Viking River Cruises · Viking Var
Levels relevant to this sailing
Departing Friday 23 October 2026.
This page does not say whether your cruise will run. It shows what the rivers on your route are reading now, how far that sits from the water a ship of this size needs, which of your days are level-sensitive at all, and where to read the authority's and the operator's own pages.
Your itinerary, by kind of water
- Day 1 Regensburg In port
- Day 2 Regensburg In port
- Day 3 Passau Free-flowing Straubing–Vilshofen free stretch
- Day 4 Krems Free-flowing Straubing–Vilshofen free stretch · Austrian Danube
- Day 5 Vienna Held by locks Austrian Danube
- Day 6 Vienna In port
- Day 7 Budapest Free-flowing Austrian Danube · Vienna–Budapest Danube
- Day 8 Budapest In port
3 of 8 days on this itinerary sit on free-flowing water, where the level is the constraint. 1 is held by locks, and 4 are alongside.
These chips describe the kind of water each day sits on — geography, not a forecast and not a judgment about your sailing. A day held by locks does not care about a drought upstream; a free-flowing day is where the level is the constraint.
The corridors this itinerary crosses
Waterlogged hull clear-line for Viking Var, using a draught of 1.60 m. A Waterlogged clear-line is our own arithmetic: the gauge reading at which the published reference depth, minus the ship's draught and a fixed safety allowance, still leaves a comfortable margin. It is not an operator's decision rule and no cruise line uses it.
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Straubing–Vilshofen free stretch
Free-flowingThe river runs free here, so the level is the constraint: this is where a drought actually binds a hull.
Straubing (Danube-km 2321) – Vilshofen (Danube-km 2249)
Pfelling Danube
213 cm falling 8 centimetres over 72 hours falling 8 cm over 72 hours
low on mean low/high water (MNW/MHW) · normal on navigational reference levels (NSW/HSW) — the publisher's own classification of its own reading.
82 cm below the 295 cm clear-line. Waterlogged hull clear-line for Viking Var, using a draught of 1.60 m. Derived from the published reference pair on file for this gauge.
Hofkirchen Danube
149 cm falling 3 centimetres over 72 hours falling 3 cm over 72 hours
low on mean low/high water (MNW/MHW) · normal on navigational reference levels (NSW/HSW) — the publisher's own classification of its own reading.
63 cm below the 212 cm clear-line. Waterlogged hull clear-line for Viking Var, using a draught of 1.60 m. Derived from the published reference pair on file for this gauge.
Official sources and forecasts for Straubing–Vilshofen free stretch
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Bavarian Danube gauges and their forecasts — opens HND Bayern
Bavaria's own gauge list for the Danube down to Passau. Every gauge page shows the measured level, and the gauges Bavaria forecasts add a twelve-hour forecast and a two-day trend.
Waterlogged does not reproduce or interpret the values on this page. Bavaria's flood service asserts its own copyright over this presentation, so its forward figures are linked and never mirrored.
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Official German federal six-week outlook (weekly means) — opens BfG
BfG publishes this as a trend statement in weekly means, six weeks ahead, not as day-by-day cruise guidance. It reaches Maxau, Kaub and Cologne on the Rhine, Pfelling and Hofkirchen on the Danube, and Dresden on the Elbe. Open the official product to read BfG's own figures and caveats.
This product is CC BY 4.0. Waterlogged may show the weekly means with the exact credit “Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde (BfG)” and the forecast's own issue date and time from the CSV header. We do not turn weekly means into per-day levels or passenger chances.
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ELWIS — German federal waterways notices and navigation information
The official notices channel for commercial navigation on the German waterways: closures, lock works and high-water restrictions in the authority's own wording. Its gauge pages also show the forecast for that gauge where a German authority publishes one, and leave the forecast column empty where none exists.
ELWIS content is OpenData. Commercial reuse is allowed only when the content is unchanged and credited “www.elwis.de”; ELWIS's own terms also permit links to its pages, as long as the source and the address “www.elwis.de” are named. Waterlogged may show a short quote word for word with that credit and a link. A paraphrase counts as an alteration, so we never rewrite notice content in our own words.
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Bavarian Danube gauges and their forecasts — opens HND Bayern
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Austrian Danube
Held by locksLevel held by locks. Weirs keep a working depth through a drought, so the risk on this stretch is high water and lock operations — not low water.
Passau (Danube-km 2226) – Vienna (Danube-km 1929)
Kienstock Danube
115 cm rising 2 centimetres over 72 hours rising 2 cm over 72 hours
486 cm below the 601 cm first high-water mark (speed and wash limits, and the room under the bridges starts to run out).
