notamermaid

Not sure which one you saw, but the one of Cologne Niehl drone image is striking. Tops the Vienna one for sure. notamermaid

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2910185-danube-water-levels-2023-and-similar-topics-plus-tips-and-info/page/45/#comments notamermaid

Where do ships go in winter? To a harbour naturally, but it needs to safe. There are industrial harbours and special winter harbours. On the Danube many river cruise ships dock in Linz: Vienna has a winter harbour as well of course: Look which is there - the old Viking Prestige! She is not that old actually but was replaced by the longships. Does the Prestige actually still sail? Not much happening there yet, but see what the google image used reveals when we zoom in: That is how many ships moored when the satellite image was taken. There are other harbours. If you are completely bored some time in winter you can do some ship spotting of which ship docks where. notamermaid

Did a bit of webcam spotting and searching. I think it is the Amaserena that is having problems. I say is as she is still in the Rüdesheim area. She arrived from direction Trechtingshausen about 85 min after the incident and docked at Rüdesheim for almost 24 hours. Around lunchtime today there was a second Amawaterways ship docked alongside. That one left shortly after, then a pilot boat arrived. That escorted the Amaserena upstream in the side channel. It left shortly after the Amaserena docked at a building supplies company at Geisenheim, at a small industrial harbour area. She is still there now: notamermaid

Now for something a little bit different. When sailing from Regensburg to Passau or vice versa you pass a ship that is seemingly docked in a remote place away from towns at a beautiful spot near a castle and hill with monument. It is at Donaustauf and the ship is the MS Rossini. She is a former splendid classic river cruise ship but is now used to house refugees. The ship had been docked a bit further downstream at Bach but the local authorities have a coordinated plan for this and moved the ship in August. So you may have seen this on your past cruise at a different spot. It is still a "normal" ship technically and signals. Here: It is somewhat sad to see the ship go down that way as it can easily be the end of the road before, you now, conversion to private or worse. But to the small town of Donaustauf. Marked on marinetraffic is the Burgberg. Yes, a castle on a hill. Not bad, but what is a real draw there is the other landmark, Walhalla. Kind of weird, refugees on a ship underneath the hall of fame of Germans. https://www.schloesser.bayern.de/englisch/palace/objects/walhalla.htm From Regensburg the Walhalla is a pleasant coach ride. It should be offered on excursions but Regensburg itself is certainly the grander experience so I would understand it if no company ever offers it. You can go by boat from Regensburg: https://tourismus.regensburg.de/en/experience-discover/guided-tours-walks-and-round-trips/boat-trips notamermaid

Yes, you would need a huge "car park" for all those ships together now, 100plus vessels. Will put a short post in the Danube thread. notamermaid

Nice move! Aachen is highly interesting for its cathedral and a nice compact town to walk around. Recommend it. Does not quite fit the theme of Netherlands/Belgium cruise, but is rarely offered otherwise and on no navigable river. Precruise stay in Brussels: interesting city, just not old or "beautiful". Recommend the waffels, chocolate and the Art Nouveau architecture. Is a European centre for comics, if that interests you. For old town charm choose another city. notamermaid

Apparently there was an incident on the Rhine involving a river cruise ship and a barge yesterday. Due to a technical fault the ship lost all its steering and drifted downstream. An emergency stop with the anchors did not go well. A barge just managed to avoid a collision but doing so hit and ripped out a green buoy. The police allowed the barge to sail on and reports no damage there. The river cruise ship was able to get one machine going again and was allowed to sail to Rüdesheim. That is not far from where this all happened, it was at Trechtingshausen at km 534.3. No one was hurt. The names of the ships have not been disclosed. Police report: https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/43615/5656674 The backlog at Iffezheim lock has cleared slowly. As we know, due to the accident with the gate things will continue to be slower than usual there. It is a very windy day today, cold driving rain makes excursions unpleasant I should think. But the showers are scattered around. No impact on water levels of note expected. That is good as the level at Maxau is still high. We do not need any more water right now. The Netherlands expect sleet and a bit of snow even over the weekend. And with the fast winds that weather is coming to Germany. I could really feel the chill in the air this morning. So the higher hills will get some snow. Which means that you may dock on the river in rain at Breisach, go in a coach to the Black Forest and see the first snowflakes... notamermaid

