Marine Cruises Reviews 

We hired Debbie canal boat for a long weekend. The team at Marinecruises were extremely helpful and prompt on their replies when booking. The boat was lovely and the extra little touches made it perfect. Would definitely recommend.

This is our second trip with marine cruises and honestly this company (and their Scottish Canals partners) are fantastic!

This time we did a 7 NT trip from Falkirk to Edinburgh on Suzanne Marie. There were 4 adults, a teen and two kids and we utilised the beds as follows:
2 adults each in the 2 doubles, teen and 4 year old in a single each at the back and 8 year old on the sofa at front.

The boat itself is spotless, well kitted out (plenty pots, pans, utensils, cups, glasses, cloths, cleaning products, toilet roll, soap, sweeping brushes etc). We had a main bathroom with shower plus another toilet which had cool doors that opened out to make another bathroom.

There is a TV with dvd player, WiFi (no connectivity issues at all even with 7 of us on board), 4 usb charging outlets and 1 regular socket.

We paid the £110 fuel deposit before we set off and on return we had used £139 so only had a £29 top up to pay which is more than reasonable.

Mooring wise we stopped first night at a wee picnic spot, next night linlithgow, then park inn (had a nice dinner there too), ratho, Harrison park, ratho, linlithgow, Falkirk wheel.
If you have kids with you, Harrison park is a great stop for Edinburgh as theres a fab park at the mooring and laser tag/adventure golf nearby.
At ratho the bridge inn restaurant is spectacular (I almost cried over my haddock mornay it was so delicious!)

We had a slight issue where we thought our toilet had blocked (bowl backed up and wouldn't flush). We called the breakdown number and bothe the man who came to empty the tanks and will the engineer were amazing. They met us in ratho and sorted the issues quickly (it was a wiring fault with toilet, not a blockage) and this is included in the cost of your holiday (unless you deliberately or negligently cause damage of course)
Edinburgh international climbing centre is also great with major indoor climbing arena, kids climbing course and soft play (with cafe). Its a hilly five minutes walk from the mooring so folks with mobility issues may struggle.

The staff at Falkirk (Gail and co in the office as well as all of the guys maintaining the boats /handover / operating the locks and wheel etc ) are incredible. There was always a cheery face and nothing was too much trouble. They were friendly, helpful and really seem invested in ensuring you have a great trip.

When organising the holiday the folks at marine cruises (based in England), are wonderful. They are responsive, friendly, helpful and you can feel that they family business who are really committed to providing high quality service and trips.

I honestly don't think I've ever dealt with such a lovely bunch of people than those at marine and Scottish canal staff at Falkirk.

As for negatives?
It would have been handy to have a couple more charging points on the boat and a shed by the bed for the middle double but that's really really picky!

We will definitely be back on the canals with this company and have told everyone we know to do the same!

We hired a Suzanne class boat for 4 days to cruise the union canal from Falkirk. We had time constraints due to flights and other commitments, and the team at Marine Cruises were so helpful in arranging our holiday.

On the day we were meant to arrive, our daughter came down sick, so we missed our train to Falkirk. The team at Marine Cruises went out of their way to ensure that we could still access the boat, and sent an engineer out first thing the next morning to do handover and get us started as soon as possible.

The boat was lovely, fully equipped, clean and comfortable. The canals and countryside are beautiful, and the Falkirk wheel and tunnels were a lot of fun.

We loved our narrowboating holiday, and can't wait to do another.

Marvellous holiday on the Shropshire Union and Llangollen Canal, picking up from Swanley Marina. Ian gave us a thorough briefing and took us through a lock to make sure we understood the drill. Plenty of action with locks and bridges on the first stretch to Whitchurch! We motored hard to get to Chirk, sadly no time for Pontcysyllte. Amazing engineering from Thomas Telford, a fellow Scot!
Hayley was very helpful, courteous and thoughtful. The boat was very clean, tidy and comfortable. The shower was excellent and toilets easy to use.
Highly recommend a Marine Cruise for a family holiday.

Hired a boat for a week out for of Falkirk. The booking process was straight forward, communicationsclear and timely and the customer service when collecting and returning the boat exemplary. The boat (Suzanne class) was well equipped, maintained and made for the perfect trip to Edinburgh. Would definitely recommend and use again.

