Is river cruising during the day or at night?

Wife and I have been thinking of taking a river cruise for awhile now. I always assumed that you would be cruising during the day to be able to see the beautiful countryside. But with excursions in every port, I'm wondering if day time cruising is even possible?

Thanks,

Jon

All the cruises in Portugal on the Douro River are during the day because the river navigation is quite tight and therefore not suitable for night cruising. The scenery is spectacular and the traffic on the river in the fall, during our cruise, was minimal.

Budapest to Amsterdam on Viking mostly at night but enough day time to enjoy the absolutlely amazing countryside....locks...ABC...another beautiful castle, church or city take your pick!

Myanmar's Irrawaddy with Vantage....traveled only in daylight hours...night navigation impossible (our depth sounder was crew with a long stick!!!)...amazingly we sometimes pulled to a riverbank with nothing around for the night!!! What an awesome experience!!

Wife and I have been thinking of taking a river cruise for awhile now. I always assumed that you would be cruising during the day to be able to see the beautiful countryside. But with excursions in every port, I'm wondering if day time cruising is even possible?

 

Thanks,

Jon

Based on our one cruise, daytime cruising is typically only on those days that there is scenic view from the river: on the Danube, through the Iron Gates; on the Main/Rhine? on the stretch between Wurtzburg and Frankfurt (castles). Most actual cruising is done at night.

Sometimes day, sometimes night. Depends on when the ship must be in the next port of call, and to some extent what scenery is available to view during the cruise.

Really no simple answer to this one.

As you can begin to see in the posts above, it depends on the river. Our AMA Rhone cruise will have mostly daytime cruising, but will still pack in tours in two different places most days (or at least a tour in the morning and free time in the new place in the evening).

As has been posted, some morning and/or afternoon cruising, depending on the itinerary. Another exception is the Moscow to St Petersburg route due to the longer distance to be covered. Lots of beautiful daytime cruising, plus because we went during the longer days of summer, we sat outside even after dinner to watch the countryside and occasional village go by. This was a more relaxing cruise for us; we visited a port every day but also had more sailing time.

Our AMA Rhone cruise will have mostly daytime cruising ...

We did the Rhone with both AMA and Uniworld and had lots of port time by day as well as overnights in port. There was limited daytime sailing.

We preferred the AMA version of the itinerary as with Uniworld, we were docked in Avignon for three nights in a row. With AMA, we overnighted in different ports and really enjoyed going out for walks after dinner.

We had more daytime sailing our Rhine cruise, included a sail through the Rhine Gorge. Also, our Danube cruises and Rhine/Moselle.

Of course one can always skip an excursion or two and spend some time on the boat just to relax I guess.

I've counted up, and our 14-day AMS-BUD on Tauck, Rhine, Main, Danube, next fall has something like six half days of day cruising and one full day.

Budapest, depart 9 pm Arrive in Bratisslava at 2 pm

Depart Bratislava at 11:30 pm and arrive in Vienna at 7:30 am

Depart Vienna at midnight and arrive in Durnstein at 7:30 am

Depart Durnstein at 1:00 pm and arrive in Melk at 4 pm

Depart Melk at 9:30 pm and arrive in Linz at 8:00 am

Depart Linz at 8:30 am and arrive in Passau at 4:30 pm

Depart Passau at 9:00 pm and arrive in Regensburg at 2 pm

Depart Reggensburg at 4:30 pm and arrive in Dultplatz at 5:30 pm

Depart Dultplatz at 6 pm and arrive in Nuremberg at 2 pm

Depart Nuremberg at 8:30 pm and arrive in Bamberg at 8:30 am

Depart Bamberg at 9:30 am and arrive in hassfurt at 1 pm

Depart Hassfurt at 1 pm and arrive in Schweinfurt at 4 pm

Depart schweinfurt at midnight and arrive in Kitzingen at 7:30 am

Depart Kitzingen at 1 pm and arrive in Wurzburg at 6:30 pm

Depart Wurzburg at 7 pm and arrive in Wertheim at 8:30 am

Depart Wertheim at 9 am and arrive in Freudenberg at 12:30 pm

Depart Freudenberg at 1 pm and arrive in Miltenberg at 2:30 pm

depart Miltenberg at 6:00 pm and arrive in Rudesheim at 12:30 pm

Depart Rudesheim at 4:30 pm and arrive in Koblenz at 8 pm

Overnight in Koblenz

Depart koblenz at 8 am and arrive in Cologne at 1:30 pm

Depart Cologne at 8 pm and arrive in Amsterdam at 1:30 pm

Overnight in Amstrdam and disembark the next day

Hope this helps show how some of the cruising is done during the day and some overnight.

