Netherlands · Northern Europe · Central Station & Anne Frank piers
Four jetty clusters send out twenty-one different boats, and the one you walk to decides more about your hour on the water than the operator's name on the ticket does.
Quick answer
Twenty-one well-reviewed canal boats leave Amsterdam on a normal day, and the cheapest is $15 for an hour with an audioguide. The most-booked is a $16 classic saloon boat with 31,328 reviews behind it. Anything with a live skipper, a bar or a small group sits at $23 to $25, and the pizza and three-course dinner boats run from $40 to $149.
The choice that matters is not price, it is the roof and the jetty. A covered glass-top saloon boat keeps the rain off and stays on the wide water; an open boat drops low enough for the narrow canals and the arch bridges, and it is cold from October. The departure points are four clusters — Prins Hendrikkade in front of Centraal Station, the Anne Frank House jetty on the Prinsengracht, the Rijksmuseum and Heineken jetties on the Stadhouderskade, and the Leidseplein end of the Singelgracht — and a ticket bought for one of them is not valid at another.
If you want to be on the water for nothing, the GVB ferries behind Centraal Station are free and always have been. They cross the IJ, not the canal ring, which is a different city entirely — the arithmetic and what it leaves out is below.
Compare
The five kinds of boat that leave the Amsterdam jetties, each shown with the cheapest well-reviewed example of that kind. Prices, durations and review counts are the operators' own figures from the listings further down this page, re-checked in September 2026; the last column is the thing that actually settles it.
| Kind of boat | Time aboard | Roof | From | What decides it | Book |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glass-top saloon boat | 1 hour | Covered | $15 | Rain-proof, audioguide, wide canals only | Details |
| Open boat with a live skipper | 1 hour | Open or half-open | $23 | Narrow canals, real answers, no glass in the photos | Details |
| Evening and sunset boat | 1 – 1.5 hours | Both exist | $17 | Bridge lights; the city looks different after dark | Details |
| Small group, two hours | 2 hours | Open | $70 | A capped list and a skipper who can hear you | Details |
| Dinner on the water | 1.5 – 2.25 hours | Covered | $40 | It replaces dinner rather than adding to the day | Details |
The boats
Every boat below is currently bookable and carries its operator's own rating and review count. Prices are per person; the drinks, snack and cheese packages named in the titles are optional extras added at booking. Re-checked in September 2026.
4.6★ (31328 reviews) · 1 hour · from $16
4.5★ (26448 reviews) · 1 - 1.5 hours · from $23
4.4★ (23195 reviews) · 1.5 hours · from $21
4.3★ (21271 reviews) · 1 hour · from $15
4.4★ (20884 reviews) · 75 minutes · from $16
4.7★ (6125 reviews) · 1 hour · from $23
4.6★ (5796 reviews) · 1 hour · from $23
4.8★ (4687 reviews) · 1 hour · from $23
4.5★ (3041 reviews) · 1.5 hours · from $40
4.8★ (2839 reviews) · 1 hour · from $23
4.7★ (2711 reviews) · 1 hour · from $23
4.4★ (2480 reviews) · 75 minutes · from $15
4.7★ (2310 reviews) · 1.5 hours · from $25
4.6★ (2038 reviews) · 1 hour · from $28
4.6★ (1658 reviews) · 1 hour · from $24
4.3★ (1400 reviews) · 1 hour · from $17
4.9★ (747 reviews) · 2 hours · from $70
4.7★ (455 reviews) · 2 hours · from $42
4.6★ (325 reviews) · 45 minutes · from $26
4.7★ (265 reviews) · 135 minutes · from $149
4.6★ (88 reviews) · 75 minutes · from $16
The jetties
Amsterdam has no single cruise harbour. Boats load from short jetties cut into the quay across the centre, and the address on your confirmation is the only one that will let you board.
Prins Hendrikkade, in front of Centraal Station, is the biggest cluster and the default for most listings here. LOVERS loads at number 25 and the main Central Station jetty sits a few doors along at 33a, both across the road from the station's front entrance — two minutes on foot over a tram track and a cycle lane. Boats leave every fifteen to thirty minutes in season, which is why the cheapest tickets and the widest choice of times are at this end.
