The Amsterdam ring, glazed and floodlit
Some rivers you see from a bridge. These you see from the deck.
Which Seine hour actually passes the Eiffel Tower. What the Amsterdam ring costs after dark. Whether four nights between Luxor and Aswan beats a day boat. Reviews of the river and canal cruises you can book, river by river.
Four nights between Aswan and Luxor
An hour on the Seine, a night on the Bosphorus, four on the Nile.
The four boardings that most travellers pick first, what each costs and how long you are on the water.
01Sixty minutes of Seine1-Hour Seine Cruise departing from the Eiffel TowerOne hour out of the Port de la Bourdonnais, leaving from under the tower rather than a walk away from it.
02The evening ringAmsterdam Luxury Canal Cruise + Unlimited Drinks & Bites optionThe Amsterdam canal belt after the day boats stop, with the bar open and the roof glazed against the weather.
03A table between continentsBosphorus Dinner Cruise & Show with Private TableThree hours between two continents, table booked to your name, with the bridges lit the whole way back.- 04Four nights aboard4-Day 3-Night Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor&Abu Simbel+BalloonFour nights between Aswan and Luxor. The cabin moves while you sleep and the temples arrive at breakfast.
On the Seine the question is never which boat. It is which hour.
The same two miles of river reads three ways: bare in the afternoon, gold at seven, floodlit at ten. Pick the hour first, then the deck.
Eight rivers that carry almost every cruise worth booking.
A canal belt built in the seventeenth century, a strait between two continents, a gorge of terraced vineyards, and the one river people still sleep on for four nights. Each with the boardings that earn the fare.
Amsterdam built a ring road out of water and never paved it.
Four horseshoe canals, fifteen hundred bridges and a boat every few minutes. Glazed roofs make it a winter trip as much as a summer one, and the open-bar boats are cheaper than the dinner ones by half.
The eight boardings more travellers take than any others.
Every river cruise we have reviewed →Same rivers, same hours, and yet the crowd picks these. What each one gets right that its neighbours on the jetty do not.
1
1-Hour Seine Cruise departing from the Eiffel Tower
Review of the $20 Seine cruise from the Eiffel Tower, with landmark views, multilingual commentary, timing tips, crowds, and practical advice.
From · $20
Read our review →
2
Bosphorus Dinner Cruise & Show with Private Table
from $28
3
Amsterdam Luxury Canal Cruise + Unlimited Drinks & Bites option
from $18
4
Evening River Cruise with Music
from $27
5
Heated Canal Cruise with Unlimited Drinks & Bite
from $18
6
75 Minute City Canal Cruise with Audio Guide
from $18
7
Douro Valley w/ Boat Tour, Wine Tasting & Lunch
from $82
8
City Centre Canal Cruise including Audioguide
from $17
What an hour, an evening and a week on the water actually cost.
Every cruise on the site, grouped by fare. A sightseeing hour costs less than lunch; a Nile week costs more than the flight to reach it.
Sightseeing hours, hop-on passes, audio-guide loops and the lantern boats of Hoi An.
Dinner service with a band, sunset charters, and the full-day valley runs on the Douro.
Cabins you sleep in: Nile itineraries, Yangtze passages and private boats with a skipper.
A dinner cruise is a restaurant that keeps moving past the good part.
Istanbul runs it with a show and unlimited raki. Paris plates four courses and keeps the lights low. Cairo sails a floating dining room past Zamalek. The menu matters less than whether the boat has an open deck to stand on between courses.
Every dinner cruise →
On the Nile the hotel moves and the temples come to you.
Between Aswan and Luxor the boat sails at night and ties up at Kom Ombo and Edfu by morning, which is the only way to reach them without a four-hour road each way. Three nights runs downstream, four runs up, and the balloon at Luxor is a separate dawn.
- 14-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air Balloonfrom $349
- 2Dinner Cruise on the Nile River with Entertainmentfrom $25
- 34-Day 3-Night Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor&Abu Simbel+Balloonfrom $340
Rivers close. Four things that decide whether the boat sails.
A river cruise is the one water trip that can be cancelled by having too little water as easily as too much. Read the constraint before the itinerary.
