4 Booze Cruises to Kick Off Your Summer

Drink Lists

It doesn’t get much better than spending a lazy Saturday outside, sipping a frosty bottle of beer while hanging out with family and friends. Except for maybe knocking back a cold one while bobbing along the water in a boat. Luckily, you don’t need to own a yacht to enjoy a lazy day on the water as several boating outfitters across the country offer daily booze cruises throughout the summer. So get ready to get wet!

New York, New York

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Photo credit: Spirit of New York

How you take your Bloody Mary is a very personal thing, and Spirit Cruises gets it. On Saturdays it offers a two-hour Eat, Drink, and B. Mary brunch cruise that lets guests customize their creations with everything from stuffed olives and crispy bacon strips to celery stalks and Old Bay rims. The boat launches from Chelsea Piers and travels south along the Hudson River, past the Statue of Liberty, and up the East River before making a U-turn beneath the Brooklyn Bridge and looping back. We recommend hitting the brunch buffet early, the roasted salmon and tilapia, applewood-smoked bacon, and pastries go fast, and then taking your custom cocktail upstairs to the open-air deck to soak up the sun and the killer skyline views.


Miami, Florida

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Photo credit: Flickr // Photo by Ed Webster

There’s no shortage of parties in Miami, that’s for sure, and Island Queen Cruises is your best bet if you want to live it up on the water, but aren’t lucky enough to know someone who owns a pleasure boat. The cruise line’s year-round, two-hour Sunset Cruise departs every Saturday and Sunday evening and takes place on a 40-foot catamaran that travels the crystal blue waters of Biscayne Bay, passing alongside the city’s expansive beachfront skyline. The best part: The smaller boat size means a smaller crowd, so more Champagne and beer for you.


Cape Cod, Massachusetts

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Photo credit: Flickr // Photo by MK Feeney

Although only available during the summer months (why the hell would you want to go on a boat in the winter anyway?), Hy-Line Cruises embarks on a thrice-weekly (Tuesday through Thursday) Sunset Cocktail Cruise that navigates a stretch of the Cape Cod Canal, a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. Traveling via this engineering marvel is a safer bet for boats, since the waters are calmer than at sea, but for your purposes it just means your less likely to spill your drink all over yourself.


Marina del Rey, California

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Photo credit: Flickr // Photo by bnilsen

With signature cocktails like the El Capitan (1800 Tequila, pineapple juice, and fresh-squeezed lime juice) and the Jolly Roger (Skyy Vodka, Sour Apple Pucker, sweet and sour mix, and Sprite) available for $7 a pop, it’s easy to get as drunk as a sailor on this two-hour harbor cruise. (Although we’re not recommending this—you do want to enjoy the sweeping views of the California coastline, right?) Hornblower Cruises in Marina del Rey offers a Sights & Sips Cruise on Thursday evenings serving complimentary appetizers and the aforementioned cocktail specials. The boat is also the perfect spot to get a front-row seat of the harbor’s nightly sailboat regatta.

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