Grand European River Cruise October 2025 Water Levels

[SeeTurtle]

We are planning a Grand European River Cruise (Amsterdam to Budapest) in October 2025 to enjoy the foliage along the river and stay away from the heat, but risk low water in the fall.  For recent frequent Viking cruisers, would it be better to go in the spring and risk high water?  After reading, it seems high water will put you off the boat until you get past the bridge and on another boat, but low water may stick you on a bus and in hotels the rest of your trip?  Should I rethink and go in the spring?

[curmudgeon98]

4 hours ago, SeeTurtle said:

We are planning a Grand European River Cruise (Amsterdam to Budapest) in October 2025 to enjoy the foliage along the river and stay away from the heat, but risk low water in the fall.  For recent frequent Viking cruisers, would it be better to go in the spring and risk high water?  After reading, it seems high water will put you off the boat until you get past the bridge and on another boat, but low water may stick you on a bus and in hotels the rest of your trip?  Should I rethink and go in the spring?

You probably want to look at the Rhine and Danube threads for more specific input on this.  It might be worth looking back over several years at discussions in the fall.

[CDNPolar]

I would agree with the above, BUT, this is my opinion, of late, we are not experiencing typical historical weather patterns anywhere in the world.  You can do your best to pick a time of the year, but if you pick spring summer and there is drought then you could be in trouble...  If there is too much rain you can be in trouble.

 

I know not what you want to hear, but again, my opinion, you have to pick the time of year that you really want to go based on seasonal offerings, and then take the weather that you get.

 

We just came back from Treasures of the Rhine - December 23 - Jan1 and the water levels were crazy high and only the week before us ships were not sailing past Cologne.  I believe that this is not typical for the time of the year.   We also packed for much colder temps than we experienced - again not typical.

[Roz]

Ask Punxsutawney Phil. 🤣🤣🤣

[notamermaid]

A tricky question. Overall, the likelihood of problems is higher in October than in Spring. The reason is the low water on the Danube and Rhine. Which may give you two ship swaps. The flip side is that in high water the ship swaps do not work as well logistically, which is not a company's fault, just the nature of the problem is slightly different. It is a long distance from Amsterdam to Budapest... I myself would not do this in October on a 135m ship. In Spring the size does not matter (unless you go for the vessels that have less superstructure). I have my "problems" with the itinerary and have read some unhappy comments of Viking river cruisers over the years.

 

It is a gamble with probabilities really.

 

Hopefully, some more Viking cruisers will give their impressions.

 

notamermaid