Impounded through the Austrian chain. The Wachau inside it genuinely runs free, and Kienstock sits in it, but no maintained-depth model exists for that gauge.
Official sources and forecasts for Austrian Danube
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viadonau / DoRIS — Kienstock gauge page with its forward view (English)
Austria's own page for the Wachau reference gauge. Its graph draws the measured line as “Pegel” and the forward line as “Vorschau”, running about five days ahead. Austria notes that Kienstock forecasts are meant for low-water situations. The same site holds the Austrian fairway information and river notices.
viadonau allows reuse of its Kienstock values with the credit “Quelle: viadonau”, and that credit rides on every Kienstock figure we show. Waterlogged still publishes no forward level of its own: the forward numbers on our Kienstock page are EuRIS's, under EuRIS's name, and this page is viadonau's own fuller version of the same gauge.
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viadonau / DoRIS — Kienstock gauge page with its forward view (English)
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Vienna–Budapest Danube
Free-flowingThe river runs free here, so the level is the constraint: this is where a drought actually binds a hull.
Vienna (Danube-km 1929) – Budapest (Danube-km 1646)
Budapest Danube
9 cm falling 27 centimetres over 72 hours falling 27 cm over 72 hours
91 cm below the 100 cm calibrated judgment line. Waterlogged hull clear-line for Viking Var, using a draught of 1.60 m. A hand-set band, not a measured fairway depth and not worked out from any ship's draught. It is our judgment about this stretch and it is labelled as one.
Official sources and forecasts for Vienna–Budapest Danube
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hydroinfo.hu — Hungarian hydrological service (official Danube levels and notices)
Hungary's official hydrological pages for the Danube, including Budapest.
Waterlogged does not reproduce or interpret the values on this page. Waterlogged has received permission from Országos Vízügyi Főigazgatóság (OVF) / General Directorate of Water Management to publish water-level data provided the content accurately reflects reality and the source is credited. This page itself stays a link: we publish the Budapest history we hold under that permission, not a copy of the publisher's own pages.
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vizugy.hu — Hungarian water directorate live gauge pages
The Hungarian directorate's own live level pages, including the Budapest gauge.
Waterlogged does not reproduce or interpret the values on this page. Waterlogged has received permission from Országos Vízügyi Főigazgatóság (OVF) / General Directorate of Water Management to publish water-level data provided the content accurately reflects reality and the source is credited. The Budapest readings we show travel through EuRIS with OVF's credit beside them; nothing is copied from these pages.
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EuRIS — European River Information Services portal
The European portal that distributes the current Budapest, Kienstock and Bulgarian lower-Danube readings Waterlogged shows, naming OVF, viadonau and ИАППД as the originators.
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hydroinfo.hu — Hungarian hydrological service (official Danube levels and notices)
History on this date
This is measured history, not a forecast and not an estimate of disruption probability.
Pfelling
The five lowest years in this archive around this calendar date
Archive span: 2015 to 2022, in this archive · 5 eligible years.
| Year | Lowest in the window | On | Level at the end of the window | Measured 72-hour change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (this year) | 217 cm | — | 217 cm | -5 cm |
| 2018 | 234 cm | 2018-08-24 | 250 cm | -12 cm |
| 2020 | 242 cm | 2020-09-21 | 242 cm | -11 cm |
| 2015 | 246 cm | 2015-08-31 | 263 cm | -7 cm |
| 2019 | 256 cm | 2019-09-21 | 256 cm | -19 cm |
| 2022 | 257 cm | 2022-09-04 | 422 cm | 51 cm |
The window is the 14 days either side of today's calendar date. Years are ranked by their lowest measured daily mean inside it.
Measured PEGELONLINE/WSV stage data, licensed under Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero – Version 2.0 (DL-DE/Zero-2.0).
- Measured daily means only; missing dates are omitted and gaps are never interpolated.
- This panel describes historical measurements and fitted seasonality, not a forecast.
- The day-of-year median is the fitted PEGELONLINE climatology in drift_params.json; it is not a projected level.
- Today's daily mean may represent a partial local civil day.
This is measured history, not a forecast and not an estimate of disruption probability.
Hofkirchen
The five lowest years in this archive around this calendar date
Archive span: 2015 to 2023, in this archive · 5 eligible years.
| Year | Lowest in the window | On | Level at the end of the window | Measured 72-hour change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (this year) | 151 cm | — | 154 cm | 1 cm |
| 2018 | 170 cm | 2018-08-24 | 195 cm | 2 cm |
| 2015 | 180 cm | 2015-09-01 | 190 cm | -4 cm |
| 2020 | 181 cm | 2020-09-21 | 181 cm | -14 cm |
| 2022 | 185 cm | 2022-09-07 | 315 cm | 46 cm |
| 2023 | 199 cm | 2023-08-24 | 213 cm | -6 cm |
The window is the 14 days either side of today's calendar date. Years are ranked by their lowest measured daily mean inside it.
