Danube and Rhine Water Levels Today: Which River Cruises Are Cancelled?
Updated: Sep 29
Live status for the 2026 low water season on Europe's rivers, updated as conditions change.
Last updated: 28 September 2026. Water levels, cruise line updates and forecasts checked against sources dated 21 to 28 September.
No, Danube and Rhine river cruises have not stopped, but the low water is back and in places it is worse than August. On 23 September the Rhine gauge at Kaub read 12cm, below its pre-2026 record of 25cm and close to the 6cm all-time low set on 17 August. The Danube is falling again too. Most lines are still sailing, using ship swaps, coach transfers and hotel nights rather than cancelling. TravelPulse reports that about 10 per cent of Viking's European river departures were cancelled over July and August, and more than half were affected in some way.
So the honest answer to "is my cruise cancelled" is almost certainly no. The harder question is whether the holiday you booked is the holiday you'll get, and that one depends entirely on which stretch of river your ship needs to pass.
Current status at a glance
Rhine at Kaub: 17cm on 21 September and 12cm on 23 September, with Germany's federal hydrology agency (BfG) estimating around 6cm by 27 September. The low water reference at Kaub is 77cm. Navigable depth there was about 1.25m on 23 September, against a normal 1.90m.
Wider Rhine: six of eight gauges checked on 23 September were below their official record lows, including Worms, Andernach, Duisburg-Ruhrort and Emmerich.
Upper Danube at Pfelling: just above its previous record low on 21 September and forecast to fall further. Fairway depth about 1.76m on 27 September and falling.
Danube east of Vienna and in Hungary: fairway depth about 1.61m at Wildungsmauer, 1.58m at Budapest and 1.26m at Mohacs on 27 September, all falling. Mohacs is too shallow even for 1.45m shallow draught ships.
Seine, Rhone, Saone and Douro: no widespread low water disruption reported.
Outlook: the seven day forecasts for Kaub and the main Danube gauges are flat or falling. There is no sustained rain in the short range forecasts.
If your river cruise is affected
Is my Danube or Rhine cruise cancelled right now?
Probably not, but your itinerary may well have changed.
The industry's clear preference this summer has been to operate an altered holiday rather than cancel one. Viking, AmaWaterways, Scenic, Emerald, Uniworld and APT are all still running large parts of their programmes with modifications. The lines that have shown most willingness to cancel outright are Riviera Travel, Avalon Waterways and Tauck.
Two identical departures a week apart can end up completely different, because what matters is where your specific ship happens to be when a shallow reach closes. That's why lines are leaving final decisions until close to sailing date, and why a company wide statement on a website only tells you so much.
If you're sailing in the next fortnight, expect a call or an email in the seven days before departure. If you haven't had one and you're inside a week, chase it.
What are the water levels today?
Gauge readings are the number everyone quotes, so it's worth knowing what they actually are. A gauge height is a measurement at one fixed point, not the depth of water under your ship, and readings from different gauges cannot be compared with each other. Whether a vessel can pass depends on its draft, how heavily it's loaded, the navigable channel and the captain's judgement on the day.
Gauge | Latest reading | Reference level | What it means |
Rhine at Kaub | 12cm, 23 Sep (17cm on 21 Sep) | 77cm low water reference | Back near the 6cm record of 17 August. BfG estimate around 6cm by 27 Sep. This is the castle stretch bottleneck. |
Rhine, wider river | Six of eight gauges below record lows, 23 Sep | Varies by gauge | Worms, Andernach, Duisburg-Ruhrort and Emmerich all below their previous minimums. |
Upper Danube at Pfelling | Just above previous record low, 21 Sep. Fairway about 1.76m, 27 Sep | 290cm regulated low water | Forecast to fall further. Passau to Nuremberg is where Viking has been swapping ships. |
Danube, Vienna to Budapest | Fairway about 1.61m at Wildungsmauer and 1.58m at Budapest, 27 Sep | Ships typically need 1.5m to 2.1m | Marginal and falling. Wildungsmauer, east of Vienna, is one of the two critical points Viking has named. |
Danube, southern Hungary | Fairway about 1.26m at Mohacs, 27 Sep | Below 1.45m shallow draught | Too shallow for most river ships. Affects longer Danube itineraries heading towards the Black Sea. |
Seine, Rhone, Saone, Douro | Normal operations | n/a | No widespread low water disruption reported on the main cruise programmes. |
Kaub is the number the trade watches because it's the first place a shallow water limit gets hit. It sits in the Middle Rhine Gorge between RĂĽdesheim and Koblenz, the castle stretch everyone books the cruise for. When people say "the Rhine is closed," they nearly always mean Kaub.
