Fortnum & Mason is launching luxury picnic boat rides on the Thames this summer
It's gonna be a classy affair
Fortnum & Mason has found a new way to class up the British summer.
The luxury department store is taking its famous picnics onto the River Thames for the very first time, launching a series of private vintage boat charters during the Henley Royal Regatta and Henley Festival this July.
Called Fortnum’s on Thames, the experience will see guests climb aboard a beautifully restored vintage vessel for a two-hour floating picnic complete with Champagne, riverside views and Fortnum’s famous Red Coat service.
It’s about as gloriously posh as you’d expect from the people who turned picnic hampers into status symbols.
Hosted aboard a vintage boat called Christobel, which has been decked out in Fortnum’s signature Eau de Nil green alongside bespoke stripes by design studio Colours of Arley, the experience promises an extremely polished version of the classic British picnic.
Each charter includes one of Fortnum’s signature picnic hampers served in a keepsake picnic bag, with menus featuring Coronation Cauliflower Tacos, Fortnum’s Classic Scotch Egg, cheese platters and Elderflower Jelly with Fresh Berries. Guests can also upgrade the whole thing with Fortnum’s Brut Réserve Champagne or English Sparkling Rosé because, naturally, this is Henley and so the dented can of warm cider you usually don in Victoria Park will simply not suffice.
The experience will run between the 1st of July and the 12th of July to coincide with both the Henley Royal Regatta and Henley Festival, two events already synonymous with an aggressively British summer. Private charters are available for groups of four, six or eight people, with prices starting from £1,000 for a two-hour trip. So yes, it costs roughly the same as a holiday, but this one comes with Red Coat service and curated river views.
Fortnum’s says the trips are designed for summer reunions, birthday celebrations and leisurely afternoons with friends, though it’s easy to imagine plenty of people booking purely for the Instagram carousel. The whole thing sounds engineered to become the sort of experience that floods your feed every July alongside strawberries, linen shirts and blurry photos of people holding Aperol spritzes near water.
Fortnum’s has taken every cliché of an ideal British summer and squeezed it onto one floating vintage boat: Champagne, picnics, rowing, countryside views and pastel green branding everywhere you look. If the weather holds out, it could end up being one of the most absurdly luxurious ways to spend an afternoon near London this summer.
Bookings are being handled directly through Fortnum’s concierge team, and availability is limited across the July run, so expect spots to disappear quickly among people determined to spend at least one weekend this summer pretending they live in a Richard Curtis film.
Skip the search — follow Shortlist on Google News to get our best lists, news, features and reviews at the top of your feeds!
