Salter's Steamers Ltd

We used this company for our wedding reception. We had a fabulous evening sailing from Windsor. The company provided a wonderful buffet, with lots of vegetarian options for our many veggie guests as requested and a great disco.

All the staff were friendly and helpful. Making our event very special.

The most magical moment was the escort of swans as we sailed back in to Windsor.

I hired a self-drive boat on a whim from Salter Steamers after lunch at the Head of the River pub at Folly Bridge. 2 hours on the Thames on my own- wonderful and peaceful. The young woman who set me up was professional and had all of the paperwork ready. The boat worked great. Ran into a minor problem in the Osney lock in trying to restart it, but the Salter attendant had shown me that the red battery lever sometimes gets kicked, and yep, I had done that. After putting it back in place all was good.

Can't wait to get back to Oxford and drive on the river again.

Enjoyed a really special 2.5 hour cruise on the good ship Leila for our 45th wedding anniversary! Our anticipated public cruise became a private cruise with Skipper Alan who shared his knowledge and love of both the river and the local area freely and with humour.

This added enormously to our enjoyment as did the fact that we spent most of the time upstream of Folly Bridge rather than downstream and we selected the cruise on that basis given the number of trips we have had downstream.

The gourmet picnic lunch was of excellent quality & very tasty. Nice also to be able to choose the filling for the "sandwich" which turned out to be a chunky & well filled baguette!

Highly recommended!

The staff seemed very friendly earlier in the day when we checked out about the departure times. We wanted to catch the last boat out. They were just starting to pack up and we were 2 minutes early before they left. But they still left and told us no, even though we were standing there. The female staff member spoke to the male member of staff to check and he still continued to pack the boat to leave. Very disappointed. We aren’t locals and would have loved to travel on this boat. Shame but we instead just watched the boat sail away. If you want to go, show up 15 minutes early because most likely they will leave 5 minutes early. Anyway the boat looked nice from behind I guess.

The one star review concerns the 40 min cruise tour where you basically see nothing for 9 pounds. You cruise for about 20 min and then you turn around and go back. No sights, landscape isn't really attractive, broken boats along the canal. Save your money.
Staff is alright and friendly, all good

Agree with other reviews in that the tour itself is fairly worthless. It’s 20 min out, 20 min back. Tour guides provide information, but only for the first half, since it’s the same on the way back. The staff was awesome, but the tour is not worth it.

I had a wonderful Thames cruise today. Brian our driver was very friendly and chatty and his knowledge of oxford is immense! A perfect afternoon and I'd definitely recommend salter's steamers.

Very accomodating guys as we arrived last minute. We took the short 40 minute journey and it was just right for our young son. Interesting commentary and a nice relaxing round trip. The boat was covered as well, so no worries about the train, or being day in the bright sun.
Could do with some comfier seats - but that's boats for you!