On the Water. In the Shadow of an American Marvel.
Hoover Dam is one of the defining achievements of American engineering — a structure that redirected the Colorado River, created the largest reservoir in the United States, powered the growth of the American Southwest, and stands today as a monument to what the country chose to build during its hardest years. As America marks 250 years, Aramark Destinations invites you to experience it the way it was always meant to be seen: from the water, aboard the Desert Princess, the only paddle wheeler ever to cruise Lake Mead.
On October 25, 2026, Lake Mead Cruises marks 35 years of the Desert Princess on these waters, the largest vessel to operate on Lake Mead since the construction of Hoover Dam. Two anniversaries meeting on the same lake. One extraordinary year to be aboard.
Hoover Dam and Lake Mead: The Engineering Marvel that Shaped the American Southwest
The construction of Hoover Dam, completed in 1935 during the depths of the Great Depression, was the largest public works project in American history to that point. More than 21,000 workers built it over five years, working in summer temperatures that regularly exceeded 120 degrees in Black Canyon. The dam stands 726 feet tall, contains enough concrete to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York, and generates enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes. When it was finished, it was the tallest dam in the world and held that distinction for decades. The reservoir it created - Lake Mead, named for Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Elwood Mead - stretches 112 miles into the Mojave and Great Basin deserts, with 550 miles of shoreline and a water storage capacity that made possible the modern cities of Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and the agricultural regions of the Southwest.
The Mojave and Southern Paiute peoples have lived along the Colorado River corridor for centuries, and their relationship with this desert landscape long predates the dam and the lake it created. Lake Mead National Recreation Area, established in 1964, now encompasses 1.5 million acres of desert, canyon, and open water - a landscape where the scale of the natural environment and the scale of human ambition exist in permanent, dramatic conversation. The Desert Princess carries guests into the heart of that conversation, cruising the Black Canyon reach of the lake with Hoover Dam rising at the bow and the Mojave Desert stretching to the horizon in every direction.
Experience History in New Ways
- Guided interpretive tours and legacy experiences
- Special events and commemorative celebrations
- Property-specific stories and milestone moments
- Culinary and retail offerings inspired by local destinations
- Immersive content revealing the past, present, and future of each place
Our Promise to These Places, and to You
Landmarks of Legacy connects our destinations through three shared commitments.
Stewardship
Caring for What Endures: Lake Mead Cruises operates as an authorized concessioner of the National Park Service within Lake Mead National Recreation Area, a responsibility that places the long-term health of one of the most ecologically complex desert lake systems in the country at the center of every operational decision. Lake Mead has faced significant water level challenges in recent decades as a result of drought and increased demand across the Colorado River Basin, making responsible stewardship of this landscape not only a mandate but an urgent ongoing practice. Operating the Desert Princess responsibly means minimizing the vessel’s environmental footprint on a lake that the entire American Southwest depends upon and supporting the National Park Service’s broader mission to protect the natural and cultural resources of the recreation area for future generations.
Stories that Shape Our Destinations
Every Landmark Has a Voice: The story of Hoover Dam is inseparable from the story of the Great Depression and the New Deal, a moment when the country made a deliberate decision to employ its people on projects of lasting national consequence, and built something that still generates power, still stores water, and still draws visitors from every corner of the world more than 90 years later. The story of Lake Mead is the story of the modern American West: the water that made it possible, the engineering that captured it, and the ongoing negotiation over how much remains. The story of the Desert Princess is, by comparison, a more intimate one: 35 years of sightseeing cruises and dinner sailings and celebrations on a lake that changes color with the light and the season, with a paddle wheel turning and Hoover Dam growing larger on the horizon. The Hoover Dam Sightseeing Cruise puts guests inside all three of those stories at once.
Experiences of Legacy
Not Spectators. Participants. There is no vantage point for Hoover Dam quite like the one the Desert Princess provides, approaching the dam at water level, from inside the canyon it was built to span, with the full 726 feet of its face rising above the bow. No road overlook, no visitor center, no photograph prepares guests for the scale of it seen from the lake. The Hoover Dam Sightseeing Cruise delivers that encounter aboard the only paddle wheeler on Lake Mead, with narration that traces the dam’s construction, its engineering, its human cost, and its ongoing role in the water systems of the American Southwest. The dinner cruise delivers it in the other direction - the dam at the edge of view, the desert light changing over the lake, the 35th anniversary of a vessel that has become, in its own right, a landmark of this landscape.
Give Back to the Places You Love
Through our Round Up program and other philanthropic initiatives, guests can support preservation, education, and community programs around the places we call home — helping protect these landmarks for generations to come. Because honoring legacy also means investing in the future.
Join the Journey
Landmarks of Legacy is more than a campaign. It is a movement across America's most meaningful places — a shared commitment to the destinations that shaped our nation and continue to define who we are. Learn more at landmarksoflegacy.com.