notamermaid

The thunderstorms are indeed travelling East so warnings have been extended into Bavaria. A rise of the Danube in reaction to the rain is now indicated in the forecast for tomorrow (Upper Danube in Germany) and to some extent for Saturday (Lower Danube in Germany). We will see how this develops when the thunderstorms have passed during the night and tomorrow. notamermaid

I guess that is the big question with the North-American lines: do they have the supplier equip them with European standard beds or North-American standard beds? Butler service is indeed a rather general term, on my cruise the lady who acted as "butler" just said hello and said we should contact her with any queries. There was only one thing that came up during the whole week and that was sorted at the reception desk. I do not recall seeing a detailed description of what she may have been able to do for us or what was part of her job description. I reckon that on the so-called luxury lines there is a wide range of services, just like you posted, which I assume are more than would have been part of our butler's service. I sailed neither "budget" nor "North-American luxury". notamermaid

Interesting that you mention that, I thought about Esztergom when I posted about Komarom. Seeing that my ship docked in Esztergom as part of its regular itinerary I was wondering why we here so little about that port. Good to know that it is used in low water. It is closer to Budapest than Komarom but still before the Danube bend: notamermaid

The Danube river is mostly still in the clear as regards the thunderstorms in Germany. If the weather heads the usual direction this can still change. Here is a map to follow along: https://www.dwd.de/DE/wetter/warnungen_gemeinden/warnkarten/warnkarten_node.html notamermaid

The warnings for flooding in smaller rivers and a fast rise of the Rhine in the Upper Rhine valley are still standing. Heavy rain over the Black Forest. Here is the warning map: https://www.dwd.de/DE/wetter/warnungen_gemeinden/warnkarten/warnkarten_node.html As the weather is - as is usual - coming from the general West, rain is hitting the Vosges mountains as well and we will see a fast rise of the Moselle, with additionally the Saar contributing a lot of water at Trier, too. The confluence with the Moselle is a few kilometres upstream from the city at the town of Konz. notamermaid

Just to give an idea. Viva Cruises offers this Basel to Amsterdam cruise for 1,995 euros: https://www.viva-*****/en/reise/basel-kurs-amsterdam I can book the S.S. Victoria for 7,109 euros. I can book an Amawaterways ship from 3,498 euros. With all three I will get different amenities, but all include a bed of sorts and three full meals per day. notamermaid

Oh, I see. The gap is "disappeared" by putting something on top. That way the company is flexible with the beds rather than having one large bed. So the twin becomes a queen. In the German brochure of CroisiEurope it says either twin bed or "französisches Bett", which is a grand-lit, i.e. smaller than a double bed. I guess they mean this type: https://www.croisieurope.travel/en/boat/ms-douce-france I am not sure which river cruise line I would call budget. For me apart from a few small ones and a few old Dutch ones they are mid-range to me. But I come from a European perspective to this topic. I never knew you could have a butler on a river cruise ship and food that is tasty rather than "lobster flown in from x or beef reared in fashion y" is fine for me. What I would not want is a bunk bed and a malfunctioning 20-year-old shower. I guess that would be really "budget" and a little less than that to me. notamermaid

Yes, all good. Here for everyone's interest is a historical photo. In 2013 Passau saw one of the worst flooding in history. There is a wall where they put the significant markings. On Wikipedia is a photo that shows the old figure scale just after the water had receded and before they painted the 2013 figure on. You can see where the wall is wet: They also made a correction so the new scale looks a little different. notamermaid

The weather has turned a bit so we are getting thunderstorms with partly heavy rain. On the Rhine it appears we will see the effect more than on the Danube. No fast rise is indicated on the German Danube yet. notamermaid

We have a severe weather warning for parts of Baden-Württemberg, that includes the Neckar and its tributaries as well as parts of the Upper Rhine valley. The Rhine is due to rise fast and may reach official flooding status at Maxau. This is a change from the modelling published yesterday. Friday into Saturday will see a sharp rise in figures. This wave may cause a bit of trouble for navigation but as of now flood mark II is ruled out. As a consequence the level in the Middle Rhine valley will rise fast but it looks like the wave will not be fed that much by the Main river. We could see a level at Kaub of 360cm and more. That means at Kaub there will be no official flooding as of now. notamermaid

Interesting. I had never thought about the bed size before, I am kind of fine with the twin bed set-up. I am not familiar with the American terms so I just say that you would like a double bed without the mattress break/gap? I wonder if one can easily find out from online descriptions what the other lines offer, by that I mean Riviera Travel, Viva Cruises and Arosa. Also, would all cabins be the same on each ship of a company, or could they differ from ship to ship or even on a single ship? notamermaid

