Last checked: 2026-08-29
budapest.boats is an independent editorial guide to one subject: river cruises on the Danube in Budapest. We are not a boat company and we don’t sell tickets ourselves. We research the cruises, compare them honestly, and point you to booking when you’ve decided.
What we do
We cover every format on the Budapest river — from the €11 one-hour night cruise to dinner cruises, party boats and private charters — and the operators behind them, from veteran Legenda to state-owned MAHART PassNave. Our job is the unglamorous detail that saves your evening: which dock a boat actually leaves from, why boarding after 21:30 in summer can mean sailing past dark monuments once the facade lighting switches off at 22:00–23:00, and which closures old guides still miss — for example, MAHART’s Margaret Island stop being out of service until 31 August 2026, or the BKK commuter boats D11/D12 that were discontinued in 2022 yet still show up in outdated articles.
If you’re short on time, start with our ranked best cruises page or the prices and tickets overview.
Who is behind it
A small editorial team that knows Budapest’s riverfront on foot, not just from a browser. We publish in six languages — English, Hungarian, Italian, French, German and Spanish — and each version is written for its readers rather than machine-translated. We don’t invent personas or fake bylines; when we recommend something, we give the reason, and when a cruise has downsides, we name them.
How we make money
Plainly: through affiliate commissions. Booking links on this site lead to GetYourGuide, and when you book through one of them, we earn a commission at no extra cost to you — the price is identical to going there directly. That revenue funds the research and keeps the site free. It does not decide our recommendations: where a cheaper direct option or an honest downside exists (crowds, drink prices, glass glare on lower decks), we say so.
What we are not
We are not a cruise operator, a ticket office, or the official website of any attraction, boat or booking platform. We can’t sell, change or refund a booking — for that, contact the platform or operator you booked with.
How we check facts
Every fact that can drift — prices, schedules, dock numbers, closures — is re-verified against the operators’ official sites, and every page displays its last-checked date. When we can’t verify something, we tell you to check the operator’s current timetable rather than guessing.
Spotted an error anyway? Write to contact@budapest.boats — corrections are the fastest queue we have. More on the contact page.
Frequently asked questions
Is budapest.boats the official site of a cruise operator?
No. We are an independent guide with no ownership ties to any operator or attraction. The words "official site" on our pages always refer to the operators' own websites, which we link in each page's sources.
Do your affiliate links make cruises more expensive?
No. You pay the same price on GetYourGuide whether you arrive through our link or not; the commission comes out of the platform's cut.
How current is the information?
Every page shows a last-checked date and we re-verify facts against official operator sites. Prices still drift, so treat "from €X" as a starting point and confirm on the booking page.