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Liveaboard river cruises (river cruise boats and barge hotels)
Liveaboard river cruises, river cruise boats and barge hotels, offer cruises on the Seine from Paris to Honfleur. This sector comprises 14 cruise lines operating a fleet of 21 river cruise vessels with capacities of over 50 passengers.
Barge hotels also travel to Paris for passenger embarkation/disembarkation or for port calls. These smaller craft, with capacities of less than 50, offer cruises on the Seine, its tributaries and canals with durations of between two and fifteen days, combined in some cases with cycle tours.
A masterplan for the development of Seine Valley liveaboard river cruises
Aiming to step up development of Seine liveaboard river cruises and generate benefits for the local economy, HAROPA PORT has drawn up a masterplan to address a range of issues for the next ten years:
- a response to facility overload at certain cruise stops,
- provision of a network strategy for the whole of the Seine downstream from Paris in order to spread passenger reception capacity and service facilities between cruise stops,
- support for the arrival on the Seine of new 125m and 135m riverboats,
- modernisation of the existing cruise stops and provision of quayside services (e.g. water, electricity).
Boat excursions
Boat excursions are non-liveaboard cruises with durations ranging from a few minutes to whole days spent on the Seine. This activity involves 58 lines and nearly 130 craft.
As a category, boat excursions cover a range of activities:
- passenger transport,
- regular river excursions,
- regular lunch or dinner cruises,
- event-related cruises.
These activities are conducted either from the home ports of the passenger lines or from shared ports of call.
A network of cruise stops along the Seine to boost the passenger transport sector
In order to facilitate passenger vessel operations, allow new market offerings to be developed, energise local areas and allow general access to the most attractive sites, HAROPA PORT’s Paris Seine port agency manages a network of 37 cruise stops in the Paris area, including 24 along the Suresnes reach of the river. These mixed-use stops reserved for economic activity relating to river transport, enable numerous lines to develop their activities across the whole of the Paris area.
“Zero fumes” port calls and supply of clean energy to ships in the move towards net zero carbon
HAROPA PORT fosters and supports the greening of river fleets:
Together with Voies Navigables de France, HAROPA PORT has installed electricity supply terminals as part of the Borne&Eau programme. The first terminals have already been installed with VNF in Le Havre, Rouen, Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, Poses-Amfreville and Gennevilliers for freight, and in the ports of Grenelle, La Tournelle, Boulogne-Legrand, Javel and La Roche-Guyon for cruises.
In 2024, HAROPA PORT has installed 36 additional freight bollards and one dedicated to cruise ships in the port of Javel-bas.
The work begun with VNF is continuing and will bring the total number of bollards for freight boats to 96, and 36 for river cruises.Seagoing cruise ships will also have the option of quayside electricity supply. The three quays dedicated to sea cruises at Le Havre will be connected to the grid by the end of 2026. Power output will be up to 13 MW on the three docks simultaneously. The cruise terminals at Honfleur and Rouen will also be provided with this infrastructure.
- HAROPA PORT is also involved in the H2Ships project in the Interreg North-West Europe Programme (Interreg NWE) alongside 13 other partners from 5 different countries, the aim being to develop the use of hydrogen for ship propulsion.
To find out more about H2Ships.
How can this network of cruise stops be used?
For liveaboard cruises
Stopovers by river cruise vessels are booked six months before the season using a booking application that is both specific and used by all line managers: gescales Seine. All ports of call along the Seine Axis can be booked using this software.New vessels must first be declared here to be registered in the application.
HAROPA PORT, along with all its partners (the French Waterways Authority and local government bodies), also has available for river cruise boats a winter layup service with the option of arranging maintenance work at HAROPA PORT Le Havre or Rouen.For boat excursions and barge hotels
The booking system provides for a large measure of flexibility with reservation management by quarter-hour blocks in order to optimise the use of the most requested cruise stops.
All passenger transport vessels that are compliant (home ports, registered ownership, etc.) can make direct requests via a customer portal to rapidly obtain a stopover authorisation. Bookings can be made several months ahead of time (e.g. for family events) or even a few hours before the scheduled arrival, subject to availability.
Approximately 6,000 call requests are processed in this way every year.
All that is needed is to ask to open a customer account here.
A list of the supporting documents you will need to produce will then be provided. Subject to production of all these documents, creation of a customer account takes no longer than two weeks.