The Anne Frank House jetty is on the Prinsengracht at Westermarkt, beside the Westerkerk. It serves the eight-language historic-centre cruise and is one of three pickup options on the $15 audioguide boat. The cruise ticket buys nothing at the museum next door, which sells timed entry online only and nothing at the door.
The Stadhouderskade jetties serve the museum quarter: the Rijksmuseum jetty at number 42 sits at the museum's north side, five minutes across Museumplein from the Van Gogh Museum and ten minutes west of the Heineken Experience jetty that Blue Boat also uses. The Leidseplein end of the Singelgracht, opposite the Hard Rock Café, takes most evening and dinner boats — you step off into the nightlife rather than a station forecourt.
| Jetty | Address | What loads there | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central Station | Prins Hendrikkade 25 and 33a | Most saloon, evening and dinner boats | Across the road from the station; departures every 15 – 30 minutes |
| Anne Frank House | Prinsengracht at Westermarkt | Smaller historic-centre and multilingual boats | The museum is online-only timed entry; the boat ticket is not a museum ticket |
| Rijksmuseum | Stadhouderskade 42 | Museum-quarter pickups of the audioguide cruises | ~5 minutes from the Van Gogh Museum across Museumplein |
| Heineken Experience | Stadhouderskade, by the brewery | Blue Boat departures | ~10 minutes' walk east of the Rijksmuseum jetty |
| Leidseplein / Hard Rock | Stadhouderskade at the Singelgracht | Evening, dinner and open-bar boats | Ends in the nightlife district, not at a station |
The boats
Two hulls dominate the fleet and they are not interchangeable. The difference is height, and height is the whole story in a city whose bridges were built for barges.
A saloon boat is the long, low, glass-roofed vessel most people picture: seated, heated, dry, a recorded guide in a dozen languages. Its roof is also its limit. The mapping team at Waterkaarten laser-surveyed almost every bridge in the centre at a water level of NAP −40 cm, and the lowest fixed arches in the old town clear under two metres — and being arches, they are lower at the edge than in the middle. So a saloon boat stays on the wide water.
An open boat sits lower and carries fewer people, which is how the open-hull cruises and the eco boat with a live skipper reach the small canals. You pass under the bridges rather than beside them, and from October you feel every degree.
The engines changed too. Under the City of Amsterdam's emission-free rules, passenger vessels have had to run emission-free as a licence condition since the start of 2025, and from that spring the central canal zone closed to combustion-engined pleasure craft — electric, hydrogen or muscle only. The city counted about 600 passenger boats afloat, roughly 500 already electric. A listing that sells itself on being electric is describing the law.
| Hull | Where it can go | Weather | Price here | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glass-top saloon | Main ring, Amstel, harbour front | Dry and heated year-round | $15 – $21 | The audioguide loop, the classic saloon boat |
| Open boat | Narrow Jordaan canals, low arches | Summer hull; cold from October | $23 – $25 | Open-hull and live-skipper cruises |
| Electric eco boat | Small canals, audibly quieter | Half-open, seasonal cover | $23 | The live-skipper eco boat |
| Panorama glass roof | Main ring | Built for rain and for looking up | $16 | The rooftop evening cruise |
| Dinner boat | Main ring and the Amstel | Covered, seated service | $40 – $149 | Pizza boat through to three courses |
The arithmetic
Amsterdam is the rare port where the zero-euro option is permanent, genuinely on the water, and shows almost none of what a canal cruise shows you.
Walk through Centraal Station to the IJ side and the GVB ferries leave from the pontoons behind it, free to everyone on foot, on a bike, on a moped or in a wheelchair — no ticket, no gate, no tap. Line F3 to Buiksloterweg runs two boats in tandem every six minutes through the day, twelve after nine in the evening, four at rush hour, and never stops overnight. F4 to NDSM takes about a quarter of an hour; F2 to IJplein covers the eastern hop every seven and a half to fifteen.
Two adults on the cheapest canal cruise pay $15 each. On the ferry they pay nothing, all day — and a GVB single to reach a jetty at all is €3.40 for an hour or €10.00 for twenty-four.
What the ferry gives you is the IJ: a working harbour of container cranes, the EYE Filmmuseum's white wedge, the A'DAM tower at Buiksloterweg, the STRAAT hall in the old NDSM shipyard. What it does not give you is the canal ring. The belt of Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht — dug from 1613, UNESCO-listed, and the reason anyone boards a boat here — lies on the other side of the station, and no ferry enters it. Ride it for the skyline; book the boat for the canals.
