Can you drink alcohol on the riverboats?
Bars on every deck, a cash bar on the Queen, Louisiana's age 21 rule and the IDs accepted, plus what mimosas and the seasonal party packages actually cost.
Seventy-five cents. That is what a dining guest aged 21 or over pays for a mimosa on a Saturday jazz brunch sailing aboard the Riverboat CITY of NEW ORLEANS, and the offer runs through September 30, 2026. It sounds like a misprint until you see it on the operator's own price list. The bar here is not a bolt-on, it is part of why people come aboard. The weekend-morning sailings those mimosas belong to are compared in the jazz brunch guide.
So yes, you can drink on the river here. All three excursion boats sell alcohol, Louisiana sets the minimum age at 21, and the difference between them comes down to how many bars there are, whether you pay as you go, and which sailing wraps the drinking into the fare.
Where can you buy a drink on each boat?
The Steamboat NATCHEZ and the Riverboat CITY of NEW ORLEANS carry bars on every deck, stocked with beer, a wine list and specialty drinks. The Paddlewheeler Creole Queen runs a cash bar. The CITY of NEW ORLEANS goes furthest, with a bar on each of her four decks including the rooftop.
The New Orleans Steamboat Company states the arrangement plainly in its own frequently asked questions: bars on all decks of both boats, with beer, wine and cocktails. That matters more than it sounds, because on a busy evening sailing the difference between one bar and four is the difference between a ten-minute queue and a two-minute one. On the NATCHEZ I tell people to walk up a deck rather than join the line they can see. The bar above is usually quieter.
The CITY of NEW ORLEANS was designed around that idea. She carries about 1,000 guests across four decks, each deck with its own bar and restaurant, and a rooftop bar on top of that. She has roughly twice the dining capacity of the NATCHEZ, up to 600 for a sit-down dinner. When a full boat wants a drink at the same moment, capacity is the whole game.
The Creole Queen runs simpler. Cash bar, three private dining rooms, 880 passengers, and a payment model that suits a shorter daytime sailing more than a long night out. Nothing wrong with it, just know that you are buying drink by drink rather than sitting down to a bar-inclusive package.
| Boat | Bars | How you pay | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steamboat NATCHEZ | On all decks | Card or cash at the bar | Beer, a wine list and specialty drinks |
| CITY of NEW ORLEANS | One per deck, four decks, plus rooftop | Card or cash at the bar | Highest drink capacity of the three |
| Creole Queen | Cash bar | Pay as you go | $15 bottomless mimosa add-on on the midday sailing |
What is the drinking age, and which IDs are accepted?
Twenty-one, as everywhere in Louisiana, and servers may ask any guest to prove it. The operator accepts three forms of photo identification that carry a date of birth: a United States Military or Federal identification card, a United States driver's licence from any state or territory, or an international passport or visa.
That list is narrower than most visitors expect, so read it again if you are travelling from abroad. A foreign driving licence is not on it. A passport is. If you are arriving from a cruise ship or a hotel and leaving the passport in the safe out of caution, take a photo of it at minimum and be prepared to be refused a drink without the document itself.
Payment is broad where identification is strict. The boats take Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, travellers cheques and cash. A working card is simpler than a queue at a cash machine on Decatur Street ten minutes before boarding.
One more rule that catches smokers rather than drinkers: these are non-smoking vessels, indoors and on the outer decks alike, and vaping is treated the same way. The drink comes with you to the rail. The cigarette does not.
Can you bring your own bottle on board?
No. The Creole Queen states it outright: no outside food or beverages are allowed on board. The Steamboat Company sells from its own bars on every deck, and the single exception it publishes to bringing your own anything is a celebration cake, which the NATCHEZ galley is too small to bake for you.
That cake exception is generous and almost nobody uses it. Mention the cake when you make your reservation, and the crew will serve it and set a reserved table with appropriate signage for a birthday or an anniversary. Champagne, however, comes from the bar.
New Orleans Paddlewheels sets out the no-outside-drinks rule on the Creole Queen's midday historic cruise page, alongside the food it does sell: a packaged lunch list bought a la carte at the bar, with grilled chicken Caesar salad, jambalaya, red beans or a hot roast beef po-boy. The same page carries the $15 bottomless mimosa add-on, which is the best-value drinking arrangement on any daytime sailing in the city if you intend to have more than two.
Budget for bar prices rather than corner-store prices, or pick a ticket that already includes what you plan to drink.
