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 301 Viking departures this site currently serves, across 46 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. 13 of these 20 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 139 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Kaub.
- Kaub — 2 cm this morning
Upper Rhine (Mainz–Basel)
On 121 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Maxau.
- Maxau — 284 cm this morning
Danube Vienna–Budapest
On 114 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Budapest.
- Budapest — 2 cm this morning
Lower Rhine (Emmerich–Cologne)
On 110 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Cologne.
- Cologne — 45 cm this morning
Austrian Danube (Passau–Vienna)
On 107 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge we read here is at Kienstock, on the Wachau next to this stretch, not on this water, so it does not govern it.
- Kienstock — 105 cm this morning
Wachau (Melk–Krems)
On 102 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Kienstock.
- Kienstock — 105 cm this morning
German Danube free stretch (Straubing–Vilshofen)
On 94 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Pfelling, and we read one more station beside it.
- Pfelling — 204 cm this morning
- Hofkirchen — 141 cm this morning
Dutch & Belgian waterways
On 77 of the 301 served Viking sailings. This water does not have a measured level: no station on it is published by anybody we may read.
River Main (Mainz–Bamberg)
On 61 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Würzburg.
- Würzburg — 145 cm this morning
Main-Danube Canal (Bamberg–Kelheim)
On 53 of the 301 served Viking sailings. This water does not have a measured level: no station on it is published by anybody we may read.
Moselle (Trier–Koblenz)
On 36 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Cochem, and we read one more station beside it.
Elbe (Hamburg/Berlin–Děčín)
On 32 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Dresden.
- Dresden — 51 cm this morning
Seine (Paris–Rouen–Honfleur)
On 21 of the 301 served Viking sailings. This water does not have a measured level: no station on it is published by anybody we may read.
Lower Danube: Novo Selo–Vidin (Danube-km 833.6–788.5)
On 16 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Novo Selo.
- Novo Selo — -87 cm this morning
Lower Danube (Budapest–Black Sea)
On 16 of the 301 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 11 of the 301 served Viking sailings. The gauge that governs this stretch of river is at Ruse.
- Ruse — -127 cm this morning
Douro (Porto–Barca d'Alva/Vega de Terrón)
On 5 of the 301 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 5 of the 301 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 5 of the 301 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 301 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 301 sailings served here, 110 name a hull because a publisher named one for that date and direction, and 191 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 2026-09-15 to 2026-12-18. 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.