I booked for a May trip which I had to change due to a forthcoming operation. The girls quickly allocated another free date quickly with no extra charge. Our boat, Debbie, was excellent with a good layout and well equipped. When the diesel heater failed to start one morning it was replaced within a few hours. When handing over/back the staff were very helpful and even helped carry and load our bags. A truly 5 star experience.

My husband and I hired ‘Maia’ for 10 days to cruise the Four Counties ring. The arrival team were superb! Nothing was too much trouble for Stuart and the other gentleman (whose name I unfortunately cannot remember), they took us through the first set of 4 locks as it was our first time narrowboating. I built up a good set of muscles completing over a 100 locks in all!! Maia was spotlessly clean and modern with a lovely welcome pack of goodies. Complimentary Wi-Fi didn’t work at all, so I just topped up my phone allowance. Thoroughly enjoyed and will definitely return to Marine Cruisers to cruise the Llangollen canal and up to Chester.

Hayley at Marine Cruises was brilliant (an angel!) from booking through to being on the end of the phone helping us when we were having trouble getting a pump out. When we rocked up at Swanley Bridge, our car was filled so full that Steve and Andy were surprised to find 4 crew and 3 dogs climb out! Andy introduced us to our boat - Suzanne - which was 20ft larger than the narrow boat I had driven last year (this was only our second adventure)! Thankfully, Andy kindly travelled with us to a winding hole to practice a turn and then on to the first lock to refresh our memories.

The beautiful gift box of goodies on board was a lovely treat - the apple juice was to die (or murder the rest of the crew) for! 😂

We had the most amazing time on a beautiful, comfortable and homely narrow boat that we fell in love with and didn’t want to leave. She took us on a journey and allowed us the time and space to making happy, fun memories to be treasured for years to come.

We look forward to booking with Marine Cruises in the near future and are already dreaming of our next big adventure. Many thanks to all the team, we hope to see you soon!

We could not be happier with our narrowboat holiday with Marine Cruises! We took a 10 day trip from the Swanley base up the Llangollen canal and back again. It was a beautiful holiday, a really amazing, up-to-date boat and the team at Marine Cruises was the best.
Hayley helped us so much to start with. Thanks to Hayley and the team at Marine Cruises we got the best start, a thorough walkthrough of the boat, and although the weather could be a littlle bit better, we had a really fantastic narrowboat holiday with Marine Cruises.
We have tried two other companies in the past, but Marine Cruises was exceptional, personal and we loved the (more) modern feel of the interior of the boat.

We (a Brit and three Norwegians) have just returned from 11 nights aboard canal boat Debbie. Great service from start to finish and a wonderful experience. After travelling from Bergen in Norway, we were met by Hayley and her team at Swanley Marina and they could not have been more friendly and helpful. After a very thorough handover and instruction on boat handling and lock operation we set off on the Llangollen Canal to Llangollen and back. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience, even the various "challenges" of first time canal boating. I would definitely recommend Marine Cruises.

We cannot recommend Hayley and her team highly enough! From booking to boarding the boat, the whole process was easy and friendly. We boarded our boat (Maia) at Swanley Bridge Marina. We were greeted by the team who gave us a full tour of the boat and explained how everything worked. The boat was absolutely beautiful! Spotlessly clean, modern and had everything we could possibly need for our trip. I was very apprehensive about the locks but the lovely gentleman who took us out stayed with us until the first set of locks and helped put my mind at ease. We had a fantastic trip and cannot recommend Marine Cruises highly enough. We can't wait to return and are already looking forward to our next adventure

My family and I took Suzanne out from Swanley Bridge Marina for 3 nights and had the best time! There was 7 of us and 2 dogs in total and we had more than enough space. The boat is beautiful with loads of room, two toilets, a shower, loads of storage, 3 sleeping areas, a kitchen, a dining areas which turns into another sleeping area on a night if required. The boat itself was spotless, clean and very modern. We loved it!! We took the Llangollen canal to Wrenbury where we stayed at the Dusty Miller pub for an evening meal in the first night. The next morning we set sail to Gridley Brooke and up to Whitchurch where we turned around so we were pointing in the right direction to head back the next morning. We went to another lovely pub called The Horse and Jokey. The was lots of locks and bridges, including a staircase canal lock which was great fun for all. We had the best time and are looking to book Falkirk next year. Thank you Hayley and the Marine Cruises team for the tutorial also. We were a little apprehensive with it being out first time on a canal boat but you were great and we got the swing of it straight away. Thank you!

