CPBS: Party Boats for Private Hire on London's River Thames

2nd October 2007

As we come to the end of our busiest summer season ever, I finally have time to draw breath and let you know the latest about CPBS.  After the Golden Flames complete refit earlier this year she has become an excellent asset to CPBS, she is as much part of the fleet as any of our boats and is popular with crew and clients alike.  We are all very proud of her.

You may think that we could have a well earned rest now, as the number of parties eases off a little between now and the Christmas rush, but you’d be wrong.  Always looking to improve on what we have already, the Golden Jubilee had anew hardwood dance floor laid on the upper deck last week and another on the lower deck which is being completed this week.  These are particularly tricky jobs to do, as we have to squeeze them in around pre-booked functions, and as you can imagine we can’t let the boat go out with half a dance floor down!  The guys have worked long hours (through the night twice) and the Golden Jubilee is now looking better than ever!

The next big job will be the Golden Star's new dance floor which will be completed later on this year along with other woodwork onboard. By the time this is finished we will be hotting up for Christmas, which is always a hectic time of year and it will be 'all hands on deck' for the boat parties. Further maintenance is planned on our boats for early 2008.

1st May 2007

I feel like a mother hen that's found all her chicks - all 4 of our party boats are back in the hen house safe and sound. As well as getting the Sundance back fighting fit and raring to go the week before last, the Golden Flame arrived back over the weekend to complete the fleet.

It is incredible to see how much the Golden Flame has changed. From this...

via this...

to this...

...in a matter of 2 short months. The transformation is incredible but she's not even finished yet! Work has already begun on the interior to create our fabulous new party boat suitable for a wide variety of private hire on the Thames. Watch this space for further developments...!

6th April 2007

It's a lovely, sunny Good Friday afternoon, the Golden Jubilee and the Golden Star are both out plying their trade as I type, and best of all, we have news that the Sundance should be back in service in less than a fortnight!

  We were originally told that the repairs to her could take as long 2 months, mainly due to the difficulty of sourcing parts for her 'Schottel' engines. The internet however has once again made the world a much smaller place, and after several man hours of surfing by the boats Captain, the elusive parts were delivered and fitted this week in time for the Sundance to come out of dry dock for the weekend. There is still a weeks worth of work to be done, but fingers crossed, touch wood, not to tempt fate etc etc, we hope to be back cruising the Thames by the middle of April.

  I do find the whole business with the parts slightly reminiscent of trips to the mechanics with my first car. You know the type who look the car over, suck their teeth and say "Well now, it don't look good..." Phrases like that are generally followed by "It's gonna cost ya..." followed by a thump as I fall over in a dead faint in a puddle of engine oil at the astonomical price quoted. There is, as ever, much in the old adage "If you want something done properly (or in this case quickly), do it yourself". And so we did. Hurrah!

29th March 2007

I've been looking into the smoking ban legislation lately. It's quite hard to assess what, if any, impact it will have for CPBS as we haven't had any official notification or guidance from anyone yet - in fact I don't even know who will be in charge of enforcing the ban. It will probably be the council or the Maritime and Coastguard Agency but as yet neither have contacted us about it.

From my informal research (asking people in the pub and during the boat parties) it appears that we shouldn't be affected too badly. All our party boats have outside decks where smokers can go to, so for die hard smokers it's not going to be like sitting on an aeroplane for the duration. I expect the toilets will have to be patrolled - especially on wet and windy days, but as far as I can see most people are in favour of the ban and so should adhere to it.

I think the hardest change to get used to will be after hours. It's something of a tradition for the crew and bar staff to gather at the end of the function once the boat has been cleaned. We have a quick drink and a chat and the smokers have a cigarette or two. Once the smoking ban kicks in (as far as i can gather from my informal research) after hours the boats will still be classed as workplaces and as such will still be smoke-free zones. I'm not sure how that will go down with some people but we'll just have to wait and see.

There will be benefits as well - apart from the obvious health ones for our staff and passengers. No more cigarette holes in the carpets and upholstery, no more burns on the bars and woodwork and no more ashtrays to collect and empty. So all in all I think we're looking forward to the summer. As long as we get some official guidance that is.

23rd March 2007

It's hard to believe a month has passed since I last logged on, so much for my grand ideas to post a new blog on a weekly basis...

My excuse is that a lot has been happening recently, the Golden Flame is still in dry dock, the roof is on now and looks great, it changes the boat considerably and thankfully has reassured us we are doing the right thing! The stairs have also been moved so passengers will now be able to move from upper to lower saloons without going outside, it wasn't essential but we thought it would be appreciated.

