The Boat (Das Boot)

Our floating hotel on this trip was the MS River Odyssey, owned by Vantage Deluxe Travel of Boston. Launched in March of 2002, she is 410 feet long, but only 38 feet wide. Coincidentally, that's the size of many of the locks we passed through. It's also a standard European Riverboat size.

River Odyssey's height above the waterline is 25 feet with the wheelhouse extended, or 19.7 feet with the wheelhouse retracted. She can travel in only five feet of water, and her speed is 9.7 mph upstream, 13.4 mph downstream. She is a diesel-electric powered by two Deutz engines of 1,100 HP each, and burns 55 gallons of diesel per hour (including generators).