Lower Danube — current water levels for river cruising

The Lower Danube starts in Budapest — most itineraries on this half of the river embark or turn around there — and runs through Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria toward the Black Sea. It's a different river from the upper half: wider, emptier, and watched in a different way. This page tracks three reaches: the long run down from Budapest past Kalocsa, Mohács, Vukovar and Ilok to Novi Sad, where a string of Hungarian fords sets the low-water limit; the Serbian reach around Novi Sad and Belgrade, watched for high water; and the Romanian–Bulgarian border reach around Svishtov and Ruse, the river's chronic low-water zone.

Live gauge coverage on the lower river is genuinely patchier than upstream — some official checkpoints report without a navigability grading, and where that's the case this page says 'no data' plainly rather than guessing. 'No data' never means 'normal'.

The verdict here is deliberately coarse and honest: status and trend, never forecasts. On Lower Danube itineraries, your cruise line manages conditions season by season, and your cruise director will have the plan — this page is the background.