Next week the windows and the rear bulkhead between the upper saloon and the back deck will go in. We are then hoping to have her back in the water in two weeks, when the internal work can start.

The Sundance joined the Flame in dry dock at the beginning of the week for her annual out of water survey. Unfortunately there was bad news, one of the engines needs a new part and this can take a couple of months and a lot of money to fix. This is a huge blow, especially as the Sundance is so popular, but looking on the bright side it's better it happened now when we are relatively quiet, than in the middle of the season in June or July when she can be working night and day.

We have contacted everyone with a party in the next two months and moved their functions onto other boats, and obviously we will keep everyone posted if the repairs look like taking over the two month estimate, and for now we just have to knuckle down to major work on not one but two boats. Whoever said being self-employed was easy??

26th February 2007

We know our boats quite well - as you might imagine - but we are aware that you may not know them quite so well. The idea came one night therefore to create a comparison table to help you make an informed choice about which of our smashing party boats is suitable for you and your function.

It lays out in a simple and easy to view format all the pertinent information about our fleet, as well as some sample boat hire rates for various cruises. Simple but effective. We hope it helps.

9th February 2007

The more eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that the newest of our pleasure boats has had a personality crisis – as of today Golden Motion has become Golden Flame.

We were very keen when we bought Golden Flame that we would not spend hours agonising over the name as we have done in the past, and apart from wanting to continue the Golden theme started with Golden Jubilee and Golden Star there were no other real criteria. Therefore when someone came up with Golden Motion and none of us hated it we went with it and patted ourselves on the back that we hadn’t wasted any time or overanalysed as we have done before.

Unfortunately that proved to be a big mistake. From day one we had very odd reactions to the name, from people who thought it just sounded weird to people who thought it sounded rude (a thought which had honestly never occurred to us!)

Anyhow, after hearing quite a lot of negative feedback we decided to go back to the drawing board, and, after a lot of emails back and forth, consultations with friends, family, the postman and the dog, and lots and lots of agonising, the Golden Flame is born. I hope you’ll agree it sounds a lot better.

26th January 2007

Well this is it – after 6 months of training and planning and hard work our new website is now up and running.   Although in keeping with our general theme, we feel that this site has a fresh new approach,  which is what we at CPBS always try to maintain.  We hope that you find it easy to navigate around our site and find all of the information you require.  Should you wish to tell us your opinions on the site we have also initiated a competition of the month which you can find here.  Happy browsing!

28th December 2006

Christmas and New Year is a funny time on the River Thames. Our fleet of river boats are always busy but the Christmas party boat ‘season’ is so much shorter than the summer one, running as it does from the first of December to the last weekend before Christmas, with the finale of course on New Years Eve, that it feels much more like a sprint as opposed to the marathon of summer.

As we come out (almost) on the other side of a month of really hard graft, we can look back pleased with the job we have done this festive season 2006. By New Years Day our three vessels Golden Star, Golden Jubilee and Sundance will have been hired for almost 50 boat parties on the Thames, spanning over 200 hours in total. We have assembled 3 trees and decorated them with 60 metres of lights, 8 boxes of tinsel and 200 baubles. Our office has fielded 35 faxes, 150 calls and over 1,000 emails, and in all we have helped over 7,000 party goers celebrate their Christmas in style on the Thames in London. In total they have drunk more than 1,500 glasses of champagne, danced to over 3,000 songs and eaten more than 2,500 mince pies on our party boats. They have pulled 3,500 crackers, worn 3,500 party hats and told 3,500 bad jokes. We have sold 550 bags of crisps, 1,500 measures of vodka and used 550 kg of ice. We have used almost 12,000 plastic glasses, thrown away a staggering 15,000 bottles and created 260 bags of rubbish. We have tied and untied the boats about 250 times, using over 500 knots, cruised from Temple to the Thames barrier and back 50 times and the average time we’ve gone to bed is 1.30am. (Unlike you revellers however we can’t sleep in, the average waking time for the boat crew is 9am…)

So as we now count down to New Years Eve and the boat parties start calming down we can look back at another great festive season on the River Thames. It's all swings and roundabouts however, as the parties slow down to a trickle in the colder months of January and February the office heats up with people booking for summer (this also means January and February can be a great time to get a prime date). If however you are thinking about hiring a boat for a summer boat party then call us asap as the boats all get very booked up. Whenever you are planning your event we look forward to welcoming you on board soon.

15th December 2006

Capital Pleasure Boats would like to wish all present and future customers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We look forward to hosting your next party on our Thames river boats!