Seeing the City By Sea: Circle Line Considering ‘Love Boat’ Cruises Around Manhattan

Phil Whitney found his dream job on the Hudson. The senior vice president of sales and marketing at New York Cruise Lines, which operates the Circle Line, said it’s not hard to get guests aboard their boats.

“People want to come on Circle Line,” he said. “Because it’s just so much fun to be on a boat in one of the largest cities in the world.”

New York Cruise Lines owns the Circle Line, which operates out of Pier 83 on West 42nd Street and takes people sightseeing on the Hudson River passing the Statue of Liberty and the United Nations on the East River portion of a cruise. It also owns two floating restaurants, the North River Lobster Company, where guests can munch on lobster rolls and take a photo with a giant lobster claw, and La Barca Cantina, a Mexican restaurant that serves up tacos and tequila.

The Westchester, NY native and resident came to the company in 2018 and said a typical day for him includes a morning staff meeting to discuss logistics for the day and any special events that are happening. Although the business welcomes mainly tourists, it also holds events that attract New Yorkers like Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé sunset dance cruises and a Pawsitively Pup Cruise, where guests and their dogs climb aboard for a ride around the city.

As for the brand’s future plans, Whitney hopes to have singles find love on their cruises. “We’ve talked about trying to figure out how to do speed dating,” he said. “I think that could be a winner because I have a feeling that everybody needs to find a better way to meet their life partner and if we can do that on a boat, I think that sounds like a really fun night.”

Tell us how you got started with New York Cruise Lines.

Well, I happened to see that an old friend of mine, Craig Kanarick, had become the CEO and so I reached out to him and said, “Circle Line is one of the iconic brands in New York and attractions all over the world. I would just love to come work for you.” And a short while later, he hired me.

What does your job entail and what is a typical day like for you?

My day starts off meeting with our guest services team. We have a morning meeting every day to get ready for the day so that everybody knows where the boats are departing from. We have six boats and eight berths that the boats can dock at, so we need to know every day where the boats are docked and which boats will be in operation and where they will be coming back. It’s kind of like a rotating thing, when the boat goes out and comes back, it comes back to a slightly different place. We have a lot of groups that come on our boats, so the staff needs to know which groups are coming on and do they have any special needs. So we have that morning meeting every day. And then from there, it’s a lot of marketing meetings discussing upcoming marketing campaigns and planning for special cruises. And then I often will go on the boat and go out for a nice cruise on the water.

Explain some of the different cruises you offer and which one is your favorite.

They vary in length, in terms of how much of New York you see. So Best of New York is two and a half hours. It goes all the way around Manhattan. We’re the only large company that does that. Landmarks is a 90-minute cruise, so it goes about halfway around Manhattan. That’s actually my favorite because you get to see most of New York in a slightly shorter amount of time. You see the Statue of Liberty, Lower Manhattan and then also all the way up to the United Nations. But a lot of tourists prefer Best of New York because they have more time and they want to see the parts of Manhattan that are new to most people, which is going up the East River and the Harlem River and then up around the tip of Manhattan, all the way up in Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx. And then we also have Harbor Lights, which is spectacular because you see the sun set over the city and honestly, that one never gets old because every night the light is a little bit different as it shines off the buildings. And then the last one is Liberty which is really for people who are just short on time. It goes from Midtown down to the Statue of Liberty and back in 60 minutes.

New York Cruise Lines also operates New York Water Taxi.

We also have these cruises that leave from downtown on our Water Taxi boats, so they’re smaller boats, and they’re faster, so we have many more of them. We have eight departures from downtown every day on the little catamaran boats that take you to the Statue of Liberty and back.

It also owns two floating restaurants, the North River Lobster Company and La Barca Cantina.

It’s fun to eat on the water and have a cocktail and each one has its own personality in terms of music, experience and decor. This year, we upgraded the decor of the North River Lobster Company, so there are more things to take pictures with; we have a giant lobster claw at the back of our outdoor deck. And then La Barca Cantina just has a lot of personality as a taco boat on the Hudson. It’s just so fun and also it has one of the best mezcalists in New York. I’ve learned to love mezcal. I will say it is a little bit of an acquired taste. But once you start drinking different type of mezcals and you taste the different expressions of the agave spirit, it’s just fun to be on a boat trying mezcal. And my CEO Craig has become a mezcal expert. He actually leads classes so he can teach people more about it. We called them Agave Ahoy and we’ll actually be doing some more of those in the fall.

Tell us about a memorable moment on one of the cruises.

When Jimmy Fallon went on The Beast [New York Cruise Lines’ speedboat] with the “Queer Eye” Five, one of the “Queer Eye” guys actually got sick on the boat. It’s a hard boat to feel seasick on, it’s almost like you have to convince yourself that you’re going to get seasick because the boat isn’t like a boat that rocks back and forth. It’s a speedboat that is kind of knifing through the water. But anyway, he got sick and it was very funny, you can see it on YouTube. Jimmy thought it was the funniest thing that one of his guests got sick on the boat and he was just laughing hysterically about it. And he was in such a good mood when he came off the boat, he started greeting all the people who were waiting to say hi to him and he was just really sweet about doing selfies and signing autographs.

To learn more, visit www.nycl.com.