Hello...
Is it necessary to purchase your river tours in advance?

Not necessary, but often a good idea. It all depends on the crowds that day. Hope you enjoy the tour!

The disadvantage of purchasing in advance is that you cannot predict the weather, and it's much more pleasant to take when the weather isn't rainy or foggy. The disadvantage of not purchasing in advance is that you might not get tickets. It does sell out at busy times. Of course, you're more likely to be OK waiting if you're going on a weekday than a weekend, but even then no guarantees you'll be able to get on.

I was in Chicago on a weekend last September and if I hadn't purchased tickets early, I wouldn't have been able to go on the tour. I went to purchase tickets on Friday and it was already sold out for Saturday with little availability for Sunday.

Where did you purchase your tickets and where did you board?

We just took this tour on May 22 (Mon). We purchased our tickets on-line and glad we did since the boat was full and the weather was fine.

The dock is down some stairs off Michigan Avenue at the River (NE corner). There are tickets windows down there.

By the way, the tour was a fantastic way to see the city. I highly recommend it. Also, take something warm as it can get quite windy and cold, even on a nice day.

I don't exactly remember where the location was that we got the tickets but I think it was the Chicago architectural foundation store across from the Art Museum??? I may have just been open during business hours. There is only one place to board the boat and they can tell you there how to get there. I highly recommend this tour.

http://www.architecture.org/tour_view.aspx?TourID=8

Oops, make that the SE corner of Michigan at Wacker.

i think there is a 2 for 1 in the Entertainment book, which is 1/2 price at this time of year

The tour was wonderful! No problem getting tickets at all and this was a Saturday morning. We took the Shoreline which was, I think, $5 cheaper than the competitor.

I am so easily confused!

Starrsville's URL offers 90 minutes tours, tickets may be reserved on Ticketmaster's website.

There are also Shoreline tours? Not the same? Take 1 hour.

Will I miss a lot by taking only 1 hour tour? Shoreline tours depart from Navy Pier? And then I can catch the free trolley to go to the Glass museum on the Pier?

There are multiple tour companies - Shoreline, Wendella and Chicago Architecture Foundation (nonprofit) are the ones I know of, but there may be others.

There are also multiple types of tours - river only, lake only and river/lake combo where you go through the locks between the two. I'm not sure which companies offer which types of tours.

Which you should take depends on what you want to get out of it. If you're truly interested in learning about Chicago's fascinating architectural history, take the CAF tour. I believe it is more expensive than the others, but it's a nonprofit organization dedicated to architecture, so the tour would be great for that.

If you just want to see the architecture, but want to be more up close and personal, take a river cruise by one of the other companies.

If you want great skyline views and don't care about the architecture specifically, take a lake cruise.

You can get the best of both worlds by taking a combo cruise, but you do spend quite a bit of time in the locks both ways, which is a bit boring.

If you take a cruise that leaves from Navy Pier, I'd guess it also ends there, so no trolley would be necessary to get to the stained glass museum. If you take the ones that start on the river then yes, you could take the trolley to Navy Pier from there if it is during the operating hours of the trolley.

Hopefully that helps.

I took the Shoreline tour 2 weeks ago with friends who were visiting because we couldn't get tickets to the CAF tour. Since I knew some of the architectural history of the city, I realized that the guide gave incorrect info in a few situations (dates, architects, etc.).

After the tour, one woman told him he was great. I asked if he was sure about what he'd said and he stood by it. Based on that, I'd recommend against Shoreline.

Yes, it helps, thanks you!!