We booked our reservation online the day of the trip, it was a holiday weekend and we were looking for something to do on the water. We drove an hour from our Motel to Kingston and when we arrived we found that the entire downtown area was closed off for the annual Hooley Festival and we were not able to park anywhere! We went to the shuttle lot, we waited but no shuttle ever showed up so we followed the road down and parked as close to the boat as we could and walked a half mile to the boat. We arrived at 2:30, along with a dozen other paid passengers that had a similar experience trying to park. The gate was locked and we were told we would not be allowed to board the vessel because we were late. We were given a choice to either re-book for Monday Labor Day or loose our money because the policy states no refunds. We were not given the option to book any other day because the schedule was not available to them. (they use an outside booking agent) We explained that we were not sure if we were still going to be in the area as we were traveling other places and had other plans. The agent shrugged his shoulders, nothing he could do he said.
We called the reservation line the next day (Monday) and inquired about rebooking and we were told we needed to go to the boat in person because as far as they knew there was no cruise on Labor Day. We went to the boat and we were told by the same man that we would have to wait for all of the other passengers to show up and if there was any room left we could board, and he was kind enough to remind us that he had offered to rebook us the day before but we declined. when we told him they told us to go see him, he told us to call them back because there was nothing he could do. We called the reservation center back and they got on the phone with the man at the boat and low and behold we were issued tickets.
The ship is clean and well maintained, and the crew on board were excellent. I enjoyed the sights and the information, but it was not at all worth the aggravation we experienced getting on the boat!