For context on how far outside normal this year is: Bloomberg reported that Kaub's 6cm reading on 17 August was the lowest since record keeping began in 1880. The previous low in German government reference data was 25cm, set in October 2018. At Pfelling, the 194cm reading on 17 August went below the previous benchmark low of 221cm from August 2022.
Which stretches are actually closed?
No line has published a fresh closure map since Scenic's late August update, so the best guide is where operators are working around the river. Viking has named two critical points: Kaub on the Middle Rhine, and Wildungsmauer east of Vienna on the Danube. Its Grand European Tour guests have been starting with hotel nights in Budapest and Vienna, joining the ship at Melk by coach, and swapping to a sister ship to get past the shallow upper Danube between Passau and Nuremberg.
The practical read on that: a classic Amsterdam to Basel Rhine itinerary is possible but not guaranteed end to end. A Danube itinerary that runs the full Nuremberg or Passau to Budapest route has two separate problem reaches to clear, which is why so many Danube guests this summer have ended up on coaches.
Further downstream, Romania has had its own version of this. The Danube there fell to roughly 1,500 cubic metres per second in early August, around a third of a typical July flow, which forced authorities to shut a reactor unit at the Cernavoda nuclear plant. That's outside the main cruise programmes but it tells you the scale of the drought.
What is each cruise line doing?
Latest confirmed position for each line. Viking, AmaWaterways and Riviera reflect September updates; the others reflect each line's last public update in late August.
Line | Current approach |
Viking | Sister ship swaps, hotel nights and coach transfers. Grand European Tour guests have started with nights in Budapest and Vienna hotels before joining the ship at Melk. Affected guests have been offered a future cruise voucher worth 60 per cent of the cruise fare. About 10 per cent of Viking's European river departures were cancelled over July and August. |
AmaWaterways | Rerouting rather than cancelling: changed ports, altered embarkation, coach transfers and ship swaps. Affected guests have been offered a proportionate future cruise credit, a rebooking at the same rate, or a 100 per cent future cruise credit if they cancel. |
Scenic | Sister ships, changed embarkation points, coaches and hotel nights. Guests on affected departures through 10 September should have had an initial notice, with a further update about a week before sailing. |
Emerald Cruises | Same Scenic Group contingency system. Options can include an altered itinerary, rebooking or future travel arrangements depending on the departure. |
Riviera Travel | The most conservative approach. Paused new sales of Rhine and Danube cruises through 13 September, saying it would not replace large parts of the river journey with repeated long coach journeys. Existing departures were not blanket cancelled. |
Avalon Waterways | Affected guests get a choice: move to another Avalon cruise, apply the value to a Globus or Cosmos land tour, or take a full refund. At least three named Danube departures cancelled. |
Tauck | Has cancelled selected departures where it judged conditions too disruptive. One passenger with a cancelled Rhine and Moselle sailing reported a full refund within two days. |
Uniworld | Says the large majority of sailings operate as planned, but its port pages show heavy tactical changes: a 23 August embarkation moved from Nuremberg to Passau, another sailing starting in a Budapest hotel, and the S.S. Antoinette and S.S. Elisabeth swapped for 30 August Rhine departures. |
APT and Travelmarvel | Continuing to operate with adjustments. Guests advised to expect direct contact about a week before departure. |
Nicko Cruises and Viva Cruises | The largest cancellation numbers reported. According to a Cleveland Research note covered by Seatrade Cruise News, Nicko has cancelled around 20 sailings, with some cancellations at Viva too. |
Riviera's stop sale is the one worth paying attention to, because it's a commercial signal rather than an operational one.
When an operator would rather stop taking money than risk delivering a coach tour, that tells you how uncertain conditions were.
Will the rivers recover this autumn?
Not yet, and September went the wrong way.
Rain around 22 to 23 August lifted Kaub by about 60cm and made a real difference for a couple of weeks. It didn't last. By 21 September Kaub was back down to 17cm, and on 23 September it read 12cm, lower than any year on record except this one. Pfelling on the upper Danube is sitting just above its previous record low and falling.
The mid September recovery some analysts expected back in August hasn't happened. What fixes this is several weeks of steady rain across the Alps and southern Germany, and even then the rise takes days to work its way downstream. A single wet weekend won't do it.
If you're sailing in October, plan for a changed holiday rather than hoping for a normal one: expect a ship swap, a coach day or a hotel night, and make sure every change reaches you in writing.
If you're booked for November or later, it's too early to call. Autumn and winter rain has historically brought the rivers back up, but nobody can promise when.
What are you owed if your itinerary changes?
This is where most people get a nasty surprise, so read this bit properly.
If the cruise still operates and the line changes the route, almost every operator treats that as an itinerary modification rather than a cancellation. That usually means no refund. Most travel insurance policies take the same view, because the holiday went ahead. Some lines offer onboard credit or partial goodwill compensation, but it is discretionary and varies wildly between operators and even between departures.
