Official 2023 Rhine Cruise schedules - KD day cruises

Thanks Russ. You are always on top of things Rhine-wise. Your information, detailed yet understandable, has been invaluable for planning our next (second) trip to Europe. My wife and I never would have ventured on our first excursion if it wasn't for the RS guide books and the sage posters on this Forum.

Thank you for your detailed explanation. Coincidentally I was trying to figure this out last night and was going to wait for the English version to be published, but think I understand now.

I will be in Bacharach on April 25. If I catch the 10 am from Bacharach, we will get to St. Goarshausen at 10:45, but the Rheinfels Castle is on the west side of the river, so I stay on the boat and it will cross the river to St. Goar where I can get off. I can walk up to the Castle and the museum and then go back down to St. Goar and have lunch and then catch the 16:10 boat back to Bacharach, arriving at 17:20. Or if I want to, I can catch a train back to Bacharach earlier than 16:10 if there is one.

Does that sound correct?

That sounds correct and doable to me, Shuiby524. That said... It wouldn't be my preferred attack plan. An unfortunate consequence of staying in Bacharach is that guests are tempted to START their cruise to St. Goar in Bacharach - a move which cuts your sightseeing in half and puts you on the water for only 45 minutes total.

Partial map of Rhine showing scenic Bingen > St. Goar + castles

Those who board in Bingen (9:15) instead will cruise for 1 hr. 30 minutes and see much more. So my best advice is to start your cruise with a morning train ride to Bingen (Bingen Rhein Stadt station) where the great scenery begins - then board the northbound 11:15 boat to St. Goar - and return to Bacharach later in the day not by boat but by train (a 10-minute ride,) at whatever hour suits you. To me, cruising back to Bacharach (1hr., 10 min's.) only repeats what you just cruised earlier that day and puts you on a return schedule you might not want to keep. The train schedule is far more generous; fares are cheap and you get a discount on the KD boats by showing your train ticket at the KD kiosk. St. Goar has some decent spots for dinner, if you wish to stay that late.

Thank you so much. i will do that.

Hi, We are going in that region in may just for 2 days and were planning a cruise from Coblence to ST-Goar and back, combine with a Cable car ride in Coblence. We were going to sleep in Boppard one night, and the next day, drive to St-Goar, Bacharach and finally sleep in Rudeshein . So if i understand well what you are saying Russ, I will be better to visit Coblence in the morning, Boppard and Bacharach in afternoon, go sleep in Rudeshein and do the cruise the next morning starting from Rudeshein. We will then sleep 2 night in Rudeshein. Is that correct and better itinerary?? thx

I don't usually correct spelling, but if you go looking for these places on the maps or with Deutsche Bahn or the ship schedule, you may have some problems and we want to make things easier for you:
Koblenz and Rüdesheim (if you can't do an umlaut on your PC, you can spell it Ruedesheim.

You should cruise south to north because that is the direction of the current. Use the train to explore towns like Bacharach.

My recommendation is to cruise from Rüdesheim to St. Goar and trains for anything else. There are trains on both sides of the river and you can use the ferry that runs between St. Goar and St. Goarshausen if you want to travel on the "right" side of the Rhein. St. Goar is on the "left" side.

So if i understand well what you are saying Russ, I will be better to
visit Coblence in the morning, Boppard and Bacharach in afternoon, go
sleep in Rudeshein and do the cruise the next morning starting from
Rudeshein. We will then sleep 2 night in Rudeshein. Is that correct
and better itinerary?? thx

Well, I see from another post of yours that you have an itinerary that takes you to Nuremberg after the Rhine and a plan to reach Koblenz from Cologne on the morning of the 17th.

I agree with the notion of staying in just one town, which minimizes the logistics and puts you in a good spot for the trip to Nuremberg. Let's say it's Rüdesheim. And you're interested in visiting Bacharach, Koblenz, and Boppard. Here's what I see as a good approach to your visit.

• Morning train to Koblenz; stow bags in a station locker and do the cable car + Ehrenbreitstein visit you included in your other post. Have lunch somewhere. Return to the station in the afternoon for bags and the direct train ride to Rüdesheim and spend the evening in R'heim.

