Swiss river cruise operator Thurgau Travel is in the middle of the biggest fleet overhaul in its history, with two new builds arriving back to back. The five-star Thurgau Avanti starts sailing in May 2027, and the Thurgau Arva follows in summer 2028.
The Avanti is a 135-metre ship costing around 29 million Swiss francs. It carries 82 cabins, including four junior suites and four full suites, plus three restaurants and a private dining room — a lot of eating options for a river vessel. The hull is built in Romania, with fitting-out at TeamCo in Heusden in the Netherlands. The company is chasing Green Award Gold certification, a standard its 2023 ship Thurgau Gold already holds. The new arrival also marks a farewell: the Antonio Bellucci sails her last season in spring 2027 before retiring.
The Arva takes a different tack. Named after the Swiss stone pine (the arve), she carries around 190 guests and skips the high-gloss finish typical of new river ships in favour of warm woods and natural materials. She'll also run hybrid propulsion with battery storage to help with manoeuvring in port.
There's a pricing promise, too. When fuel prices spiked in 2026 amid Middle East tensions, Thurgau's German operation declined to add fuel surcharges for the German-speaking market. Managing director Tim Starke framed it as a matter of reliability and planning security for guests and travel partners — a notable stance in a market where surcharges have become common.
More interesting for travellers is where the ships are going. Beyond the classic Rhine and Danube, Thurgau has launched four new regional German routes for 2026, including an 11-day sailing from Berlin to Saarbrücken aboard the Thurgau Saxonia. The company says guests increasingly want smaller towns, distinctive regional landscapes and themed experiences rather than the same headline ports — and that products which all look alike will struggle as competition intensifies. In other words, expect more itineraries you haven't already seen a dozen times.
For anyone considering a European river cruise, this matters on a practical level: fleet renewal usually means newer cabins, better insulation, more dining choice and smarter energy systems, while the route expansion gives options beyond the crowded Rhine gorges and Danube hotspots. Thurgau remains a German-speaking-market operator, so English-speaking travellers should check language arrangements before booking — but the ships themselves will be among the newest on European waterways when they launch. Details on the Arva's exact itineraries are still to come as the 2028 debut approaches.