Is it ever possible not to get sidetracked with such stuff? 😊 Takes will power not to keep researching, I know that well. I have looked a bit more into the canals of France, as I was wondering how they decided on the lock size. It was some time in the 19th century, that is they went for standardisation then and we still use some of what was decided then in European waterway ship classification. It was the Frechman Freycinet who gave his name to the type of peniche (barge) that is the basis for the ship class I on rivers and canals west of the Elbe. So the small locks that determine how far up the rivers and through the small canals in France a river cruise ship can sail make it clear that any modern ship will not be able to but the converted barges, if converted from peniches, can. West and East measurements are here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binnenschiffsklasse_I Which means that English real narrowboats can sail on all those waterways suitable for peniche as they are shorter and narrower, narrower by quite a lot. Wikipedia has quite a comprehensive page on the narrowboats [feel free to get annoyed with any mistakes on the page 😉]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrowboat As far as I know all river cruise ships built after 1980 are larger than peniches. It is fascinating to read where ships can sail or cannot, a few years ago (I mentioned it at the time) I talked to a representative of CroisiEurope. The lady told me that one or two the locks on the Neckar are just a few centimetres too small for one of their ships. But they also have another ship that is just a bit smaller so that one sail all the way to Stuttgart whereas the bigger ship turns round on the itinerary some time after Heidelberg and before the impassable lock. notamermaid

Elsewhere there has been mention of river cruise ships of the small kind, meaning converted or newly-built barges. They are so practical for sailing areas of shallow rivers and small canal locks: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2535554-want-to-go-beyond-the-standard-rivers-of-europe-and-scenery-downsize/page/2/#comments Here is a barge that unusually started life in Britain. For our Royal Navy connected lady near Bath, here is a special mention of this vessel, the modern Sir Winston. Her former name is Victoria Regia. @Canal archive I think you may enjoy this thread: http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?p=253847&nojs=1 There are quite a few river cruise barges that are relatively old. 1945 is not the oldest by far! Hard to beat must be the De Nassau, she was built in 1910. She has also had an interesting life, according to the German Binnenschifferforum: https://www.binnenschifferforum.de/showthread.php?98493-De-Nassau-FGKS-02211655 notamermaid

To the river levels. I see in the forecast for the High Rhine and the Upper Rhine that a rise is expected. At Maxau we could see a relatively high level for May but no flooding on the 18th. This will have no strong effect further downstream although the levels in the Middle Rhine valley will of course rise in due course. The figures will be just above 300cm most likely at Kaub on 19/20 May. The current level is 232cm. notamermaid

The Moby Dick is an excursion boat of a Bonn company. The boat sails in the Bonn area but also upstream to Linz regularly with a few trips up to Koblenz. It was built in 1976 and named after the whale in the Rhine. Here is a short video of the boat sailing on the Rhine, with aerial footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFHK0yncPb0 So why "Moby Dick"? In 1966, a beluga whale got lost and sailed up the Rhine. This is the story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby_Dick_(Rhine) notamermaid

I see they also have the Fleur in the portfolio. Have never heard of the Anna Antal, interesting one, not sure what is meant by "former shuttle barge". As for the two ships on the Seine that I have looked at, they are both sailing under Dutch flag, they are called the Fleur and the Zwaantje. Both also do trips in the Netherlands but come to the Seine for some time of the year. Hang on - sailing from the Netherlands to Paris?? Correct. Being the size they are they can do what large river cruise ships cannot do. A river cruise ship needs to sail from Amsterdam to the Rhine and then the Moselle to Luxembourg and then you take the coach to Paris. The small river cruise ships, i.e. barges, go the other way. We will explore that further, but first up is the route to Melun or even up to Sens on the Yonne. This is the waterway map: https://www.water-ways.net/de/laender/frankreich/riviere-seine-marcilly-paris.php notamermaid

Another lovely one! Thanks for the photo. It seem that the Colibri is err, let us say, two levels up from a bike and barge cruise, at least judging from these photos: https://www.bargecolibri.com/gallery.php notamermaid