My pleasure. Sardines, well, the obvious comparison , but one I had not thought of! I went to Niehl in May 2021. It was - err - interesting. Next to the entrance to the Viking basin was this: The entrance (I did not enter the private property of course). You can make out the wheelhouses of the ships: notamermaid

As posted above, the 2025 bookings are open, so is there something new in that year? The company has new themed cruises as reported by travelweekly.com: https://www.travelweekly.com/River-Cruising/Riviera-River-Cruises-unveils-themed-sailings-2025?ct=river I have had a look at the "Music, Arts and Craft of Switzerland and the Rhine". This one: https://www.rivieratravel.co.uk/river-cruises/music-arts-craft-switzerland-and-the-rhine The photo showing the Beethoven statue in Bonn in front of the Altes Postamt looks promising. Hmm, turns out that as regards ports Bonn is the only "new" one. Unusual are Stergiswil and Stanserhorn in Switzerland as excursions. Really different. As you may expect with Riviera Travel the itinerary ends in Cologne. I think the music, arts and craft theme is well-represented, Rüdesheim okay I admit is a firm favourite so no reason to skip it. If you do not fancy going all the way to Amsterdam and are happy with leaving from Cologne airport or are willing to hop on a train to another destination or airport, this is an interesting itinerary. Based on the overall description, I would say it is worth checking out what Riviera Travel has compiled for the other themes. notamermaid

The situation continues to improve on the Rhine, all stations, now also into the Netherlands, show well fallen levels. The flood alert system has reverted to standard mode. The weather has improved. After a lovely sunset last night we had a cold night and today has been the more pleasant wintery grey rather than November grey. Need to get the gloves out. Tomorrow: Christmas markets open! Many of them at least. Koblenz for example. I have been to my first Advent charity event, but I will say a bit more in the Christmas markets thread. notamermaid

@Barb at Maple Lane here is the info for this year so far: You asked me in the Rhine thread this specific question: "Not a Mermaid, what dates was the section from Passau to Regensberg closed this fall please?" This is the graph to answer that: It is too complicated to filter out of that the days that were fine. So I will direct you to the website. My search gives you this: https://www.gkd.bayern.de/en/rivers/waterlevel/bayern/pfelling-10078000/year-figures?zr=jahr&addhr=hr_w_hw&beginn=10.09.2023&ende=27.10.2023 Now, underneath that graph are figures. Click on more data. That gives you the full list of figures in that time frame. Click on the arrow pointing down in the right column. The table should now have the figures appearing in order low to high, looking like this (screenshot): All days that have a figure on the right below 290cm indicate a problem for river cruise ships. Nota bene: This is not closure, this means a captain may have decided not to sail. The river in Germany is never closed to traffic in low water. There has been no closure due to flooding, the problem has only been the headroom under bridges. You also asked: "Also, how long was Budapest unavailable for the ships to dock there?" I cannot answer that question well, it will have depended on the individual itinerary and ship. However, the notion is that quite a few days were affected and many of the 135m ships. You can see the comments of cruisers and my confirmed water levels on those days on this page for example: Do have a look at the corresponding pages in that time frame in the Viking river roll calls for the Danube. People have mentioned the problems around Budapest. Hope this helps. notamermaid

Good news: Passau gauge has fallen to 620cm. More headroom under the bridge. notamermaid

Would love to know this, also with the fact in mind that with low water it depends on the fleet as well. I know that CroisiEurope has a very good "track record" as they sail with only 110m ships (or smaller) on the rivers where other companies sail with a mixed or 135m-only fleet. A few of the French company's ships have one deck less as well, which is good for the issue of low bridges. Apart from the flooding on the Rhine that is just passing now, the Rhine has been a good river to sail this year for all companies. The Elbe is tricky but the scheduled itineraries and special ships take that into consideration so the "only X percent" is quite good for the Elbe in comparison to the Danube. Tons of itineraries have been affected on the latter. Again, it would be nice to see a breakdown of figures. But I suspect it would deter some people from choosing certain companies. But overall the Danube low water hits all companies that operate 135m ships. We can now expect it every year just the time frame and the duration and extent are never known until shortly before a sailing date. Granted, one or two years have been kind of okay these last twenty years. If a company says "96 percent of all our cruises in Europe run smoothly" then they may include the Douro, the Seine and the Rhone in the calculation as well as the canals of the Netherlands, which quite frankly does not help a prospective cruiser for the Danube... notamermaid

