Q – One thing no one seems to ever address is just where the river boat lines will dock their ships in cities like Vienna, Budapest, or Passau. We’ve been on several Seabourn Cruise and one Crystal and our TA was able to get us docking information. But we’re having a tough time figuring out where our river boat will dock. To us, this is really important as we want to be centrally located for walking and shopping. We’re likely going to book Viking River and were wondering how we might find out.
A – You are wasting your time. The local harbormaster determines docking just hours prior to a boats arrival. Most of the boats share the same downtown docking area and they are usually bunched quite close together. When they are tied up to the same berth station, there is no way to know positioning in advance. As we have pointed out, multi-berthing is going to become even more the norm as new ship-building has far outpaced the construction of additional dock space. You will likely be walking through your next door neighbor’s “den” en route to your floating hotel on the river.