• 5/18: Morning cruise to Bacharach (9:00 - 10:00) for a 2-hr. visit. Board the 12:00 boat in Bacharach for St. Goarshausen (12:50) but stay on the boat for St. Goar (arrive appr. 13:00.) Have a quick lunch and catch the 14:00 train to Boppard for a few hours there.

• Return to R'heim in the evening... several ways to do it. The ferry crossings (first 3) are possible but later in the day they tend to impose connections and time restrictions on you - lest you get stranded on the wrong side of the river... so of the options I would probably choose d) or e), both non-ferry options...

a) Use the Boppard ferry crossing (last ferry 19:00) and walk into Filsen (maybe .5 mile?) for the direct train ride to R'heim
b) Catch the train to Bingen and use the passenger ferry crossing to reach Rüdesheim (last ferry from Bingen at 18:10)
c) Catch the train to St. Goar; use the St. Goar ferry (last ferry 21:05) to cross to St. Goarshausen; catch direct train to R'heim
d) Catch K-D cruise boat Boppard > Braubach (18:50 - 19:15) and then a direct train to R'heim (19:36 - 20:22 for example)
e) Train from Boppard to R'heim with change in Koblenz (18:50 - 20:22, for example)

I'm not convinced that Boppard would be the best choice after the cruise. I might instead just get off in St. Goarshausen at 12:50 and catch a direct train to Braubach for a tour of Marksburg Castle and dinner - then return to R'heim by direct train.

@Ms.Jo
@Russ

Thank you both for advice. And thanks for the spelling correction, english being my second language. ( I sometimes mix both french and English in the same word :-) )
I wanted to mention also is that I have a car for that trip so, We will probably drive from Cologne to Koblanz, do some activities there, drive to Boppard and Bacharach than to Rudeisheim for the first night. Than the cruise the next day from Rudeisheim to St-Goar at 9:00 AM and take the boat back at 13:15 for Rudesheim where will will spend the last evening. The next day , we will drive toward Nuremberg. Hope it makes sense.
Claudine

Generally speaking, and in your case as well, I don't recommend returning by cruise boat from St. Goar to Rüdesheim, largely because you will already have spent 2 hours that morning on your cruise. The 3 hours you will spend cruising back could be better spent seeing or doing something new.

Day 1 looks pretty crowded... Ehrenbreitstein + Koblenz + Boppard + Bacharach + your driving/parking time probably shortchanges your experience in these places and also leaves you no time to speak of for Rüdesheim. And since the slow, upstream return cruise on Day 2 arrives in R'heim at 16:20 in the afternoon, you won't have much time there either.

Two suggestions

You could make time for Rüdesheim on Day 2 after your cruise by catching one of the trains from St. Goarshausen to Rüdesheim. The ride takes only 25 minutes, and trains leave at :27 after the hour every hour... 11:27, 12:27, 13:27, etc. You don't mention specific plans for St. Goar. If you don't have plans there, you can get off the cruise in St. Goarshausen at 10:45.

Alternatively, if you don't care about having more time for Rüdesheim, you could free up your time on Day 1 by moving Bacharach from Day 1 to Day 2 instead. The cruise to St. Goar that I outlined previously with a 2-hour break in Bacharach could be a good way to do this. From St. Goar you can use the FERRY anytime you like to cross the river to St. Goarshausen - and then the train to Rüdesheim will get you back home in 25 minutes.

@Russ,

I agree with you, first day is very busy, too much , but it seems difficult for us to make choices as everything looks so interesting. I like the idea of coming back to Rudesheim by train the second day. We would like to see Rheinfels Castle in St-Goar, so we could do that the second day like you suggest and than cross by ferry and take the train back when we are done. But on the first day...we think Coblence is a must (we think.. not 100% sure) so after, If you had to choose between Boppard and Bacharach to spend 3-4 hours in the afternoon, which one would you recommend?

Thx again , your advices are very very helpful. We have only 3 weeks to travel and the 4 absolute musts for us are Amsterdam, the Rhein , Bavaria and Fussen, starting and finishing in Brussels. So as we are doing this trip by car, the other cities are all in between.

