1.5 hours with Wendella Tours & Cruises
from $45 per person, live price on the listing (checked September 2026)
Check Lake & River Dates →Opens the operator's official listing with live dates. Book there; nothing is charged on this site.
Wendella Tours & Cruises runs this 90-minute lake and river architecture cruise, one of the most popular ways to see Chicago's buildings from the water. Tickets start at $45 per person (checked September 2026), with current pricing and availability on the live booking page.
The cruise follows a route that only works because of one of the boldest engineering moves in American history. In 1900, the city completed the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a 28-mile channel that reversed the Chicago River's flow. Before that, sewage drained into Lake Michigan, the city's drinking-water source, fueling outbreaks of typhoid and cholera. The Sanitary District of Chicago, created in 1889 to manage the project, redirected the river toward the Des Plaines River and the Mississippi basin instead. The locks and controlling works built to manage that flow still keep the river navigable today, which is exactly why a tour boat can travel from the lake into the river's branches and back. As you pass under the bridges, you're floating through the direct result of that decision, with a guide pointing out the skyline that grew up around it.
The tour runs about 1.5 hours on the water. That gives the boat enough time to leave the lake, pass through the river system, and cover the main architectural highlights along the branches. Exact departure times and current dates are listed on the live booking page. Because the route moves between open lake water and the river's locks, it helps to know how the bridges along that path operate, which our bridge lift schedule guide covers in full.
1.5 hours · Wendella Tours & Cruises
Chicago: 1.5-Hour Lake and River Architecture Cruise. Operated by Wendella Tours & Cruises. Runs about 1.5 hours. Current price shown on the live listing.
Check Lake & River Dates →