I’m glad I’m only reading this now. My daughter took a short boat ride on the Danube through Budapest two weeks ago!
So did I, sounds like same type of boat! When our group went (during daylight), there was no safety briefing or talk of life jackets at all.
The Danube was absolutely packed with Viking boats on river cruises - they were docked 3 abreast in some cases, where the passengers on the outer ship would walk across 2 other ships to disembark.
During a storm, I wonder if the boat captain didn’t see one of the ships docked so far out into the channel. Still, you’d think they’d have instruments.