You probably have specific reasons for putting Koblenz at the top of your list over Boppard and Bacharach... my input? Koblenz is not a bad place, just very average. The main sight in town is the Deutsches Eck - kinda boring IMHO, and that's coming from someone familiar with German history and culture. The fact that the Mosel River empties into the Rhine at that point... while that might excite some, IMHO that makes it much like the Ahr, the Nahe, the Lahn, and other nearby rivers. I mean, one can't really say they've experienced the Mosel River on the basis of a visit to the Deutsches Eck - it is indeed a great river to explore, just not there in Koblenz.

On the opposite side of the Rhine from Koblenz in the little suburb of Ehrenbreitstein is the fortress (same name, Ehrenbreitstein,) which involves the cable car ride from a point not too distant from the Deutsches Eck. It's a dramatic cable car ride, but to be honest, while the views are nice from up there, I think the views from Boppard's chairlift ride and from the lookout points near the top (like the one at Gedeonseck and the Vierseenblick lookout) are more attractive. Boppard's small old-town zone is a short walk from the station with a relaxed vibe and some nice spots to hang out as well as some fine older buildings and sights:

https://www.boppard-tourismus.de/media/was-ist-wo-broschu__re_en_190219.pdf

So without knowing your exact purpose in Koblenz, my best tip is to bypass Koblenz in favor of the more charming hamlets of Boppard and Braubach. I like Oberwesel very much also (just north of Bacharach) but largely for the nice walk you can take around the old town wall.

Russ - I'm curious - do you see much 'movement' in the cruise times as listed, year from year? I ask as I am planning a family trip, starting at Bingen and headed north to St. Goar for June 2024 (as part of a larger trip) and it appears as I have looked through old posts that the times seem to be fairly static. Just kinda helps from our planning standpoint.

You're correct, Robert. Very stable. In pre-Covid years, high season typically saw 5 boats per day for R'heim or Bingen > St. Goar, with a boat in the 10:00 hour as well. Maybe next year's schedule will get back to that, who knows?

Note to all: Bingen-Rüdesheimer offers 2 boats a day this year (and pretty much every year) that cover the same river segment, one in the 11:00 hour and another in the 13:00 hour. B-R's 13:00 (R'heim) and 13:15 (Bingen) are especially good to know about since K-D has a big mid-day gap in its schedule. B-R calls its cruise the "Loreleyfahrt" -

https://www.bingen-ruedesheimer.de/linienfahrten/linie/?permalink=loreleyfahrt

You can see the schedule by clicking on "Fahrplan 2023" under the calendar icon at the linked page above.

Russ, can you tell me what the vertical line means next to some of the sops on the schedule? What does that indicate compared to an empty spot?

We’re staying in Bacharach in June. Usually we stay in Boppard, take the train to St Goar, then train to Bacharach, then boat back to Boppard. This time, since we’re staying in Bacharach, I was hoping to get on the boat in Bacharach, get off at St. Goar for a while, get back on the boat to Boppard and take the train to Bacharach. If I’m reading the schedule, that plan doesn’t work because the only boat from Bacharach to St. Goar is the last one.

Edit: I just re-read your instructions and noted that if we take one of the first 3 boats, we can stay on the boat when it starts going the opposite direction and get off at St. Goar. Thank you! Would not have guessed to do that.

You really should take the train farther and start your cruise in Bingen, rather than just Bacharach. You get to see dozens of castles if you start in Bingen. Take the ship to St. Goar and train the rest of the way.

T-4fun: That's the correct move for reaching St. Goar. The vertical lines indicate that the town in question (St. Goar here) gets skipped over on the northbound/downstream stop sequence. Unfortunately for us schedule readers, you have to refer to the southbound schedule to see that the boat actually docks in St. Goar.

Jo's right... get to Bingen for boarding, or you miss out on 50% of the best river scenery.

