When I asked what those were, the kids told me they were lil’ skippers.
I didn’t see them on the menu.
Those same kids were eating the pizza earlier so I asked them how it was, and they all made a yucky face, said the pizza was burnt on the cheese part and had freezer burn. We sat down in the dining area and we got a small Caesar salad each for the 4 of us, and our 2 salmon entrees arrived but no pizza?!
My child is seriously famished already.
When I went to ask where my son’s pizza was, they apologized, there was a mixup in the amount of pizzas available, 2 of the servers were taking orders and I guess there just wasn’t enough food. They also said that the pizza was served earlier (while we were on deck). I did come down to fetch my drink earlier, and did see a larger party of 8 eating pizzas, but didn’t think we were served yet because we weren’t in our seats. I never thought that was the only pizza available since our order was a different party, and not at our table. Anyway, after freaking out to our waiter about my son’s pizza, (my kid is über picky and wouldn’t eat anything else on the menu and he literally will starve himself before he eats a vegetable or fish. He didn’t seem to indicate that he would eat their rice, and he usually eats white rice, brown rice, sticky rice & even Mexican rice.
The waiter brought my child some bread and butter, at my request, since I figured he would at least eat that. Our server was sorry about the mixup and offered to comp the desserts for the kids. Nice Touch. That was good customer service. Luckily we were seated next to another couple, the woman overheard my «tantrum», and offered my son her peanut butter cliff bar. Thank G_​d she did because if it wasn’t for that bar, I don’t think my kid would’ve gotten any protein for dinner. She was so sweet & kind. I was truly grateful. The magic show was pretty cheesy but fun for all either way. The drinks helped me have more fun likely than I otherwise would have. My salmon dinner and salad was good, I was very very starving. The fish was fresh and tender. I added an extra star because they felt bad about the pizza and comped dessert. But deleted 1 star because we saw other people eating chicken skewers & potstickers, but we weren’t allowed to order them. I also deleted 1 extra star because we, as a family, always try our hardest to make sure that everyone in the family has at least one thing they like before agreeing to eat at a certain restaurant. We looked online for the dinner cruise menu before booking the tour because of this familial situation. So this is how we cope to make it all work out for every member of the family. I think we will try another cruise boat next time. I heard there was a nice cruise on the north shore too. If they improve their food menu and availability I think it will be 5 stars!

Worst experience ever! My boyfriend & I had booked our reservation about 2 weeks prior to our visit to Tahoe. We were absolutely stoked for this & we were looking forward to it for our last day on our 4 day vacation to Tahoe. We booked the happy hour cruise which starts at 4:30 & goes til 6:00pm. We arrived one hour early to ensure we were first in line & we were able to get a seat outside. Even the guy that leads you into the boat made us feel so comfortable as if this was going to be the most incredible experience. We are first on the boat & we pick a table right on the top near the side of the water. It was the perfect spot. However, our scale of 10 went to a scale of 0 in a matter of minutes. Of course lots of people are trying to grab a spot outside. So there were people taking chairs & tables & squishing them on top to make room for their large families. Seriously, I could feel them breathing on me, that’s how close they were to my personal space. Right at that moment, I knew this was going to be terrible. There was one server on top. She came to us third & we placed two cocktail orders & chicken nachos. 45 minutes pass & there is still no sign of her, our drinks, or our food. Finally 52 minutes later, we get our cold nachos, which might I add are missing the chicken… We get our drinks & she disappears. We caught her to say that our nachos didn’t have chicken & her response, «ok. Sorry» & she walked right off & never came back til she brought the check. It was absolutely horrible!!! Some people around never even got service at all!!! We were mind blown! If we wanted to order another drink at the actual bar, there was just no luck due to how many people were on this cruise! One server outside, one server inside & one bartender, for what was over 100 people on board!!! It has to be some kind of joke! & to add, there was 18% gratuity added to our check! For what??? For nachos that didn’t even come with chicken, for drinks that came out 52 minutes later, for a terrible server who did nothing for us, except bring out disgusting nachos made with NACHO CHEESE??? $ 15 for nachos with pace picante & nacho cheese. $ 53 for two drinks & ⁷⁄₁₁ style nachos, $ 40 to board, & $ 10 for the photo… $ 103!!! I’m having a hard time even thinking about this experience as I will never do it again, nor will I recommend it to anyone!

The Tahoe gal is a pretty boat but the paddle wheel is just for show. The service is fine and of course the views are spectacular. The boat is slow and feels like a cattle boat when loading and unloading. I will be back to Lake Tahoe but I’ll try to hunt down a sexier ride next time.

What a great way to wile away a sunny day on Lake Tahoe! We took the three hour tour to Emerald Bay and had a blast!
Get there early for the best seats as you will want to sit up top so that you can see all that Lake Tahoe has to offer. This is one touristy thing worth spending money on as you can have lunch served to you (try the burger and the nachos, both quite good) as well as sip adult drinks as the boat makes it way to the other side of the lake with the Captain telling stories about the people and animals that call Lake Tahoe home.
And when you enter Emerald Bay– you can marvel at more beautiful scenery! Know that the boat does not stop but just keeps moving and you might even see a bald eagle or two along the way!
We had a ball and even though we might have been the youngest people on the boat (okay maybe not cuz one woman brought her kids) this definitely was the senior cruise but that just made us laugh all the more!
It will cost you $ 43 to ride, but trust me, our bar bill was double that when all was said and done!
A great way to see Lake Tahoe with some friendly locals that don’t mind you spending the afternoon with them out on the water! So fun!

I went on the lunch cruise with a group of 8 friends and family. We had an awesome time. Tickets for the ride were reasonable, while the food was more on the expensive side. I had the burger with bacon and cheese for $ 16.50… It came with a bag of classic lays. It wasn’t the best burger ever, but it was pretty good.
Overall, I had a great, casual cruise down to emerald bay and back. We had a lot of fun and it was fantastic weather.

Positives: Beautiful scenery and pleasant wait staff. 2 for 1 dinner coupons can be found and honored-​recommended for the elevated cost. There is still a charge without discount for the cruise. The coupon is only for the meal.
Improvement needed: Narration, our dinner cruise didn’t include narration.
Service slow and speed of meal delivery needs improvement. As a couple sitting near the galley, our meal was promptly delivered but the other customers in large groups waited over an hour for service. The boat dining area seemed full.
Persons with mobility issues need to be careful as the wood pier (Tahoe City) is uneven and when exiting the boat after the dinner cruise more lighting is needed.