Lake Powell boat tours: which one is worth the money

Quick answer

The tour lineup at Lake Powell is smaller than it was five years ago, and the two best-known trips — Rainbow Bridge and Antelope Canyon out of Wahweap — are the two that aren’t running. Here’s what you can book in 2026, what each costs, and which one earns the money.

Tour	Departs	Length	Adult	Child 3–12	Status
Navajo Canyon Boat Tour	Wahweap	~3 hr 15 min	$105	$73	Running, Mar–Nov
Glen Canyon Dam cruise	Wahweap	90 min	$99	$45	Running
Canyon Princess dinner cruise	Wahweap	2 hr	$135	$70	Fri & Sat, May–Oct
Antelope Canyon Boat Tour	Antelope Point	~1 hr	from $50	from $30	Running
Navajo Canyon Boat Tour	Antelope Point	~2 hr	from $75	from $45	Tue, Thu, Sat
Antelope Canyon Tour	Wahweap	1.5 hr	$88.88	$40.56	Suspended
Rainbow Bridge Tour	Wahweap	~7 hr	$167	$120	Suspended

Prices are before tax and fees, and the $30 park entrance fee is separate. Antelope Point’s child rates cover ages 4–12.

Which Lake Powell boat tours are still running?

Three scheduled tours out of Wahweap and two out of Antelope Point, plus private charters at both. The National Park Service authorizes exactly two boat-tour concessioners on the lake — Lake Powell Resorts & Marinas at Wahweap and Halls Crossing, and Antelope Point Marina — so those two names cover the scheduled lake tours. From Wahweap you can book the Navajo Canyon Boat Tour at $105 adult and $73 child, a 90-minute Glen Canyon Dam cruise at $99 and $45, and the two-hour Canyon Princess dinner cruise at $135 and $70, Fridays and Saturdays from May through October.

Antelope Point Marina runs a one-hour Antelope Canyon tour from $50 adult and $30 child, and a two-hour Navajo Canyon tour from $75 and $45 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. It also arranges private charters and a kayak tour up Labyrinth Canyon.

Which tour is worth the money?

The Navajo Canyon Boat Tour out of Wahweap. Three hours and fifteen minutes on the water for $105 buys you the dam from the lake side, the run out through Wahweap Bay, and the walls of Navajo Canyon rising 600 feet over the boat, per the operator’s tour page. That’s our pick on time-for-money: a 90-minute dam cruise turns around before the scenery gets good, while three hours gets you into a real side canyon. If you’re bringing kids or you only have a morning, Antelope Point’s one-hour Antelope Canyon run at $50 is the better value per hour.

One repeated complaint in traveler reviews is worth planning around: seating on the open top deck of the larger Wahweap boats goes to whoever boards first, and TripAdvisor reviewers who ended up in the enclosed lower cabin on a hot afternoon describe it as stuffy with blocked sightlines, with at least one saying the trip wasn’t worth the money on that basis. Reviews of the same tour from guests who got upstairs run much warmer. Check in early, and take the 9:00 a.m. departure over the 1:45 p.m. one in July and August.

Why are the Rainbow Bridge and Antelope Canyon tours suspended?

Lake Powell Resorts & Marinas lists both the Rainbow Bridge Tour and the Antelope Canyon Tour as “currently unavailable until further notice,” and neither carries a restart date. The stated reasons differ, though, so it’s worth separating them.

Rainbow Bridge is the documented one. The National Park Service reports that the floating courtesy dock at the monument no longer reaches the trail, leaving visitors a walk of roughly a mile each way to the viewing area — a stop a 7-hour, $167-per-seat passenger boat was never set up to make.

The Wahweap Antelope Canyon suspension has no published explanation beyond the notice itself, and Antelope Point still sells its own Antelope Canyon trip. We’re not going to guess at a cause the operator hasn’t given. The practical upshot: to see Antelope Canyon from the water in 2026, book it at Antelope Point.

