Dandy Restaurant Cruises Reviews

We had our reception aboard Nina's Dandy. They are easy to work with and an excellent value for the money spent. The food was delicious with lovely presentation. Our guests thought that a river cruise was a lot of fun.

Dandy Restaurant Cruises was wonderful for us. Their price point was absolutely amazing. We rented a boat for the reception and had a full buffet on the Potomac. We thought the Sunday Champagne Brunch was the best value. The food was excellent. I wanted good food because many weddings I have been to had crappy food. They were also very good about working with us personally to get our preferences. They also set up everything for us. Very professional and I highly recommend them.

When we booked the wedding cruise the captain was there to give us a tour of the boat. He was extremely helpful and we planned a room set up, bar and food selection easily and quickly. A note: we were just shy of the minimum number of quests to book the whole boat so we opted to pay extra to keep the cruise private. I would recommend doing this if your wedding is on the smaller side and if it is possible in your budget. The cruise itself was very exciting for our guest who were mostly out of towners, going past the lit monuments at night was beautiful. As an extra surprise for them they were allowed to go up on the top of the boat and relax or dance as the boat toured... it made for some wonderful pictures. Our only negative was that the boat has to be low to be able to pass under the monuments so the ceiling feels a little closed in. Our photographer kept having to adjust so that it would not show in photos. Other that that.. awesome!

We rented Nina's Dandy for our ceremony and reception. We worked with Maria, Michael, and Andreea, all of whom did an exceptional job. The wedding was a huge success and everyone had a wonderful time on the boat. (They even managed to get the rain to hold off until after everyone went inside for dinner - I don't know how they pulled that off!)

The three of them have a ton of experience with weddings, so they were able to make several great recommendations as to how we should plan the details of the day. And, my guests had a number of dietary restrictions (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, and Jain). Maria and Andreea diligently researched what could be served, identified recipes that met these needs, and developed a delicious menu to satisfy everyone - no easy feat!

Michael was in charge on the boat the day of the wedding and he managed to keep everything running smoothly. He worked with the boat's captain so that we would be right in front of the Washington DC memorials at sunset for some beautiful pictures and helped out all of my vendors in getting them what they needed to set up. There were a ton of details and requests that I made of Michael, but he always came through.

Beyond the service, the boat is beautiful and the views of DC are amazing. Nina's Dandy is unique because it is one of the few boats in the area that can make it under the bridge so that you can go all the way up to Georgetown - that route provides many more picturesque views of DC than some of the other routes. And, of the boats that can make it all the way up to Georgetown, Nina's Dandy is a good size for a wedding of about 150 people and very reasonably priced.

We were very happy with our experience and would highly recommend Dandy Restaurant Cruises.

We changed reception locations to the Nina's Dandy six months prior to our wedding and it was one of the best decisions we made. The reception went so much better than either one of us thought it would! Victoria, their wedding coordinator, was very responsive to my 50 million emails. Victor, our manager the night of our reception, made sure everything ran smoothly and that my guests were taken care of. The food was great (how often can you say that about wedding food?) and we truly felt taken care of. We did our reception semi-private, meaning there were other people on the boat. This didn't both us (I honestly didn't really notice anyone else), our guests and it didn't seem to bother the other guests. We even had a few come up and congratulate us. Even though there were other people around, we were still able to do all the traditional wedding things - first dance, father/daughter dance, cake cutting and toasts (you can also do a bouquet and garter toss, even though we elected not to). The biggest downer was not being able to control the music. The last hour and a half of the cruise is DJ'd music and what they played would not have been my choices. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't inappropriate or anything, just definitely not my taste. It seemed that a lot of other guests agreed, since there didn't seem to be a lot of people dancing. I had given Victor a CD with five "must play" songs on it, which he said he would play throughout the night, and he didn't play any of them, which was a little disappointing. But, all in all, it was a great experience and I wouldn't hesitate recommending them to anyone.

Getting married on a boat was really amazing. We cruised the Potomac River at night from Old Town Alexandria to Georgetown and back. The boat gave each of our guests a choice of 6 different entrees in the middle of 5 course meal, each of which were totally delicious. There was a monitored parking lot right next to the boat for just $5 a car - a great deal for downtown Old Town, VA. It was somewhat pricey - over $100 per guest, but if that is your budget already, getting married on a boat was the most special way we could have spent it. All of our guests said it was the most unique, best wedding they had every been to. The sun setting on a cruise was extremely romantic, and the people who coordinated the details of the wedding on the boat's side were very accomidating and very nice. My husband and I even got a free boat ride to decide whether we wanted to have it there before the wedding. It was DEFINITELY an amazing, traditional but different, romantic venue.

Victoria, our sales rep, pretty much screwed us over at the very end. We booked and paid for 150 guests. We obviously didn't get a 100% acceptance rate, and somehow she sold out the rest of the boat in TWO DAYS!! She completely changed our seating and placement of most things, and if it wasn't for Victor (Our even manager - day off) then we would have had random strangers sitting amongst our guests. I spent hours planning, on the seating charts, menus and candy buffet which ended up being stuck in a corner and invisible to our guests. Victor completely saved the reception and was incredibly responsive to our guests, even giving them seconds and he was right on top of everything. He and the wait staff are the only reasons I gave them over a 2, because they themselves were wonderful, and fought against the sales staff for us.