River cruise ship at sunset

An independent river-cruise reference

Every river cruise ship, deck plan and itinerary in one place.

Profiles for 252 active river cruise vessels — Rhine longships, Mekong shallow-draft yachts, Loire paddle-wheelers, Nile dahabiyas — plus the cabin categories, deck layouts and signature itineraries that define each one.

By operator

Cruise lines covered

All cruise lines →
Founded 1997 · Basel, Switzerland

Viking River Cruises

Scandinavian-styled Longships exploring Europe's great waterways.

41 ships in fleet
Founded 2002 · Calabasas, California

AmaWaterways

Boutique river ships with twin balconies and onboard bicycles.

24 ships in fleet
Founded 2004 · Littleton, Colorado

Avalon Waterways

Suite Ships with beds that face the river.

17 ships in fleet
Founded 2008 · Newcastle, Australia

Scenic Luxury Cruises

All-inclusive Space-Ships with butler-served suites.

12 ships in fleet
Founded 2014 · Sydney, Australia

Emerald Cruises

Star-Ships with an indoor pool that converts to a cinema.

10 ships in fleet
Founded 1976 · Encino, California

Uniworld Boutique River Cruises

Floating boutique hotels with hand-curated antiques.

15 ships in fleet
Founded 1976 · Strasbourg, France

CroisiEurope

Family-owned French line covering Europe's lesser-known rivers.

22 ships in fleet
Founded 1925 · Wilton, Connecticut

Tauck

Family-owned American operator with multi-generational departures.

8 ships in fleet
Founded 2000 · Rostock, Germany

A-ROSA River Cruises

Lifestyle river cruising for a German-speaking market.

13 ships in fleet
Founded 1984 · Burton-on-Trent, England

Riviera Travel

British operator with single-supplement cabins on every ship.

13 ships in fleet
Founded 1979 · Innsbruck, Austria

Amadeus River Cruises

Family-owned Austrian line with classic European itineraries.

14 ships in fleet
Founded 1958 · Boston, Massachusetts

Grand Circle Cruise Line

Small-ship river cruises for active North American travellers.

7 ships in fleet
Founded 1995 · Edinburgh / Yangon

Pandaw

Colonial-era teak ships on Asia's less-trafficked rivers.

12 ships in fleet
Founded 2007 · Singapore

Aqua Expeditions

Luxury small-ship river cruising in the Mekong, Amazon and beyond.

3 ships in fleet
Founded 2008 · Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Heritage Line

Boutique themed ships across Indochina's rivers.

4 ships in fleet
Founded 1995 · London, United Kingdom

Sanctuary Retreats

Boutique river cruising on the Nile, Yangtze and Irrawaddy.

4 ships in fleet
Founded 1991 · Guilford, Connecticut

American Cruise Lines

US-built coastal and river ships across America's waterways.

18 ships in fleet
Founded 2012 · Fort Lauderdale, Florida

American Queen Voyages

Heritage paddle-wheelers on the Mississippi River system.

4 ships in fleet
Founded 2023 · Munich, Germany

Riverside Luxury Cruises

New ultra-luxury entrant with all-suite ships.

4 ships in fleet
Founded 2003 · Moscow, Russia

Vodohod

Russia's largest operator on the Volga and waterways of the north.

7 ships in fleet

By waterway

Rivers & regions

All rivers →
Europe

Rhine

The Rhine is the busiest river-cruise corridor in the world. Its Middle-Rhine gorge between Bingen and Koblenz is a UNESCO World Heritage…

132 ships sail this river
Europe

Danube

The Danube is Europe's second-longest river and the only one that flows from west to east across the continent. Classic itineraries run…

121 ships sail this river
Europe

Seine

Seine river cruises round-trip from Paris, threading through Monet's Giverny, Richard the Lionheart's Château Gaillard, and the half-timbered streets of Rouen before…

10 ships sail this river
Europe

Douro

The Douro is one of the most spectacular river-cruise routes in Europe — a deeply terraced wine valley cultivated since the seventeenth…

17 ships sail this river
Europe

Rhône & Saône

The combined Rhône and Saône itinerary runs the length of Burgundy and Provence — from the gastronomic capital of Lyon down to…

16 ships sail this river
Europe

Main & Moselle

The Main and Moselle are the most picturesque tributaries of the Rhine. The Moselle in particular — a thirty-mile sequence of horseshoe…

22 ships sail this river
Europe

Elbe

The Elbe runs from the Krkonoše mountains in Bohemia through Dresden, Wittenberg and Magdeburg to Hamburg. Its shallow draft requires purpose-built ships…

2 ships sail this river
Europe

Loire

France's longest river is also one of its wildest, with shifting sandbars that for centuries kept commercial cruising off the table. CroisiEurope's…

1 ships sail this river
Europe

Po

Po itineraries depart from Venice and trace the river upstream through the Po Delta to Mantua and Ferrara. Ships are limited in…

0 ships sail this river
Asia

Mekong

Mekong cruises run between My Tho or Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and Phnom Penh or Siem Reap in Cambodia, typically…

13 ships sail this river
Asia

Irrawaddy

The Irrawaddy — known locally as the Ayeyarwady — flows the length of Myanmar from the Himalayan foothills to the Andaman Sea.…

9 ships sail this river
Europe

Volga

The Volga is Europe's longest river. The signature itinerary, "Waterways of the Tsars", connects Moscow and St Petersburg via the Volga–Baltic canal…

7 ships sail this river
Africa

Nile

Nile cruises run between Luxor and Aswan, almost always as part of a guided land package that includes Cairo and the Pyramids…

14 ships sail this river
North America

Mississippi

Cruises on the Mississippi are operated by paddle-wheel and modern shallow-draft ships from American Cruise Lines and American Queen Voyages. Itineraries run…

16 ships sail this river
North America

Columbia & Snake

The Columbia and Snake itinerary follows the Lewis and Clark trail across the Pacific Northwest from Portland to Clarkston. Ships transit eight…

5 ships sail this river
North America

Ohio, Tennessee & Cumberland

The Ohio, Tennessee and Cumberland river system is sailed by American Cruise Lines and AQV between Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.…

10 ships sail this river

What you'll find inside RiverCruiseGuide

RiverCruiseGuide is an editorial directory of the world's river cruise vessels. Every ship in the database is documented with the same structured profile so that comparisons across lines and classes are direct and consistent.

For each ship we publish the launch year, the passenger and cabin count, the number of decks, the overall length in metres and the rivers she primarily sails. The cabin section lists every category offered onboard with its square footage, deck location, view type and maximum occupancy. The deck plan section walks the ship from sun deck down to main deck with a description of what each level contains. Each profile finishes with the signature itineraries the vessel runs and a list of public-room amenities — restaurants, lounges, wellness spaces, top-deck features and inclusive program perks.

Use the menu to browse all ships, drill in by cruise line, or start with a river or region. Profiles are crosslinked so you can move from any ship to her line, her river and her sister vessels in a single click.