If Rainbow Bridge is the reason you came, you can still get there in a rented or private boat, or by asking Antelope Point about a private charter itinerary. Our Rainbow Bridge by boat guide has the distances, the fuel math and the hike in from the dock.

Which marina should you book from?

Wahweap for the longer tours and the dinner cruise, Antelope Point for a cheap, quick canyon run. Wahweap is the only place selling a sit-down dinner cruise or a scheduled three-hour-plus trip; tours leave from the Lake Powell Resort dock in Wahweap Bay, just outside Page. Antelope Point sits closer to Antelope Canyon itself and runs multiple departures a day on a shorter, cheaper boat. Park in the lot at the top of the marina there and take the complimentary shuttle down to the boat tours office at the marina village, where check-in happens.

The north end works differently. The Park Service lists charter tours from Halls Crossing, and Lake Powell Resorts sells a North Lake Private Boat Tour booked by phone at 435-684-3062 — both charter arrangements rather than the per-seat scheduled cruises Wahweap runs. Around Bullfrog and Halls Crossing, chartering or renting is how you get on the water.

Is the Horseshoe Bend raft trip a Lake Powell boat tour?

It runs on the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam, downstream of the lake entirely. It gets grouped with the lake tours because it’s sold by the same concessioner and departs from Page, so it’s worth knowing what you’re booking. Wilderness River Adventures runs the Horseshoe Bend rafting trip as a half-day only: about five hours door to door, $129 for adults 16 and up and $113.82 for children 4 to 15, on a 2026 schedule running March 1 through November 3. You bus from Page, launch at Lees Ferry, and float the smooth-water stretch past Horseshoe Bend.

Two details catch people out. The park fee here is $15 rather than the $30 lake fee. And the trip needs eight full-fare passengers to run, or it cancels — so if you book a thin midweek date, confirm before you drive out.

While you’re in Page: Recreation.gov lists tours of Glen Canyon Dam as closed. The Carl Hayden Visitor Center above it is open.

What the ticket price doesn’t cover

The $30 Glen Canyon entrance fee, charged per private vehicle and good for seven days, per the NPS fee page. An America the Beautiful pass covers it. Every operator lists that fee separately from the tour price, so a $105 ticket for two adults is really $240 out the door before tax. Antelope Point charges its own $30 per-vehicle entrance fee at the gate — that one is a Navajo Nation fee, with a $60 annual version. Food isn’t included on the daytime tours either; the Wahweap boats carry water, coffee and lemonade and nothing more. The Canyon Princess is the exception, with entrées, salad and dessert included and a cash bar.

Timing costs you too, in a way the price sheet doesn’t show. The scheduled season runs spring through fall — the Navajo Canyon tour from March into November, the dinner cruise May through October — and the hottest months sit right in the middle of it, so a midday departure in July is a different trip than the same boat at nine in the morning. Our seasonal patterns guide covers the month-by-month tradeoffs, and the weather safety guide explains the afternoon wind that can shorten or scrub a sailing.

A tour is the low-commitment way onto Lake Powell, and it covers a narrow slice of it — the water within a couple hours of Page. Renting your own boat opens the rest of the lake’s nearly 2,000 miles of shoreline. The boat rental guide walks through what that costs and how far ahead to book, and the side-canyon guide maps where to point it.

Key takeaways

1. Five scheduled tours run in 2026 — three from Wahweap, two from Antelope Point — plus private charters at both marinas.
2. The Rainbow Bridge and Wahweap Antelope Canyon tours are both listed as unavailable until further notice, with no restart date.
3. The 3-hour-15-minute Navajo Canyon tour from Wahweap ($105 adult) is the best value; Antelope Point’s one-hour run at $50 is the cheap alternative.
4. Check in early and take a morning departure — top-deck seating is first come, first served, and the lower cabin is hot.
5. Add $30 per vehicle for park entry on top of every ticket; the Horseshoe Bend raft trip is $15 and runs on the river, not the lake.