Measured PEGELONLINE/WSV stage data, licensed under Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero – Version 2.0 (DL-DE/Zero-2.0).
- Measured daily means only; missing dates are omitted and gaps are never interpolated.
- This panel describes historical measurements and fitted seasonality, not a forecast.
- The day-of-year median is the fitted PEGELONLINE climatology in drift_params.json; it is not a projected level.
- Today's daily mean may represent a partial local civil day.
This is measured history, not a forecast and not an estimate of disruption probability.
Kienstock
History on this date
Waterlogged does not yet publish a history panel for this gauge: the displays that would draw on the originator's multi-year archive are not built. The publisher's own pages are linked above.
This is measured history, not a forecast and not an estimate of disruption probability.
Budapest
The five lowest years in this archive around this calendar date
Archive span: 1992 to 2022, in this archive · 5 eligible years.
| Year | Lowest in the window | On | Level at the end of the window | Measured 72-hour change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | 54 cm | 2003-08-29 | 126 cm | -64 cm |
| 2018 | 74 cm | 2018-08-24 | 97 cm | -15 cm |
| 2015 | 81 cm | 2015-09-03 | 88 cm | -19 cm |
| 1992 | 97 cm | 1992-09-03 | 121 cm | -14 cm |
| 2022 | 102 cm | 2022-09-11 | 234 cm | 72 cm |
The window is the 14 days either side of today's calendar date. Years are ranked by their lowest measured daily mean inside it.
Measured water-level data from Országos Vízügyi Főigazgatóság (OVF) / General Directorate of Water Management, published with its permission. Daily values are arithmetic means of each day's observations; where a figure here is worked out from them rather than copied, the input data originate from the General Directorate of Water Management.
- Measured daily means only; missing dates are omitted and gaps are never interpolated.
- This panel describes historical measurements and fitted seasonality, not a forecast.
- Day-of-year medians use only the licensed measurements available for this gauge.
- The current-year series ends at no date in the window; later licensed measurements are unavailable.
This is measured history, not a forecast and not an estimate of disruption probability.
Rain in the next 14 days
Rhine above Kaub — representative catchment precipitation.
3 days: 7.2 mm · 7 days: 7.2 mm · 14 days: 7.2 mm — forecast precipitation.
Rain forecast by Open-Meteo (commercial licence), model icon_seamless · fetched 7 September 2026 at 20:29 UTC · covering 14 days, 7 September to 20 September.
Weather data by Open-Meteo (commercial licence) · Representative catchment precipitation total from 8 weighted sampling points; a point sample, not an areal mean.
Rain may slow a fall or create a rise after losses and routing. Waterlogged does not convert this forecast into gauge centimetres or a cruise-disruption probability.
Read a rain forecast at the source
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Deutscher Wetterdienst — official German weather forecasts
Germany's national weather service forecast for the Rhine, Main, Moselle and Danube catchments.
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yr.no — free European rain forecasts (MET Norway / NRK)
A free public forecast covering the same catchments, if you want rain amounts today.
What Viking publishes
Waterlogged does not interpret your contract and does not calculate what you may be owed. These are the operator's own pages and the dated facts we could establish about them.
- Named disruption programme found: not found in the documents read
- Terms differ by booking market: not established
- Confidence in that finding: confirmed
- Last checked: 2026-07-30
What we could not establish:
- Whether the separate 'US Ports' version of the Passenger Ticket Contract (referenced but not fetched) differs materially for cruises touching a US port
Operator policies change without notice and differ by booking market and contract version. Waterlogged does not calculate your refund, credit, hotel entitlement or insurance payout, and does not determine cancellation rights or legal remedies. Read the operator's own documents and the terms attached to your booking, and do not cancel pre-emptively on the strength of river data alone.
Four questions worth asking your operator or agent:
- Which dated regional contract and disruption-program version applies to my booking?
- What does that document say for this specific itinerary change, and who decides whether it applies?
- What are the consequences if I cancel or reject a proposed change before the operator acts?
- What notice, evidence and deadline does the current document require, and where must it be sent?
Tell me when a gauge crosses a number
An alert here is a measured centimetre crossing on a named gauge — never a score, a probability or a changed opinion.
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Operator policies change without notice and differ by booking market and contract version. Waterlogged does not calculate your refund, credit, hotel entitlement or insurance payout, and does not determine cancellation rights or legal remedies. Read the operator's own documents and the terms attached to your booking, and do not cancel pre-emptively on the strength of river data alone.