The rivers and canals of France offer fantastic landscapes and you can crisscross the country on boats for years... The rivers - well there is the Seine of course which is so popular and large that we do not need to talk about it here. Or do we? And what about the Yonne, ever heard of that one? You will find out if you go to Paris and head in the "wrong" direction. It is perhaps not commonly known that ships of 110m and shorter are allowed to sail further than the Port de Grenelle. It must be an amazing sight sailing through Paris and out the other way (until you see the industrial area). But you never read of such itineraries in the standard brochures, not even in German or Dutch. Barges sail quite a way up the river beyond Paris to important ports for bulk, like grain for example. The challenge in Paris city centre are the bridges so restrictions apply and later on the narrowing locks eventually make the river impassable for large ships. So, do river cruise ships sail upstream from Paris? Yes and no. The trips I have found lately are all declared as bike and boat. That means the ships are small. Yet, they are river cruise ships in the broadest sense. One itinerary that I found gives the location for embarkation as Quai de Bercy. That is on the other side of Paris already, as compared to Quai de Grenelle: Another cruise ends "near Notre Dame" as they write it. Hmm, neither sail through Paris, meaning from around the Eiffel Tower upstream. A pity. I guess one could start in Honfleur and sail up the Seine to Paris, then change to an excursion boat, sail to the other side and board the next ship at Quai de Bercy to go to port x offered on the smaller ship. That would be the longest river journey on the Seine possible. Unless you then hop onto a self-drive motorboat. But let us ignore that last bit. Question is: would you want to leave your luxury river cruise ship and take the next journey in a far smaller cabin? We will have a look at the ships and the Yonne river in a next post. notamermaid

Of the popular rivers in Europe the Elbe is our "Sorgenkind" right now, the child we need to worry about. So let us have a look. Dresden gauge is down to 98cm and the next 48 hours do not indicate a noticeable improvement. notamermaid

I mentioned the shallow section from the Danube bend to Budapest. That is a slightly rough explanation as I do not know the exact kilometre from where the river may be regarded as too low typically. What we know is that the port that river cruise ships use as an alternative to Budapest and from where you will be taken by coach to the city is Komarom. Komarom is a town but also two towns in that it is divided by the Danube and in two countries with two different languages, hence the two versions of the name: Komárom and Komárno. Famous for the fortresses, the cooperation between Slovakia and Hungary has just seen the completion of another renovation project: https://hungarytoday.hu/fort-igmand-in-komarom-renovated-in-cooperation-with-slovakia/ Here is more information on one of the two: https://visitkomarno.eu/en/sightseeing/fort-igmand/ notamermaid

I thought I may put the high water and low water "trouble spots" into context of the European waterway that connects the North Sea and the Black Sea. For river cruising that is Amsterdam (for commercial traffic normally Rotterdam) to Tulcea or Constanca. I have taken the liberty of using an old map from Nicko Cruises for that. That was a 29 day itinerary that the company had offered. You can follow my explanation with this: From Amsterdam you go through the canal onto the Rhine. Between Koblenz and Rüdesheim is the Rhine Gorge and part of that section is the short stretch around Kaub that is the shallowest on the whole Rhine. When the river gets really low that whole section and further upstream up to Mainz gets too low for large river cruise ships. From just after Mainz you sail up the Main. There is no low water but the bridges are low which could stop your ship when the river is very high. But more likely the sun deck is closed on the Main due to the low bridges. It can happen all the way to Bamberg and will depend on the hull design of your ship and company (ship crew) policy. In the Main Danube Canal there are usually no issues but again there are a few low bridges. The next shallow section is between Straubing and Passau, but to be precise I need to say between just after Straubing and up to Vilshofen (not marked) before Passau. Right at Passau is the infamous low bridge, a problem in flooding. A shallow section that only becomes a problem after Pfelling already is, i.e. at an even lower river level, is from the "Donauknie" into Budapest. Sections of the Danube further downstream can become shallow where uncontrolled by dams and locks. But I cannot give details on those. Hope this is helpful. notamermaid

Oh dear, yes that was a bad month. Kaub gauge fell below 40cm which in effect means very few river cruise ships could sail. A rare occurrence. notamermaid

Exactly. The suspension bridge in Passau is this really annoying little bit that may be all that stands in one's way between having a perfect river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest or an interrupted one. But all is good now and unless the Danube gets real downpours it will stay that way. notamermaid

The emphasis is on the almost. It is worth comparing the German lines to the international ones, for sure. Viva Cruises includes many alcoholic drinks but not excursions for example. The info is here: https://www.viva-*****/en/onboard-abc notamermaid

This is a high quality webcam, a snapshot, you can see the northern lights, high in the Alps: https://www.foto-webcam.eu/webcam/funtenseetauern/ This photo is from midnight. notamermaid