Booking apps for London's canal boats, Thames charters and park lakes.

Hourly and half hour slots for each pontoon, with boat size, seats and buffer time between hires. Visitors book on their phone at the water's edge, see what is free now and pay in a few taps, while staff can hold boats back for pre booked groups.

Event customers request a date, route, headcount, catering and music, and receive a quote they can accept and pay a deposit on. Later changes to guests or timings flow through the same thread, so the final booking matches what the skipper and caterer were told. A countdown of tasks, such as final numbers and dietary notes, reminds the buyer before the event.

For tidal Thames charters, the planner shows tide times against requested departures and flags trips that would fight the stream or miss a pier window. Your operations lead approves the timing, and the customer sees a confirmed boarding pier and time. Return times are checked against the same tide table.

Short briefings on steering, bridges, other boats and staying seated, offered in the languages your visitors actually speak. Each hirer confirms they watched it before the boat is released, and the record sits on the booking. Briefings can differ by boat type, so a launch on the upper river and an electric canal boat each get the instructions that actually apply.

A staff record for each skipper and deckhand, holding the licences and certificates your vessels require, with expiry alerts. Rotas are built from qualified crew only, so a charter cannot be confirmed without someone able to take it. Hours worked are tracked, which helps when planning a busy run of summer evenings.

Apple Pay and Google Pay for quick hires, cards with Strong Customer Authentication, and Open Banking payment links for larger corporate deposits. Split payments let a group share the cost of a boat before the slot is confirmed. Refunds and partial refunds go back to the original payment method automatically.

When wind, high river flows or a closure stops hiring, staff send one message that reaches every affected booking, with options to move or cancel under your terms. Lake concessions can pause sales for an hour without editing every slot. Each message is logged so staff can show who was told what and when.

A QR code on each booking, scanned at the pontoon by a staff phone, confirms the hirer, the briefing and payment in seconds. Late arrivals and no shows are logged so the next slot can be released. At quiet times the same screen lets one staff member run the pontoon alone.

Companies and agencies booking repeatedly get an account with saved invoice details, several authorised bookers and a history of past events. Concierge desks at hotels can book for guests from the same account type. Commission for agencies and hotel desks can be tracked per booking and reported monthly for easy settlement.

Staff record scrapes, missing cushions, lost phones and near misses against the booking with photos and a timestamp, straight from the pontoon. Serious incidents follow your reporting procedure, and managers get a weekly summary showing which boats, routes or times of day produce the most problems.