WaterloggedRiver Cruise Watch

The river's logbook for cruise travellers

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Giurgiu → Budapest · Monarch Baroness

Gate 1 Travel · 13 Day Eastern Danube River Cruise with Budapest & Bucharest · 22 October3 November 2026

Latest readings: Sunday 6 September 2026.

We hold no map coordinates for this sailing’s ports, so no map is drawn for it — an empty picture of the wrong rivers would say less than nothing. Every port on this sailing, and its water, is listed below.

Depart for Romania

Day 1 · Thursday 22 October

Not sailing

The ship does not sail on this day. Your itinerary spends it on land, so no river level applies to it.

Not sailing

Your itinerary spends this day on land, so the ship does not sail and no river level applies to it.

Your itinerary spends this day on land. The ship is not sailing, so no river level applies to it and no waterway notice is about it.

Bucharest

Day 2–3 · Fri 23 – Sat 24 October · Romania

Not sailing

The ship does not sail on this day. Your itinerary spends it on land, so no river level applies to it.

Not sailing

Your itinerary spends this day on land, so the ship does not sail and no river level applies to it.

Your itinerary spends this day on land. The ship is not sailing, so no river level applies to it and no waterway notice is about it.

Giurgiu

Day 4 · Sunday 25 October · Romania

Far below the line

The measured level is under half of Waterlogged's reference line for this ship.

159 cm below the published low-water reference

That is how far today's measured level sits below the published low-water reference for this stretch — the waterway authority’s own figure, not ours and not the cruise line's.

Water level now-107 cm
Published An authority's published low-level mark for a stretch. It is not a requirement for your ship. for this stretch52 cm

Water levels are measured at the Ruse gauge – Observation from Bulgaria's Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River, at Ruse. It surveys and maintains the Bulgarian Danube and publishes its gauge readings., the Bulgarian Danube authority, provided through The European River Information Services portal. It republishes official river data from member countries..

What to check on the official page: No German or Austrian product reaches this stretch. The Bulgarian Danube agency publishes its own forward table, and it is the only one there is here: a maximum, a forecast and a minimum for each of about six days.

Find the row for Ruse. The page is in Bulgarian, and the station names are the same ones this page uses.

Don't be surprised by a minus sign. Each gauge's zero is a fixed mark set long ago, not the riverbed, and on this stretch the summer river sits below it. A reading of −124 cm is a real measurement, not an error.

Compare each day's number with the An authority's published low-level mark for a stretch. It is not a requirement for your ship. for this stretch, shown above. That figure is the Danube Commission's low navigable water level, published by the same agency that publishes the reading — it is theirs, not ours, and it is not a requirement set by your cruise line.

Open the official Ruse forecast (Bulgarian) (opens in a new tab)

Read the full guide for this port →

Rousse

Day 5 · Monday 26 October · Bulgaria

Far below the line

The measured level is under half of Waterlogged's reference line for this ship.

159 cm below the published low-water reference

That is how far today's measured level sits below the published low-water reference for this stretch — the waterway authority’s own figure, not ours and not the cruise line's.

Water level now-107 cm
Published An authority's published low-level mark for a stretch. It is not a requirement for your ship. for this stretch52 cm

Water levels are measured at the Ruse gauge – Observation from Bulgaria's Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River, at Ruse. It surveys and maintains the Bulgarian Danube and publishes its gauge readings., the Bulgarian Danube authority, provided through The European River Information Services portal. It republishes official river data from member countries..

What to check on the official page: No German or Austrian product reaches this stretch. The Bulgarian Danube agency publishes its own forward table, and it is the only one there is here: a maximum, a forecast and a minimum for each of about six days.

Find the row for Ruse. The page is in Bulgarian, and the station names are the same ones this page uses.

Don't be surprised by a minus sign. Each gauge's zero is a fixed mark set long ago, not the riverbed, and on this stretch the summer river sits below it. A reading of −124 cm is a real measurement, not an error.

Compare each day's number with the An authority's published low-level mark for a stretch. It is not a requirement for your ship. for this stretch, shown above. That figure is the Danube Commission's low navigable water level, published by the same agency that publishes the reading — it is theirs, not ours, and it is not a requirement set by your cruise line.

Open the official Ruse forecast (Bulgarian) (opens in a new tab)

Read the full guide for this port →

Vidin

Day 6 · Tuesday 27 October · Bulgaria

Far below the line

The measured level is under half of Waterlogged's reference line for this ship.

162 cm below the published low-water reference

That is how far today's measured level sits below the published low-water reference for this stretch — the waterway authority’s own figure, not ours and not the cruise line's.

Water level now-67 cm
Published An authority's published low-level mark for a stretch. It is not a requirement for your ship. for this stretch95 cm

Water levels are measured at the Novo Selo gauge – Observation from Bulgaria's Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River, at Ruse. It surveys and maintains the Bulgarian Danube and publishes its gauge readings., the Bulgarian Danube authority, provided through The European River Information Services portal. It republishes official river data from member countries..

What to check on the official page: Nobody publishes a forecast for this gauge. The Bulgarian Danube agency's forward table covers Oryahovo, Nikopol, Svishtov, Ruse and Silistra, and Novo Selo is not one of them. What the agency does publish is the measured level, daily, for twenty stations along the Bulgarian bank.

Find the row for Novo Selo. The page is in Bulgarian, and it gives the level, the change over the last twenty-four hours and the water temperature.

Don't be surprised by a minus sign. Each gauge's zero is a fixed mark set long ago, not the riverbed, and on this stretch the summer river sits below it. A reading of −124 cm is a real measurement, not an error.