As has been posted, some morning and/or afternoon cruising, depending on the itinerary. Another exception is the Moscow to St Petersburg route due to the longer distance to be covered. Lots of beautiful daytime cruising, plus because we went during the longer days of summer, we sat outside even after dinner to watch the countryside and occasional village go by. This was a more relaxing cruise; we visited a port every day but also had more sailing time.

We did Russia in late Aug/Sept. 2012 too, on the Tolstoy. The weather was fantastic and we enjoyed the long days as well.

As for regular cruise ships cruising during the day or at night, it depends on where you're going and what the itinerary is. I think everyone does the Danube Castles and the Iron Gates during the day time and save the "non-scenic" (really less scenic) for night time cruising.

It doesn't matter. If you cruise a long journey, then it could be be cruising in both day and night time.

I think it depends on your river

Cambodia/Vietnam - both day and night

Borneo - daytime and early evening

China - both day and night

Myanmar - daytime only

Namibia - daytime only

will know about Europe next year

Thank you all for your replies!

Thinking of doing "The Enchanting Rhine" Amsterdam to Zurich on AMA. Is there a preference to doing north to south or reverse?

Thank you all for your replies!

 

Thinking of doing "The Enchanting Rhine" Amsterdam to Zurich on AMA. Is there a preference to doing north to south or reverse?

We liked the Basel to Amsterdam itinerary as it is much easier for us to get home from Amsterdam than Basel. We like to spend a few nights in Europe pre cruise and prefer Germany to the Netherlands.

Great itinerary with a nice mix of cultures and cuisines.

They say: "Ask a question on Cruise Critic and 10 people will give you 10 different answers." In that spirit, I will contradict caviargal [probably for the first time ever!] and say we enjoyed the opposite itinerary and would recommend it because: (1) it's easier to fly into Amsterdam so you have fewer worries at the beginning of your trip; also you can schedule fewer days (i.e. 1) there because so many cruises start in Amsterdam that you'll be back for any sightseeing you miss this time; (2) the sights keep getting better in this direction as you move from the industrial areas in Holland to Germany to France to Switzerland; (3) you can schedule as much time as you want at the end and plan your sightseeing knowing that you won't lose any time to jet lag. But caviargal is right that Basel to Amsterdam is also a great itinerary!

Jazz, this is OT, but we looked at that cruise on the Connie as I want to do the Greek Isles next year. We ended up booking Oceania instead. Our last two cruises on Celebrity were just poor and we actually got a better price on O, which made it a no brainer.

Jazz, this is OT, but we looked at that cruise on the Connie as I want to do the Greek Isles next year. We ended up booking Oceania instead. Our last two cruises on Celebrity were just poor and we actually got a better price on O, which made it a no brainer.

You know it's naughty to take a thread off-topic -- but since we're already there... We're trying Aquaclass for the first time, hoping that the Blu restaurant will equal Oceania (which actually was disappointing to us). It was hard to find an itinerary that included Ephesus (which we didn't get enough of on our earlier Eastern Med cruise) but did not include Istanbul (which we got enough of for forever!).

Wife and I have been thinking of taking a river cruise for awhile now. I always assumed that you would be cruising during the day to be able to see the beautiful countryside. But with excursions in every port, I'm wondering if day time cruising is even possible?

 

Thanks,

Jon

My experience: Cruising is a combination of night and day. Night is reserved for making good time transporting to port in time for am tours, etc, as well as, getting through locks. Day cruising is enjoyed when traveling through them most scenic river sections or a day with multiple ports.