THE WORLD’S GREAT RIVERS
See the city slide by at deck level.
Reviews of river cruises and sightseeing sailings on the world’s named waterways – the Seine and the Thames, the Douro and the Danube, the Mississippi and the Nile. Pick the river, read what it’s actually like, then book the boat.
Only from the water
Three cities that look best from a boat.
You can walk any of these capitals. But they were built along their rivers, and the view the architects framed only opens up once you push off from the bank. Three of the great ones, and the sailings travellers rate most.
Paris, France
Notre-Dame from the Seine
Half of Paris was built to face its river. From a bateau on the Seine the facades line up the way the architects intended - Notre-Dame on the Île de la Cité, the Louvre's long wall, the Eiffel Tower lit gold at the blue hour. You glide under bridges the walking tours only cross.
- 1 Paris Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Tour with Optional River Cruise
- 2 Eiffel Tower Summit Option with Seine River Cruise and City Tour
- 3 Paris 3-Courses Gourmet Dinner Seine River Cruise with Champagne
Porto, Portugal
Up the Douro Wine Valley
The Douro carved one of the oldest demarcated wine regions on earth, and its terraced port-wine quintas climb straight from the water. Sail east out of Porto under the iron bridges and the city gives way to vineyard slopes you simply cannot reach the same way by road.
- 1 Complete Douro Valley Wine Tour with Lunch, Wine Tastings and River Cruise
- 2 Porto: Guided Tour by Tuk-Tuk & Optional Douro River Cruise
- 3 Authentic Small Group Douro Wine Tour with Lunch & River Cruise
Prague, Czechia
Under Charles Bridge
Prague stacks a thousand years of spires above the Vltava, and the river is the one place you see the whole skyline at once - the castle, the cathedral, the baroque domes. A cruise slips beneath the statues of Charles Bridge and out toward the weirs, the city floodlit on both banks.
- 1 Prague Half Day City Tour Including Vltava River Cruise
- 2 Charles Bridge: River Boat Cruise & Guided Tour ️with PragueWay
- 3 One Day See-it-All Prague Tour & River Boat Cruise with PragueWay
Start with the standout
The single most-booked sailing on the site.
Of every river cruise reviewed here, this is the one the most travellers have been on. A safe place to start if you only book one.
The classics
The Most Popular River Cruises Right Now
The Seine in Paris, the Douro from Porto, the Thames in London. The sailings the most travellers have booked and rated across every river on the site.
Pick your river
Choose a river by name.
Most people start with the waterway, not the boat. The Seine for Paris, the Douro for Porto and the port valley, the Thames for London, the Vltava for Prague. Tap a river for the full ranked guide to its cruises.
Which kind of cruise
A sightseeing sail, an evening out, or dinner afloat?
The same river gives you three completely different evenings. Pick by how long you want to be on the water, and whether you want a meal with the view.
Paris · The Seine
The most photographed river in the world.
A UNESCO-listed stretch of water runs right through the middle of Paris, and the bateaux work it from morning to midnight. Notre-Dame on its island, the gilded Pont Alexandre III, the Eiffel Tower’s hourly sparkle – the whole postcard, in the order it was meant to be seen, with no traffic and no crowds between you and the view.
Read the guide: the best Seine river cruises →Porto · The Douro
Sail into the world’s oldest wine country.
Leave Porto’s six bridges behind and the Douro narrows into a steep green gorge of terraced vineyards – the demarcated port-wine region, worked the same way for three centuries. Many cruises pair the sail with a quinta visit and a tasting, so the glass in your hand comes from the slopes sliding past the rail.
See the best Douro river cruises →After dark
Every great river city saves its best for dusk.
There is a half-hour after sunset when the sky goes deep indigo and the floodlights flick on along the embankments. Bridges glow, monuments double in the black water, and the deck of a boat is the one seat in the house that faces all of it. Most evening cruises are timed to catch exactly that.
Evening & night cruises →London · The Thames
The original highway through London.
Before the roads there was the river, and the Thames still strings the city’s landmarks in a single line – the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, the Tower and Tower Bridge, the Eye, the Globe, and on downriver to Greenwich. Sightseeing cruises and hop-on hop-off river buses run it all day.
- 1 London Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Tour with Optional River Cruise
- 2 London Tootbus Hop on Hop off Bus Tour and Thames River Cruise
- 3 London In One Day Tour with River Cruise & London Eye Option
By continent
Pick your part of the world.
The great rivers run on every continent, and each region cruises differently. Europe’s historic capitals, North America’s paddlewheelers and waterfronts, Asia’s skylines and light shows.
Europe · 210 cruises
The classic capitals.The Seine through Paris, the Douro out of Porto, the Danube past Vienna and the Vltava under Charles Bridge. The continent's great cities, seen the slow way.
North America · 35 cruises
Paddlewheels and waterfronts.The Creole Queen on the Mississippi, sightseeing boats past the monuments on the Potomac, and the Savannah riverfront after dark.
Asia · 74 cruises
Skylines and light shows.The Singapore River through the heart of Marina Bay, the floodlit Shanghai skyline from the Huangpu, and the warm tropical rivers beyond.
The Mississippi
Red paddlewheels and a jazz band on the rail.
America’s river still runs the way Mark Twain wrote it – on genuine paddlewheelers, the great red wheel churning the brown water behind you. Board the Creole Queen out of New Orleans or a riverboat at Memphis for the bayous, the Civil War history and the Dixieland jazz that comes with the deck.
See all 8 Mississippi cruises →By river
Six waterways worth crossing a city for.
The Seine for Paris. The Douro for Porto and the port valley. The Thames for London. The Guadalquivir for Seville. The Savannah for the old Georgia waterfront. The Singapore River for Marina Bay.
By type of cruise
Or pick the kind of sailing.
A daytime sightseeing loop, a floodlit evening cruise, dinner or lunch served afloat, or a wine sailing through the vineyards. Browse by what you want the trip to be.
Plan it
One river, morning to night.
In most river cities you can do all three in a single day. Here is how the hours stack up, whichever waterway you are on.
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