Capital Cruises Tours

208 Barton Springs Rd
Austin, TX, 78704

(512) 480-9264

Capital Cruises offers famous Sunset Bat Watching excursions that include a trip up Austin’s Lady Bird Lake (formerly known as Town Lake). They also offer Sightseeing tours during the day on weekends that start at 1pm (This is a tour of Lady Bird Lake and does not include bat watching). Boats are limited to 36 people and tours fill up fast. You can use this system to book a reservation, but need to show up 30-45 minutes before departure time in order to claim your spot.

The boat dock is located lakeside the Hyatt Regency Austin in downtown on Barton Springs Road between Congress and South 1st Street. Our dock is right on the hike and bike trail next to the hotel pool. The closest and easiest place to park is in the Hyatt Regency Garage. It runs $5/hour and is controlled by the Hyatt Regency Austin (prices are subject to change). Other lots in the area are also pay lots and vary in price depending on events in the area. Please allow plenty of time to get to us as the downtown traffic can be congested at times.

Please not that if you have not checked in 15 minutes prior to you departure, you may lose your space and no refund will be given.

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Capital Cruises Tours Reviews

Jake Poskitt

August 1, 2025

Our boat guide Beck was funny, informative, and friendly. The whole bat bridge boat tour was amazing! It was so cool seeing all the bats come out at once!!! I highly recommend taking one of these boat tours to see the bats up close!!!!

Zoe Cech

July 24, 2025

We LOVED our evening spent with Molly, our guide on the sunset/bat viewing tour. Incredible value for the money, we were blown away!! The process was easy to book and they made it easy to find and board the boat. Molly was a wealth of knowledge and fun facts! Sunset was incredible and so were the bats! Great way to learn about the city, be near the water, and cool off a bit. A must do if you’re in town.

Crystal S

July 19, 2025

Super fun time! Had a great experience with capital cruises. They were kind enough to wait for a late person in our group. They gave us a wonderful tour of the city from our boat and the bats were fun. Appreciated our entertaining tour guide.

Edgar Ayala

July 12, 2025

Booked a tandem kayaking and bat watching tour with my girlfriend through Capital Cruises and it was such a cool and fun experience thanks to our captain Carson! He made sure we had the best spot to see the bats and gave us an overall awesome experience on the water. He was also really good at giving history facts about the buildings, bats, and a lot of things around Austin which made it even better since we’re tourists visiting for the weekend. Super chill and helpful the whole time. Definitely would do it again!

Lindsay Garcia

May 26, 2025

We had a great time on the bat tour. We saw hundreds of tiny bats! The view from the double decker boat was incredible. You can get the best photos of the city from the water. I'm really glad we decided to try the boat ride.

Chanda Mitchell

May 22, 2025

If I ever come back to Austin, I plan to go on a boat ride with capital cruises again. Last night we did the bat tour and it was a wonderful unique experience. It was really cheap; I probably would’ve been happy to pay twice as much. I encourage all visitors to Austin to see the Congress Avenue bat colony on the Capital Cruises boat. It’s an experience you will never find anywhere else. Before you go plan where you will park as there are some lots that are much pricier than others within the same walking distance.

Caryl

May 18, 2025

What an amazing experience ... floating down the river, watching the sunset and then seeing those tiny bats leave the safety of the Capital Bridge in droves. Michael's commentary was both enlightening and humorous. We had 2 teens with us and they too enjoyed this trip. Sailing back to the dock was also beautiful with the lights of the surrounding buildings reflecting off the river. A definite must for any visitor.

Joey Gonzalez

May 16, 2025

Captain Beck was awesome! Made the experience so much fun. No mosquitos on tonight’s tour, way better tour of the buildings around lady bird lake than what the city offers. Plenty of bats to see, don’t go the free route and stand on the bridge or the banks of the river, the capital experience was superb.

Alexandra Kienle

April 10, 2025

Our wonderful server at Verbena recommended this company to is for viewing the urban bats. We were very happy! They got us on the trip after waiting standby. Carson did a great job driving, narrating, telling jokes, and holding the red light so we could see the bats leaving en mass. Those was a fun and unique yet tame adventure. What a wonderful experience!

Amber Lee

March 27, 2025

Capital Cruises offers fun and engaging activities along Lady Bird Lake that elevate any trip to Austin. We have gone on bat tours, swan boats, and kayaks all through Capitol Cruises and the service has always been good, well priced, and thorough. The bat cruise was fantastic with a short tour of Lady Bird Lake and history lesson included. The bats are typically very hard to see from land but with the red lights on the boats they were much more visible. The swan boats were fun although very difficult to row as you use foot pedals and it gets tiring. Lastly, the kayaks were clean and the process of getting into them seamless, we also liked that they offered lockers to store belongings in. Summarily, Capitol Cruises offers many fun and unique aquatic activities that are sure to make your time on the lake fun, we highly recommend them!