- Water levelLow summer water and winter flood both stop European sailings. Operators swap to a coach for the closed stretch, which is worth knowing before you pay for the cabin.
- Locks and bridgesThe Douro has five locks and the Amsterdam ring has bridges a metre above the roof. Both set the length of the trip and neither can be hurried.
- TideThe Thames runs on the tide, so a Westminster to Greenwich sailing changes time every day of the week and the last boat back is earlier than you think.
- SeasonNile cabins are cheapest in July and hottest by forty degrees. The Mekong channels need the wet season to float a sampan at all.
Three stretches of water that give up nothing from the bank.
Plenty of cities look fine from a bridge. A temple you reach at breakfast, a canal belt built as a ring road and a karst gorge with no road along it do not.
Sleeping between the temples
Kom Ombo sits on the riverbank and Edfu is a short trap ride inland, and both are hours by road from anywhere you would stay. A cruise boat ties up under them overnight, so you walk in at seven in the morning with the site to yourself and are back aboard for breakfast before the coaches arrive from Luxor.
- 14-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,142 reviews
- 2Dinner Cruise on the Nile River with Entertainment★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 2,190 reviews
- 34-Day 3-Night Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor&Abu Simbel+Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,023 reviews
The ring built as a road
The Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht were dug in the seventeenth century as working waterways, which is why the merchant houses face them and turn their backs on the lanes behind. Low bridges keep the boats flat and glazed, and after dark the whole horseshoe is lit from the water line up.
- 1Amsterdam Luxury Canal Cruise + Unlimited Drinks & Bites option★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 30,518 reviews
- 2Heated Canal Cruise with Unlimited Drinks & Bite★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 21,431 reviews
- 375 Minute City Canal Cruise with Audio Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 19,938 reviews
The gorge with no road
Between Guilin and Yangshuo the Li runs for four hours past limestone towers with no highway beside it and villages that still load onto bamboo rafts. The water drops in winter until the big boats stop and only the rafts get through, so the season decides which boat you can take.
- 1Huangpu Night Cruise: Cozy Vibe & Modern Shanghai Glow★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 520 reviews
- 2Private Evening Tour: VIP Huangpu River Cruise and Shanghai Lights★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 150 reviews
- 31 Day Li River Cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo with Private Guide & Driver★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 148 reviews
Four river bookings that will not wait for you to land.
Most of this is a same-week decision. These four run on cabin inventory, a dinner seating plan and a timetable that closes months out.
- 014-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air BalloonCabins on a Nile boat are a fixed number for a fixed sailing date. The four-night runs out of Aswan go first and there is no standing room.
- 02Bosphorus Dinner Cruise & Show with Private TableA dinner cruise sells seats at a table, not deck space, and the window tables are allocated when you pay rather than when you board.
- 03Douro Valley w/ Boat Tour, Wine Tasting & LunchThe Douro valley boats run one departure a day in the shoulder season and share the locks with cargo. Miss the sailing and the next one is tomorrow.
- 044-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air BalloonThe Luxor balloon flies at dawn or not at all, and a cancelled morning is rebooked into the next day that has room.
By kind of sailing
Amsterdam, Paris, Istanbul, the Nile: the order most first river weeks take.
AswanThe newest river cruise reviews.
Newer boardings, all of them →
Florence: Authentic Barchetto River Cruise with Wine & Guide
Read our review →
Fast and More 60 minute Airboat Tour on the Homosassa River
Read our review →
Tbilisi: River Sightseeing Boat Ride with Welcome Drink
Read our review →
Fashion Design Workshop & Brunch on a Seine River Boat Paris
Read our review →
Experience Dinner On Luxury Cruise Along Saigon River
Read our review →
Emmen: Wildlands Adventure Zoo and Rimbula River Boat Ride
Read our review →
Miami: Everglades River of Grass Small Airboat Wildlife Tour
Read our review →
Fairbanks: Riverboat Cruise and Local Village Tour
Read our review →
Egypt: 7-Day Private Tour, Baloon, Flights and Nile Cruise
Read our review →
Eiffel Tower Summit Access Tour and River Cruise
Read our review →