Prices
Three bands, drawn from the twenty-one listings on this page rather than an average of the market.
The audioguide loop at $15 and $15, the classic saloon boat at $16, its 75-minute version at $16, the glass-rooftop evening boat at $16, the cheapest evening bar boat at $17, the long lit-city lap at $21. Half a dozen operators run the same water from the same jetties, which is why the floor is this low in a city this expensive.
Every boat with a live skipper, a bar or a capped list sits here: $23 on the eco boat, $23 in an open hull, $23 with a local guide, $23 for the best-rated sunset boat in the city, $25 for ninety minutes with Dutch snacks, $28 for the cheese-and-wine evening. The extra eight dollars buys a human being.
Season
The fleet is year-round — the covered boats run in January — so the monthly question is comfort, not availability. Air and water figures are the 1991 – 2020 averages published by Climates to Travel; the water column is the coastal figure, and nobody on any boat here swims.
Nothing here is stopped by swell — there is none. Wind takes the open boats off the water first in an autumn or winter storm while the covered fleet keeps its schedule, so an October booking is safer on a glass-top hull. The one visitors never see coming is water level: clearance under the arches is quoted at NAP −40 cm, and when heavy rain and a westerly push the IJ up, that margin goes. The water authority shuts the Oranjesluizen locks between the IJ and the Markermeer, and a hull that fitted yesterday does not fit today. Operators reroute onto the wide canals first and cancel second.
Two dates behave differently rather than badly. On King's Day the canals stay open, but the belt is closed to vessels of ten metres or more and to boats carrying more than twelve passengers unless the operator holds a commercial passenger licence, with one-way systems on the Prinsengracht, the Singel, the Herengracht and the Singelgracht; licensed operators sell their sailings out weeks ahead. During the winter light festival the evening boats are the event, and the dusk slots go first.
| Month | Day high | Water | Rain days | What it means aboard |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 6.2 °C (43 °F) | 7 °C (45 °F) | 12 | Covered hulls only; blankets and early dark |
| February | 6.9 °C (44 °F) | 6 °C (43 °F) | 11 | Coldest water of the year; cheapest month afloat |
| March | 10.1 °C (50 °F) | 6 °C (43 °F) | 10 | Open boats reappear on good days |
| April | 14.3 °C (58 °F) | 8 °C (46 °F) | 9 | Driest month at 40 mm; King's Day reshapes the water |
| May | 17.8 °C (64 °F) | 11 °C (52 °F) | 9 | Sun seven and a half hours a day, whole fleet open |
| June | 20.3 °C (69 °F) | 14 °C (57 °F) | 10 | Light until nearly eleven; sunset boats leave late |
| July | 22.5 °C (73 °F) | 16.5 °C (62 °F) | 11 | Warmest air, fullest boats, queues at the jetties |
| August | 22.4 °C (72 °F) | 18 °C (64 °F) | 12 | Warmest water, wettest summer month at 99 mm |
| September | 19.2 °C (67 °F) | 17.5 °C (64 °F) | 11 | The month to pick: warm water, shorter queues |
| October | 14.7 °C (58 °F) | 15 °C (59 °F) | 12 | Open hulls bite; storms cancel the small boats |
| November | 10 °C (50 °F) | 12 °C (54 °F) | 13 | Dark by half four, which flatters the lit bridges |
| December | 6.9 °C (44 °F) | 9 °C (48 °F) | 14 | Wettest month; the light festival fills the boats |
Extras
Amsterdam collects less at the jetty than most ports, but one charge is unusual enough to understand and three others catch people out.