Hi all, I'm planning a trip right now which will include several days on the Rhine. I thought I could buy tickets in advance online for the K-D trips, but the only tickets I seem to find online are for "specialty" cruises (brunch cruise, party cruise), etc. If I just want to hop on and travel up the river, nothing special, can I buy tickets in advance for that? Or can I trust that space will be available when I get there? We are a family of four. thanks!

kbd writes... ...can I trust that space will be available when I get there?

Welcome to the forum. YES, there'll be space. Maybe that's not 100% true, but pretty close, I think. Might not be true on certain holidays for certain cruises, but my understanding it that one's chances of being shut out are very remote.

In any case, advance purchase of K-D (the most well-known day cruise outfit) tickets does not guarantee space on the boat or seat reservations. That 100% guarantee comes only with your position in line prior to departure at the dock. Normally there will be a line of some kind when the boat pulls up to the dock. You might want to arrive early to secure a forward line position, which will also provide a greater choice of seating for whatever chairs might be open.

Also, no discount is offered by K-D cruises for online purchase. And you may end up paying a 20% fee if you successfully seek a refund for some reason. So there really isn't any tangible incentive to pre-purchase online tickets.

Note that if you do purchase online in advance, you are guaranteed NOT to be eligible for the 20% discount that you otherwise WILL receive from K-D cruises if you show the TRAIN ticket you used to reach your cruise departure town.

This passage from the FAQ on the GERMAN-LANGUAGE pages isn't translated on their English pages, it seems - but it explains what I just wrote about the discount:

Kunden der Deutschen Bahn erhalten bei Vorlage ihres gültigen DB
Fahrausweises, einer BahnCard oder eines Bahn-Passes an jedem KD
Ticket Office eine Ermäßigung von 20% auf den regulären Fahrpreis der
KD Linienfahrten. Die ermäßigten Tickets für Bahnkunden können nicht
im Online-Shop, sondern nur am KD Ticket Office vor Ort gewährt
werden.

The standard price for the cruise from Bingen to St. Goar is €25/adult. Kids 4-13 pay a flat €8. Many visitors choose to base themselves not in Bingen or in Rüdesheim but in Boppard, St. Goar or Bacharach. This means they will usually need a train ride (and of course a train ticket) to Bingen before their cruise if they are doing the recommended Bingen/R'heim > St. Goar cruise segment. For two adults with two kids under 15 (kids travel free with parents on DB tickets!) the family train fare will lie between €10 and €17 for this initial train ride. So this initial train ride is completely or nearly paid for with the €10 cruise discount you get at the K-D kiosk. (2 adults x €25/adult x .20 discount = €10.)

Photo of K-D kiosk in Bingen

This is why I usually recommend getting on the ship in Rüdesheim rather than Bingen. The ship fills up in Rüdesheim and when it gets to Bingen across the river, many of the good seats on the top deck are already taken.

There is space on the ship for 100s of people, though much of this is downstairs at tables. You will spend a lot of your time standing up though, going from one side of the ship to the other or walking from the bow to the stern.

I would not worry about getting a seat. Also seniors and students get a nice discount too along with that train discount. (only 1 discount per person)

Rüdesheim shares the status of "gateway" town to the Rhine with Bingen, but because the boat leaves R'heim first, it's the better place to board for ideal seating, as Jo says.

But where you are starting from also plays into your decision on which town to board in.

If you are traveling to the cruise zone by train from the city of Frankfurt (where Jo resides, and where a fair number of tourists sleep prior to a Rhine cruise; roughly 1.25 hours from Rüdesheim) or from Wiesbaden, or other nearby east-bank towns (Eltville, Assmannshausen, etc.) or if you're waking up in Rüdesheim, then the Rüdesheim dock is easier to get to than the Bingen dock. Getting to Bingen is going to be more time consuming and/or complicated.

Likewise, those who stay in the west-bank towns (Bingen, Boppard, St. Goar, Bacharach, etc.) will probably find it cumbersome to board in Rüdesheim; from St. Goar or Boppard, they'd need to first cross the river by ferry boat, timing that boat's arrival with a walk to the rail station on that side of the Rhine (a lengthy walk in the case of Boppard) and then catch a train ride on the hourly schedule from either the Filsen or the St. Goarshausen station into Rüdesheim. From Bacharach, which is geographically closer, you'd still have a train ride plus a ferry ride to reach the Rüdesheim dock. Bingen OTOH is easily reached by direct train from the west-bank towns; figure roughly 30 minutes from St. Goar or 20 minutes from Bacharach, 40-45 minutes from Boppard.