What do drink add-ons and party packages cost?
The Steamboat Company sells a seasonal party package on each of its three meal sailings: $137.50 on the evening dinner cruise against $107.50 for the plain dinner fare, $105 on the weekend brunch against $80, and $90 on the daytime lunch cruise against $65. That is $25 to $30 over the meal ticket, and the packages rotate by season.
Four windows run through the year. Summer Vibes covered May 25 to September 6, 2026. Fall Ya'll picks up September 7 and runs to November 15, 2026. The Holiday package covers November 16, 2026 through January 4, 2027, and the Mardi Gras package ran January 5 to February 22 for the 2026 Carnival season. Carnival 2027 builds toward Fat Tuesday on February 9, so if you are planning that far ahead, look for the package to reappear on a similar footing.
What each package contains changes with the season, and the operator's headline prices do not spell out the pour. This is the one product I would open the detail page for before assuming what lands in the glass. Where the contents are stated, they are worth the money: the Witches lunch and brunch cruises on October 30 and 31 include three cocktails and a meal in one ticket.
The clearest bar-inclusive ticket on the river is the VIP evening cruise aboard the NATCHEZ at $190.50. Early boarding, front-row seats at the band, the buffet and champagne included, plus a private engine room tour. It holds 4.8 stars across 893 reviews, the highest rating of any sailing here, and unlike most upgrades on this river it is not just a better chair. If you want the whole evening handled, you can see the VIP dates and what the ticket covers before you compare it with the standard fare.
| Sailing | Plain meal fare | Seasonal party package | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evening jazz with dinner | $107.50 | $137.50 | $30.00 |
| Weekend jazz brunch | $80.00 | $105.00 | $25.00 |
| Daytime lunch jazz | $65.00 | $90.00 | $25.00 |
Is the 75-cent mimosa offer actually real?
It is, and the terms are specific. Through September 30, 2026, dining guests aged 21 and over with a valid photo ID pay 75 cents for a mimosa on Saturday jazz brunch cruises aboard the Riverboat CITY of NEW ORLEANS. The words that do the work are "dining guests", meaning the brunch-inclusive ticket rather than the sightseeing fare.
Run the numbers and the offer reshapes the whole brunch decision. The Saturday brunch fare is $80 for adults 13 to 64 and $72 for guests 65 and over. The sightseeing-only option on the equivalent NATCHEZ weekend sailing is $43.50. That is a $36.50 gap for the meal, and if two or three mimosas at 75 cents come with it, the gap narrows in a way it never does on the evening cruise.
It also explains why Saturdays fill first at the brunch dock. From what I see at the wharves, the Saturday morning sailings sell out ahead of Sunday's on the same weekend, and that offer is a large part of why. Book earlier than you think you need to for a Saturday in a festival month, and read the weekend brunch sailings side by side before choosing your boat.
Which sailing suits a drinking evening best?
The evening jazz cruise aboard the NATCHEZ, at $58 without the buffet or $107.50 with it. It boards at 6:00pm and sails at 7:00pm for two hours, the Dukes of Dixieland play, and there is a bar on every deck. The Creole Queen's night sailing from Spanish Plaza is the quieter alternative at $60 with a cash bar.
Choose by the room rather than the price. The NATCHEZ evening cruise is the busy, loud, brass-heavy option, and it is the one people picture when they imagine drinking on a Mississippi steamboat. It carries 4.4 stars across 5,243 reviews on one listing and 4.1 across 8,101 on another, which for a boat that size is a solid result rather than a glowing one. The buffet is fuel more than it is the event, so if you are there mainly for the band and the bar, the $58 sightseeing fare does the job and leaves room on the tab. You can check tonight's availability and the current evening price if your dates are close.
The Creole Queen sails the same stretch of river with a different feel: a traditional jazz band, a Creole buffet, three indoor dining rooms and a cash bar, from $60. Her 4.1 rating across 1,594 reviews sits just under the NATCHEZ, and the honest reason to pick her is the room, not the score. If you want the comparison in full, the dinner jazz sailings and the deeper guide to the evening cruises both work through the trade.
One last thing, since it comes up constantly at the gangway. All these cruises are casual attire, and the operator's own wording is "No shirt, no shoes, no service", with "dressy casual" recommended for the dinner jazz cruise on account of the decor and the service. Nobody is turning you away for jeans. What to wear on board covers the rest, including what happens when you plan an open-deck evening in August and the river gives you a breeze you did not dress for.