Compare each day's number with the An authority's published low-level mark for a stretch. It is not a requirement for your ship. for this stretch, shown above. That figure is the Danube Commission's low navigable water level, published by the same agency that publishes the reading — it is theirs, not ours, and it is not a requirement set by your cruise line.

Open the official Novo Selo readings (Bulgarian) (opens in a new tab)

Read the full guide for this port →

Iron Gates

Day 7 · Wednesday 28 October

No gauge on this stretch

We watch no gauge on this stretch of river. There is no reading for this day and no line to measure one against.

No gauge on this stretch

The ship crosses this stretch on this day, and we watch no gauge on it. So there is no reading for you here and no line to measure one against.

The ship crosses this stretch on this day — Lower Danube. We watch no gauge on it, so there is no reading here and no line to measure one against.

Belgrade

Day 8 · Thursday 29 October · Serbia

No gauge on this stretch

We watch no gauge on this stretch of river. There is no reading for this day and no line to measure one against.

No gauge on this stretch

The ship crosses this stretch on this day, and we watch no gauge on it. So there is no reading for you here and no line to measure one against.

The ship crosses this stretch on this day — Lower Danube · Serbia. We watch no gauge on it, so there is no reading here and no line to measure one against.

Vukovar

Day 9 · Friday 30 October · Croatia

No gauge on this stretch

We watch no gauge on this stretch of river. There is no reading for this day and no line to measure one against.

No gauge on this stretch

The ship crosses this stretch on this day, and we watch no gauge on it. So there is no reading for you here and no line to measure one against.

The ship crosses this stretch on this day — Lower Danube · Croatia. We watch no gauge on it, so there is no reading here and no line to measure one against.

Budapest

Day 10–12 · Sat 31 October – Mon 2 November · Hungary

Far below the line

The measured level is under half of Waterlogged's reference line for this ship.

38 cm below Waterlogged’s estimated level

That is how far today's measured level sits below Waterlogged’s estimated level for this stretch — read from the years of record, not a figure from the cruise line.

Water level now22 cm
Waterlogged’s Waterlogged's estimated level for this stretch, set from the measured record rather than from any ship's draught. In 35 years of readings, every day of the cruise season below it fell inside a disruption somebody documented at the time. It is a gauge level, not a depth under a ship, and no authority or cruise line publishes it.60 cm
Normal for 31 October163 cm

On the record: For 1991–2025, we checked the eleven days around this date. Budapest’s lowest daily average was 60 cm, in 2018. Today’s reading is 22. That is below every one of the 385 readings in that window.

Water levels are measured at the Budapest gauge – Observation from Hungary's national water authority. Its forecasting service publishes the Budapest table. / General Directorate of Water Management, provided through The European River Information Services portal. It republishes official river data from member countries..

What to check on the official page: The button below opens the official water-level forecast for this stretch — a simple table, about six days ahead. It shows the level in centimetres at the Budapest gauge, the same way this page shows it, so the numbers line up directly.

Don't be surprised by a negative number: the gauge's zero point sits above the riverbed, so readings below zero are real measurements, not errors.

As you read the forecast, compare each day's number with the Waterlogged's estimated level for this stretch, set from the measured record rather than from any ship's draught. In 35 years of readings, every day of the cruise season below it fell inside a disruption somebody documented at the time. It is a gauge level, not a depth under a ship, and no authority or cruise line publishes it. line — our estimated level for this stretch, set from 35 years of records: every cruise-season day below it fell within a documented disruption. That estimate is ours alone: no cruise line or authority publishes an official figure here.

Open the official Budapest forecast (English) (opens in a new tab)

Read the full guide for this port →

YOUR CRUISETODAY2500WLSNWLSN1 Aug1 Sep1 Oct1 Nov1 Dec

WLSN — Water level the ship needs (60 cm)

EuRIS official water-level prediction for Budapest, from originator Országos Vízügyi Főigazgatóság (OVF) · Waterlogged retrieved this prediction: 6 Sep 2026, 12:16 CEST · API/Service Hydrometeo v3 incorporated from EuRIS (eurisportal.eu) · Országos Vízügyi Főigazgatóság (OVF) / General Directorate of Water Management

Depart Hungary

Day 13 · Tuesday 3 November

Not sailing

The ship does not sail on this day. Your itinerary spends it on land, so no river level applies to it.

Not sailing

Your itinerary spends this day on land, so the ship does not sail and no river level applies to it.

Your itinerary spends this day on land. The ship is not sailing, so no river level applies to it and no waterway notice is about it.

What the statuses mean — each one is measured against the level we estimate this ship needs

The small white boards mark A riverside station that measures the water level in centimetres against a fixed zero point. stations — the places where a reading is physically taken. Each is drawn at its own town's coordinate, which can sit close to the port it serves. Each stretch is coloured by the worst port on it. A gauge level is not the depth of the The navigable channel where ships are meant to pass., not the room under your ship's keel, and not your ship's How deep a ship sits in the water. That depth sets how much water it needs underneath..

Every port, in the order you reach it

This list repeats the map information. It is there for phones, for screen readers and for printing.

Cities are drawn at their true latitude and longitude. The river line is a simplified course, not a navigation chart. Course geometry: Natural Earth (public domain) and © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0.

Do not see your sailing? We do not report cancelled sailings. Tell us which sailing we are missing and we will add it. You can also email info@rivercruisewatch.com with the cruise line, the ship and the dates.