Where the ships sail
Rivers & regions
River cruising covers far more than the well-known European corridors. Below, a guide to every waterway profiled in the directory — its length, the countries it passes through, the highlight ports and the ships that operate there.
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 Site studded with more than forty…
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 Passau–Budapest in seven nights, while extended…
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 reaching the Channel coast at Honfleur.…
Douro
The Douro is one of the most spectacular river-cruise routes in Europe — a deeply terraced wine valley cultivated since the seventeenth century and itself a UNESCO World…
Rhône & Saône
The combined Rhône and Saône itinerary runs the length of Burgundy and Provence — from the gastronomic capital of Lyon down to the Camargue wetlands at the Mediterranean.…
Main & Moselle
The Main and Moselle are the most picturesque tributaries of the Rhine. The Moselle in particular — a thirty-mile sequence of horseshoe bends lined with the world's steepest…
Elbe
The Elbe runs from the Krkonoše mountains in Bohemia through Dresden, Wittenberg and Magdeburg to Hamburg. Its shallow draft requires purpose-built ships — typically narrower and lower than…
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 purpose-built MS Loire Princesse — a…
Po
Po itineraries depart from Venice and trace the river upstream through the Po Delta to Mantua and Ferrara. Ships are limited in size by the river's narrow locks;…
Mekong
Mekong cruises run between My Tho or Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and Phnom Penh or Siem Reap in Cambodia, typically as part of a longer fly-cruise…
Irrawaddy
The Irrawaddy — known locally as the Ayeyarwady — flows the length of Myanmar from the Himalayan foothills to the Andaman Sea. River cruises typically run between Mandalay…
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 system, the Onega and Ladoga lakes…
Nile
Nile cruises run between Luxor and Aswan, almost always as part of a guided land package that includes Cairo and the Pyramids of Giza. Modern Nile vessels are…
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 on the Lower Mississippi between New…
Columbia & Snake
The Columbia and Snake itinerary follows the Lewis and Clark trail across the Pacific Northwest from Portland to Clarkston. Ships transit eight locks, including the 100-foot John Day…
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. Heritage and music-themed itineraries make the…