Handpicked experience · Shanghai
Shanghai, China
A cruise on a river that lost its own port to an artificial island thirty kilometres offshore, still runs both ways with the tide, and lights its skyline to a fixed timetable.
Board a cruise from the Huangpu river dock and enjoy a one hour tour of the riverside locations.
Start from the Bund's historic buildings and cruise past modern Pudong on the other side.
Board in the morning, afternoon or evening - whichever time is most convenient for you with a fully flexible ticket.
Insider tip: nothing beats a Huangpu River Cruise at night!
Get spectacular views of the city skyline - a colorful sight to see when you board in the evening.
A working river seen from the water rather than the promenade
Barges, ferries and dredgers rather than ocean shipping
A current that changes direction during the trip
A coordinated skyline display with a fixed finish
Both banks in one crossing, which no viewpoint on land gives
Departures through the day and after dark
A cruise on the Huangpu, the river that separates the stone waterfront on one bank from the towers on the other. Boats run through the day and after dark, and the two versions are different trips.
Shanghai exists because this river gave ocean traffic a way inland, and for a century the wharves you pass were the working edge of the busiest harbour in Asia.
That arrangement has ended. The Huangpu is a tributary and it is shallow, with a depth measured in single-figure metres and a constant dredging bill, while container ships have grown to draughts it cannot take. Rather than deepen the river, the city built a port thirty kilometres offshore on an island in open water, linked to the mainland by a bridge more than thirty kilometres long, and opened it in 2005.
Shanghai is now the busiest container port on earth, and almost none of that happens here. What passes you on the water is river traffic: sand barges, bunkering craft, ferries and dredgers, working a river that is no longer the point of the city but still carries its supplies.
This far up, the Huangpu is tidal. The flow reverses, so a boat is pushed on one leg and held back on the other, and the crews plan turning points around it rather than around the map.
It is visible if you watch the moored barges. Where their bows point tells you which way the water is going, and if you look again on the return leg you will often find them facing the other way.
The illuminated skyline is not incidental lighting from the buildings themselves. It is a coordinated display, switched on at dusk and switched off at a set hour, and the towers go dark on a schedule while the city is still awake.
That is worth knowing when choosing a departure. A late sailing can end with the show already over, and the last hour before the lights go out is the one every photograph you have seen was taken in.
Daytime sailings show you the buildings and the working river; evening sailings show you the light and very little else. Neither is the better one, but they are not substitutes.
Open decks are exposed, and the wind over the water is colder than the street in every month. A layer more than you think you need is the standard advice here and it is correct.
Boarding is at fixed piers with security checks, and the queue before an evening departure is longer than the crossing itself. Sailings are suspended in fog and heavy wind, which the river gets in winter.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
The river is shallow and needs constant dredging, and modern container ships draw more water than it can offer, so a deep-water port was built offshore instead.
Onto an island in open water some thirty kilometres out, reached by a bridge more than thirty kilometres long, in operation since 2005.
River traffic rather than ocean shipping: sand barges, bunkering craft, ferries and dredgers supplying the city.
Yes. The flow reverses, so a boat runs with the water one way and against it the other, and crews plan around that.
Watch the moored barges. Their bows swing to face the current, and they will often be pointing the other way on your return leg.
No. It is a coordinated display with a start and a finish, and the towers go dark at a set hour while the city is still busy.
It does. A late departure can end after the display has finished, and the hour before it stops is when the familiar photographs are taken.
Not really. Daylight shows the buildings and the working river; darkness shows the lighting and little else.