26-Mar-15 – The Pritzker-owned company that wants to offer tours of Chicago by land and by river faced tough skeptics on Tuesday – fellow tour operators.

Entertainment Cruises, which already operates eight boats from Navy Pier, wants to pick up passengers in amphibious vehicles, take them by city streets to Marina City and then out onto the Chicago River. South of River City, the vehicle would exit the river and continue its tour on land.

Dan Russell, vice president and general manager of Entertainment Cruises, says they will start with three or four vehicles, called “ducks” because they look like the “DUKW” vehicles General Motors Corporation made during World War II. But some members of the Chicago Harbor Safety Committee suspect the operation would quickly grow like it has in Boston, where Boston Duck Tours operates a fleet of 28 vehicles.

“We’re doing fewer tours now every year…because of all the congestion,” said Chip Collopy, president of Shoreline Sightseeing. “This isn’t going to be four boats. This is a big project…you’re basically going to slow up the river and make it more congested and it’s going to affect every other operator.”

“If the business is great and it’s able to grow in a safe, manageable way,” responded Russell, “then that’s what we will do. But we will only do it in a safe, manageable way.”

Committee members, noting the duck vehicles are less than streamlined, had questions about the wake the vehicles will produce, which Russell says will be “minimal.” They urged him to have the vehicles match the speed of larger tour boats so they are not overtaken, which can be risky.

One member suggested they reverse the course of the tour, splashing into the water on the south branch and exiting the river at Marina City, where traffic is more congested.

Company will delegate ducks to operator

A company based in Atlanta will handle the duck tours for Entertainment Cruises. Ride The Ducks International is the nation’s largest duck tour operator. Founded in 1977, they now have about 95 amphibious vehicles, made in Wichita, Kansas, by Chance Morgan Inc., which specializes in amusement rides.

“These friends of ours and partners have a national scope,” says Russell. “They operate…in eight U.S. markets. They have more vehicles on the road than anybody else. They’re leaders in duck development.”

Each vehicle is powered by a 210 horsepower diesel engine. They have front and rear disk brakes, watertight compartments to reduce the risk of hull failure, and a design that keeps water away from the axle.

The 75-minute tour will start and end at Navy Pier. While one person pilots the vehicle, a “high-energy” docent will take 37 people on a tour of Chicago. Highlights will include Art Institute of Chicago, Boeing World Headquarters, Chicago Water Tower, John Hancock Center, Marina City, Merchandise Mart, Millennium Park, and Willis Tower.

Tickets will cost no more than $35 per person, with pricing comparable to the company’s Seadog tours. (Right) View from inside a duck vehicle. Photo by Neil Jennings.

IDNR decision on special ramps expected soon

Entertainment Cruises needs permission from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to build two ramps – a 73-foot steel and concrete ramp at the far east end of Marina City’s marina. The other, a 90-foot ramp on an unused stretch of West Polk Street, where it stops just short of the river. Alfred Benesch & Company, a structural engineering firm located on North Michigan Avenue, submitted a proposal to the IDNR on November 19, 2014, on behalf of Entertainment Cruises.

(Above) The Marina City ramp would be built in the marina slip at far right. Access to the marina by land is from West Kinzie Street, down an alley between Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse and Museum of Broadcast Communications.

Downtown residents near the ramps were invited by the IDNR to write to them with objections. Russell says there were “a handful” of letters, to which they responded. He expects a decision from IDNR by the end of April.

“The parts that we’re finalizing right now are the arrangements with the city for the south entrance down there,” he says. “As soon as we do that, we’ll be ready to go to contract with all the real estate and the vessels.”

Construction of the duck vehicles would start this summer and take six months. They would build the ramps in the fall and open in spring 2016. (Left) Area where south duck ramp will be built. Photo by Lex Vink Hoeilaart.

New duck tour will avoid issues of failed 1990s ventures

This will not be Chicago’s first duck tour. Two companies tried it in the 1990s, including Chicago Trolley Company, now the largest tour operator in Chicago with 45 double-decker buses.

“They got out of it because of…old equipment,” recalls Bob Salmon, managing partner of Ride The Ducks International.

Another venture, according to Dan Russell of Entertainment Cruises, had just two vehicles. Their tours started at Rock N Roll McDonald’s on North Clark Street in River North and entered Lake Michigan at Burnham Harbor near Museum Campus.

“Tough locations, old vehicles,” recaps Russell. “They weren’t marine operators, either, like we are.”