What a brilliant week!
A breeze to book and all relevant info/YouTube videos emailed in advance of the holiday just to get an idea of things 1st.
We were met by the lovely Hayley and had a thorough handover from Ian who guided us through the 1st lock.
Then we were on our own on the Llangollen canal! A bit daunting at 1st but it didn't take long to get used to the boat and the locks and there always seemed someone with experience to give us a helping hand in the 1st day or 2, (big shout out to Laura and Ben for keeping a gentle eye on us.)
Our boat 'Maia' was perfect for 2 and had everything we needed and made for a comfortable week easing our way through the countryside.
What a fabulous way to spend some time enjoying the serenity of the water and seeing the wildlife. We chugged our way past fields and through woods watching kestrels hovering and ducks with their ducklings bob by. We chose quiet stretches along the canal for our nighttime stops and it was so quiet, just the birds and maybe a few cows or sheep breaking the silence. We made it across the aquaduct, turned and made our way leisurely back to the marina. I felt quite sad when our holiday came to an end and we had to hand our temporary home back.

If you're up for trying something different give this a go, I'm already looking forward to planning another trip!

We had a great time on the canals with beautiful weather.

The employees of Marine Cruises did a great job training us and giving us enough basic skills to use the boat.

We had 2 boats and both of them had a couple of issues, ex. water pressure failure and batteries that wouldn´t charge up during the time the boat was running.

When calling their hot line for support they responded after about 40 minutes, and we felt this was a long time since they didn't know what kind of help we needed (could have been more serious).

The wifi onboard was at it´s best weak, and the telephone signals travelling the canals the same.
From a safety point of view this is not good enough if traveling with small kids or people with illness, allergies or that are on medicine etc..

It would have been great to be able to swim and bath in the canals, but this is of course not possible because of the canals polluted water quality.

All in all this was a great experience, and we loved our country side adventure facilitated by Marine Cruises.

Knowing nothing of narrowboats, I made a call to Marine Cruises to "nose around." Hayley answered, and was so absolutely inviting, energetic, and full of information that once I hung up, I quite literally, immediately booked "Kimberley."

Once my group arrived at Falkirk, we were delighted to meet Myra who made us feel like family. She accommodated for adjustments and tackled all our queries with a smile on her face.

We had an amazing cruise on the Union Canal aboard Kimberly and could have asked for nothing more in terms of comfort or reliability. She was perfect.

I cannot recommend narrowboating, Marine Cruises, or the Kimberly more highly. All receive 10 Stars in our books.

Having trouble finding a narrow boat to hire, I contacted a few companies. Hailey from Marine Cruises was the only one that got back to me, and a few minutes later, Maia was booked. What an absolutely wonderful trip. The boat was great, weather was great. From Nantwich to Llangollen and back.
Loved the whole experience and would love to do another trip.
Murray

In this our 5th year of hiring boats from this company, we have found their customer service to be excellent in all aspects from administration to the maintenance teams. We have just completed a round trip from Swanley to Whaley Bridge in the Peak District and thoroughly enjoyed it on a very comfortable and reliable Marine Cruises narrowboat. I would highly recommend this family company to anyone thinking of a boating holiday!

We booked from Switzerland the boat hire on the Llangollen canal with Marine Cruise. When we arrived at the Marina near Nantwich we were delighted of the well equiped Lucy Michelle class boat and the friendly instruction of the local representative. During the one week up to Pontcysylite viaduct and back we had no negative incident except the weather!
Peter Scheidegger, Bern (Switzerland)

I had my own boat at Swanley Bridge for eleven years and always admired the Marine Cruiser boats.
I sold my boat a year ago due to poor health but missed the boating life so took the plunge to hire one of the Marine Cruiser boats.
I was not disappointed; the boat was well fitted out and comfortable. We had no problems and the hand over by the Marine Cruiser’s team was very good. Cupboard space was adequate and the boat was nice and warm on the cool evenings. If we hire again I would definitely hire from this company again. Thank you.

Fantastic narrow boat hire company. The best presented boat and in fact accommodation ive stayed with. And im in the trade so know what effort goes in providing holiday accommodation. Every thing you need clean and some extras what made all the difference.