Viking river cruise water levels
Viking is the line most people arrive here asking about, so this page is the water on its own sailings: the 258 Viking departures this site currently serves, across 33 routes, and the gauges each of them actually has to get through.
Every reading below is a measurement somebody has already taken, never a forecast. What a ship does on a low-water day is decided by Viking and by nobody else — this site does not know, and does not guess.
The water Viking sails
Ranked by how many of the served sailings cross each stretch. A sailing is counted once per stretch however many days it spends on it, so a long gorge transit does not outweigh a river a great many cruises touch briefly. 12 of these 19 stretches have a measured level; the rest are canal, delta or lock-held water nobody publishes a level for.
Middle Rhine gorge (Bingen–Koblenz)
On 134 of the 258 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Kaub.
- Kaub — 34 cm this morning
Lower Rhine (Emmerich–Cologne)
On 106 of the 258 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Cologne.
- Cologne — 76 cm this morning
Danube Vienna–Budapest
On 102 of the 258 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Budapest.
- Budapest — 15 cm this morning
Upper Rhine (Mainz–Basel)
On 100 of the 258 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Maxau.
- Maxau — 322 cm this morning
Austrian Danube (Passau–Vienna)
On 90 of the 258 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Kienstock.
- Kienstock — 102 cm this morning
German Danube free stretch (Straubing–Vilshofen)
On 72 of the 258 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Pfelling, and we read one more station beside it.
- Pfelling — 219 cm this morning
- Hofkirchen — 155 cm this morning
River Main (Mainz–Bamberg)
On 67 of the 258 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Würzburg.
- Würzburg — 149 cm this morning
Main-Danube Canal (Bamberg–Kelheim)
On 61 of the 258 served Viking sailings. This water does not have a measured level: no station on it is published by anybody we may read.
Dutch & Belgian waterways
On 54 of the 258 served Viking sailings. This water does not have a measured level: no station on it is published by anybody we may read.
Elbe (Hamburg/Berlin–Děčín)
On 32 of the 258 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Dresden.
- Dresden — 58 cm this morning
Moselle (Trier–Koblenz)
On 32 of the 258 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Cochem, and we read one more station beside it.
Lower Danube: Novo Selo–Vidin (Danube-km 833.6–788.5)
On 25 of the 258 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Novo Selo.
- Novo Selo — -67 cm this morning
Lower Danube (Budapest–Black Sea)
On 25 of the 258 served Viking sailings. We read seven stations along this stretch of river. No single one of them governs the whole of it.
Lower Danube: Ruse–Giurgiu (Danube-km 525.0–435.6)
On 17 of the 258 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Ruse.
- Ruse — -107 cm this morning
Seine (Paris–Rouen–Honfleur)
On 9 of the 258 served Viking sailings. This water does not have a measured level: no station on it is published by anybody we may read.
Rhône (Lyon–Arles/Port-Saint-Louis)
On 7 of the 258 served Viking sailings. This water does not have a measured level: no station on it is published by anybody we may read.
Saône (Chalon/Mâcon–Lyon)
On 7 of the 258 served Viking sailings. This water does not have a measured level: no station on it is published by anybody we may read.
Douro (Porto–Barca d'Alva/Vega de Terrón)
On 5 of the 258 served Viking sailings. This water does not have a measured level: no station on it is published by anybody we may read.
Garonne / Gironde estuary (Bordeaux region)
On 2 of the 258 served Viking sailings. This water does not have a measured level: no station on it is published by anybody we may read.
Which ship you are on, and why it matters here
Viking publishes no ship-to-itinerary assignment at all. Of the 258 sailings served here, 165 name a hull because a publisher named one for that date and direction, and 93 are offered as a class — “a Viking Longship” — because naming a hull we were never told would be our arithmetic wearing a fact's clothes.
That is not a detail. Every comparison line this site draws is worked out from a ship's draught, so on a class entry the line is an estimate of what a ship of that class would need, and the page says so where it draws one. If you have a booking confirmation naming your hull, it beats every publisher we read, and telling us moves the row.
What to read next
- All Viking routes and sailings — pick your own departure and see its days.
- What Viking publishes about disruption — the documents, in their words, with what is not answered marked as not answered.
- What these rivers do month by month — the measured record, if you are booked further out than anybody forecasts.
- How far ahead river levels can be forecast.
- Will my river cruise be cancelled because of low water?
The served window runs 2026-09-07 to 2026-11-28. Sailings enter it as their departure comes inside the published horizon and leave it the morning after they end, so the counts on this page are today's and will not be tomorrow's.