If the line cancels, you get a refund or the choice of an alternative. Tauck and Avalon have both been paying out on cancelled sailings.
UK bookings have a stronger position than most people realise. Under the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018, if an organiser makes a significant change to a main element of your package before departure, you can accept it, take an alternative, or cancel for a full refund. What counts as "significant" is the argument, and swapping three ports for coach days is exactly the kind of change that gets contested. I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, but if you're UK booked and your itinerary has been substantially rewritten, it is worth putting that question to your operator in writing rather than accepting a hundred pounds of onboard credit.
Three practical things worth doing:
Get every change in writing. Verbal notice from a cruise director is not a record.
Flag mobility, dietary or independently booked flight issues immediately. Ask specifically how a ship swap or a coach day would work for you. Lines can accommodate this if they know early.
Do not cancel yourself before asking. Cancelling voluntarily usually forfeits your money. Making the operator declare the change is what protects you.
How do I check the water level myself before I sail?
You don't need a cruise line to tell you what the river is doing. The gauges are public.
Rhine at Kaub and Cologne:Â Germany's PEGELONLINE service, run by the federal waterways administration, publishes live readings every 30 minutes.
Upper Danube at Pfelling:Â Germany's ELWIS system, which also holds the historic low water records.
Danube at Budapest and downstream:Â the Danube FIS portal.
14 day outlook:Â the BfG ensemble forecast for the Rhine. Treat anything beyond about seven days as a rough steer rather than a plan.
Two rules for reading them. First, compare a gauge only against its own reference level, never against another gauge. Second, a rising number does not mean your ship can pass. A gauge is a height at a point, and the channel your ship needs is a different thing entirely.
Frequently asked questions
Are Danube river cruises cancelled today?
Not as a whole. As of 28 September 2026 most operators are still sailing the Danube with modified itineraries: ship swaps, coach transfers and hotel nights. Levels are falling again, with the shallowest points east of Vienna at Wildungsmauer and in southern Hungary around Mohacs. Riviera Travel, Avalon Waterways, Tauck, Nicko Cruises and Viva Cruises cancelled selected departures earlier in the season.
What is the Rhine water level today for cruise ships?
The Kaub gauge, the Middle Rhine bottleneck the industry watches, read 12cm on 23 September 2026, down from 17cm on 21 September and close to the record 6cm set on 17 August. The low water reference at Kaub is 77cm, so the Rhine is well below normal for cruise ships.
Will I get a refund if my river cruise itinerary changes?
Usually not a full one. Most lines treat a changed route as an itinerary modification rather than a cancellation, and most travel insurance follows the same logic. If the line cancels the sailing outright you get a refund or an alternative. UK bookings may have additional rights under the Package Travel Regulations if the change is significant.
Does low water mean I'll be on a bus all week?
Not usually, but it happens. The most common outcome is a ship swap, where you move to an identical sister ship on the other side of the shallow section, often into the same cabin number. Coach transfers tend to bridge a single stretch. Some passengers this summer have reported much heavier coach itineraries, including one 12 hour transfer.
Which cruise line handles low water best?
Viking and AmaWaterways have the strongest positions structurally, because large fleets of near identical sister ships make swaps straightforward. Scenic publishes the clearest information on which stretches are closed. Riviera and Tauck are more likely to cancel rather than deliver a compromised holiday, which some guests prefer.
Should I book a Rhine or Danube cruise for 2027?
Yes, if you want one. Current conditions tell you nothing about a sailing 12 months out. Spring and early summer are historically the most reliable window because Alpine snowmelt keeps the upper rivers topped up, while late summer and autumn carry the most low water risk. 2026 has been an unusually dry year, not a new permanent state.
Can my travel insurance cover a low water itinerary change?
Rarely. Standard policies cover cancellation and curtailment, not a holiday that went ahead in altered form. Some premium or specialist river cruise policies include disruption cover. Check the wording for "itinerary change" specifically before you assume you're covered.
When will the Rhine and Danube go back to normal?
No firm date. The Rhine recovered briefly after rain in late August but fell back to near record lows by late September, and the Danube is falling again too. Recovery needs weeks of steady rain across the Alps and southern Germany, not a single storm.
So where does that leave you? If you're sailing in October, assume something will change and get it in writing when it does. If you're booked for later in the autumn, watch the Kaub and Pfelling gauges yourself using the links above. And if you're thinking about 2027, book it, because this year says nothing about next spring.
I'll keep this page updated as the gauges move and the lines announce changes. If your own sailing has been altered, drop a comment below with the line and the date, because those real reports are more useful to the next person reading this than any press release.
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