The unusual one is the vermakelijkhedenretributie te water, a municipal levy on entertainment carried on the water. Under the current Verordening op de vermakelijkhedenretributie te water it runs at €2.70 per passenger on a motorised, non-stationary vessel and €0.80 a head on a stationary or unpowered one such as a pedal boat. The operator pays it to Gemeente Amsterdam for every person carried and it is already inside the fare you see — a real share of a $15 ticket, and part of why the floor price here does not fall the way it does in ports where the city takes nothing. Nothing is collected from you at the jetty.
| Item | Amount | Who collects it | When it applies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water entertainment levy | €2.70 per passenger | Gemeente Amsterdam, via the operator | Every motorised cruise — already inside the ticket price |
| Drinks and snack packages | Operator's own rate | The boat's bar, at booking or aboard | Every listing whose title says 'option' |
| Anne Frank House entry | Museum's own ticket | Anne Frank Stichting, online only | Cruises from that jetty include no museum entry |
| Tram or metro to the jetty | €3.40 per hour, €10.00 per 24 hours | GVB | Only if you are not walking; the IJ ferries stay free |
| Street cannabis fine | €100 | City enforcement officers | De Wallen, Damrak, Dam and Nieuwmarkt — not aboard a smoke-friendly boat |
On the water
The jetties sit in four clusters: Prins Hendrikkade in front of Centraal Station, the Prinsengracht by the Anne Frank House, the Stadhouderskade by the museums, and the Leidseplein end of the Singelgracht. The free ferries leave from behind the station.
Questions
For the canal ring, yes, and cheaply: $15 buys an hour inside a UNESCO-listed seventeenth-century street plan you cannot read from the pavement, because the houses were built to be seen from the water. For simply being afloat, no — the GVB ferries behind Centraal Station are free and cross the IJ every few minutes. The cruise earns its price on the ring; the ferry wins everywhere else.
One of four clusters, and only the one on your ticket. Prins Hendrikkade 25 and 33a face Centraal Station and handle most departures; the Anne Frank House jetty is on the Prinsengracht at Westermarkt; the Rijksmuseum and Heineken jetties sit on the Stadhouderskade; the Leidseplein end of the Singelgracht takes most evening boats. The audioguide cruise lets you pick between three at booking — addresses are in the jetty table.
The roof decides your route. Covered saloon boats are dry, heated and seated, but their height keeps them on the main ring and the harbour front. Open boats sit low enough for the narrow Jordaan canals, where the lowest fixed arches clear under two metres at the reference water level — that is where the open-hull cruise and the eco boat go. From October, take the roof.
Different cities. Daytime shows the gables, the leaning façades and the hoisting beams; the evening boats show the bridges lit, and the Reguliersgracht arches are the shot everyone wants. The evening fleet is also better rated here — the sunset cruise holds 4.8★ over 4,687 reviews against 4.3★ to 4.6★ for the daytime workhorses. In June it leaves close to eleven at night; in November, in the dark at five.
No, and it is worth knowing why. Lines F3, F4 and F2 leave from behind Centraal Station, cost nothing, take bikes, and F3 runs every six minutes around the clock. But they cross the IJ — cranes, the EYE Filmmuseum, the A'DAM tower, the NDSM shipyard. No ferry enters the canal ring, which lies on the far side of the station. Ride them for the skyline, then take a boat for the canals.
Read the word 'option' in the title. On the unlimited drinks and bites cruise and the cocktails and bubbles cruise the package is a paid extra added at booking, and the fare buys the seat. The evening boat with an open bar and the cheese-tasting cruise put the drinks in the price instead. Bring photo ID: eighteen is the legal minimum for alcohol in the Netherlands.
On a boat that says so, yes — the smoke boat with a bar and the discreet 45-minute cruise are built for it, both adults only, and neither sells cannabis aboard, so you buy at a licensed coffeeshop first. Step off and the rules change: smoking on the street in De Wallen, on the Damrak, Dam Square and Nieuwmarkt carries a €100 fine. Every other boat here is non-smoking.
Rain will not stop a covered boat — that is what the glass roof is for. Wind takes the open boats off first in autumn and winter storms. High water is the quiet one: bridge clearance is quoted at NAP −40 cm, and when rain and a westerly raise the IJ, the water authority shuts the Oranjesluizen locks and hulls that fitted yesterday no longer clear the arches. Operators reroute onto the wide canals before they cancel, and free cancellation up to 24 hours covers the rest.
The big saloon boats leave every fifteen to thirty minutes from Prins Hendrikkade and rarely sell out, so a day ahead is enough most months. Book earlier for the small hulls — the two-hour small-group cruise carries a capped list and the city's best rating at 4.9★ — and for any dinner service in July or August. King's Day sailings go weeks ahead, because the belt is closed that day to larger vessels except licensed operators.
Nearby
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The other canal city, where the boat is public transport rather than a sightseeing ticket
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