What also matters is which cruise departure you want to take and what trains are available to get you to the dock. In the hot, humid months of summer, and with little to no shade on the boat decks, the 9:00/9:15 departure is often the best choice. If you're staying in Rüdesheim, making the 9:00 boat should be pretty easy, though maybe NOT if you wake up in Frankfurt, Eltville or Wiesbaden, which could mean a morning rush to board the the one train that will get you to R'heim before the boat sails at 9:00.... and that produces an hour's wait once you step off the train. (Schedule is from a sample date in June...)

Lv Frankfurt 6:54
Lv Wiesbaden 7:33
Lv Eltville 7:47

Ar Rüdesheim 8:05

The train options from Boppard, St. Goar or Bacharach to Bingen for the 9:15 cruise are a bit less demanding; you might be able to finish breakfast:

Lv Boppard 7:44 or 8:15 / Ar Bingen Stadt 8:26 or 8:56
Lv St. Goar 7:56 / Ar Bingen Stadt 8:26
Lv Bacharach 8:06 / Ar Bingen Stadt 8:26

As for "The ship fills up in Rüdesheim" - the Frankfurt people arriving by train in R'heim are probably going to make the 11:00 cruise, but not that 9:00. And if it were so that the boats fill up there, no one would ever be able to board in Bingen or the other towns after R'heim, because virtually everyone who boards is staying on the boat to St. Goar or St. Goarshausen. I think it's more accurate to say that the priority seating is likely taken, but there's still room for passengers boarding in other towns downstream. If boats ever were to really fill up, that could perhaps happen on certain weekends or holidays; weekday cruise business tends to be significantly lighter.

About Bingen: Not a bad town, not the most fascinating either. There is a very nice developed river promenade with river views, cafes, easy walking. But obviously, you can catch the 9:15 boat there rather easily, even on foot if you overnight on/near the docks/waterfront. The NH Bingen is on the river promenade with river-view rooms and can be a good choice.

Hello Russ:

Thank you very much for all your very helpful information regarding the boat trips on the Rhein. I am a bit confused about the following: It seems that both KD and Bingen-Rüdesheimer each offer northbound daily trips beginning in Rudesheim and ending in St. Goarhausen, leaving the dock in Rudesheim at the exact same times: 9:00, 11:00 and 13:00. Is this just coincidence? Or is KD just subcontracting these departures to Bingen-Rudesheimer? These are two different companies right? If that is true, of the two, which one do you recommend? Many thanks for all your help.\Ron

friedman.ron:

The only B-R cruises from R'heim to St. Goar/St. Goarshausen (Loreleyfahrt) this year are 11:00 and 13:00 AFAIK. No 9:00.

K-D's high-season boats for this same route are at 9:00, 11:00, 14:15, and 16:15.

These are separate operators in competition, leaving from separate docks. The 11:00 B-R from R'heim competes with the K-D 11:00 for mid-day passengers who cannot arrive earlier or cannot cruise too much later I suspect this is the peak period of business for cruising on any given day. The 13:00 B-R boat offers a competitive alternative to waiting around for K-D's 14:15 boat.

I've spent a lot of time on the Rhine, and taken a few cruises, but I have never been on the B-R boats myself, only seen them on the water and at the docks. Maybe others will chime in as to service, value, etc....

2023 K-D Schedule in English has been published:

https://www.k-d.com/fileadmin/KD_Fahrplaene/KD_Fahrplan_intern_2023_final.pdf

My wife and I will be in Mainz by July 28, we are retired , 69YO, we r coming from Frankfurt and would like to take the KD cruise , visit at least St Goar , Bacharach and Koblenz and Cochem on Mosel the next day before going to Cologne , appreciate any advise for my itinerary
PS. we are travelling with two 20 roller size suitcases