June 2025, a long way to go. June is a really nice month for river cruising on the Rhine. It can get really warm; hot on a few days. Lovely, balmy sunsets on the sundeck. I really do not know what the authorities do, but you are right of course, there are hydroelectric power plants. The locks I always mention are dams as well and the system uses the water flow to create electricity. Near Passau is the Kachlet lock. notamermaid

Companies do say the vast, vast majority of river cruises run without problems. All in all that is most likely true, no question about that. With more ships of large size and standard high height having been put onto the rivers in the last ten years the problems have increased though. For what it's worth: my river cruise was fantastic, without problems. A couple of weeks later my ship hit the bridge at Passau and was out of service for several weeks. Then the huge flood of June 2013 happened and nothing ran on the Danube for - my guess - two weeks. The Seine does not seem to suffer from low water generally (it is relatively deep) and the flooding tends not to be severe - but does happen for sure. That is good. I know that people have been on river cruises and never heard of water level issues because all their cruises went fine. notamermaid

The situation has much improved along the Danube in Germany. Passau is at 659cm and will further go down. We have high water now but it is not that long ago that the river was low... I will get a bit more together as regards statistics but have had a look already at one aspect. How many days has the level at Pfelling fallen below the crucial 290cm this year? I have counted a staggering 85 days. That is not the worst year recently by the way. A while ago I did the same for 2018 and stopped counting at 110 days (gets your head dizzy looking at the tables with all the figures). It may be over 120 days. notamermaid

It is big and really away from the river flow, an industrial harbour, but also has been the place for the KD company (Köln-Düsseldorfer) to put their river cruise ships (when they operated them) and excursion boats for many years. I had not realized this. When I went there in a previous year - you know, when all ships were grounded - I saw the KD logos where Viking has their ships. That is because of the business connection that Viking started in Germany with KD ships. Not the sort of place you want to dock in for the night and too far from the city centre. But the village of Niehl is nice, a traditional fishing village it was - till the big companies came: https://www.stadt-koeln.de/artikel/06809/index.html I really like this drone photo of the harbour, do check out the photographer and the text is worth translating with an online program, it explains the significance of the date the photo was taken: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Hafen_Köln_Niehl_I_(Niehler_Hafen)_-_Panorama-07900792.jpg notamermaid

Oh, that is a bit difficult to compile for Budapest. Pfelling I can get together. I will give it a think and put something in the Danube thread. Some posts in the Viking river roll calls can give you clues as well. Bare with me a day or two please. notamermaid

Not sure. There is the notion that commercial ships have priority at locks, but I have not seen that confirmed in writing. The standard is first come, first serve. In Germany priority is given to boats operated by the authorities, like police launches, etc. Further priority can be given to other ships, they then carry a red triangular flag. The rule book called "Binnenschiffahrtsstrassenordnung" says: "§ 6.29 Reihenfolge der Schleusungen Es wird, soweit nachstehend nichts anderes bestimmt ist, in der Reihenfolge des Eintreffens vor der Schleuse, bei mehreren Schleusen vor der gewählten oder durch Richtungsweiser nach § 6.28a zugewiesenen Schleuse geschleust. ..." The exceptions then follow in the text. Perhaps someone can talk to captain or crew members on their upcoming cruise to find out a little about the topic. notamermaid

A barge has hit the wall in the entrance area to the lock at Bruttig-Fankel. Fortunately, this accident while causing damage to the ship and wall the police expect river traffic not to be impacted by. It is assumed that the high water and strong current caused the ship to drift sideways. The captain tried a steering manoeuvre but was unable to keep the ship from hitting the wall. https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rheinland-pfalz/koblenz/schleusen-schaden-bruttig-fankel-guetermotorschiff-100.html Report says that this approach to the lock is tricky when sailing downstream as a bend just before it is challenging and such minor accidents occur there often. A nice photo of the site: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staustufe_Fankel#/media/Datei:Staustufe_Fankel.jpg The river level continues to go down well. notamermaid

A couple of thoughts: Have not been to the museum. The gondola runs but in winter it may be rather cold up there on the hill. Sunset is also early. https://www.seilbahn-ruedesheim.de/zeiten/ Castles. Do they offer Lahneck Castle in winter? That one is good, lovely small intimate setting and exclusive to Amawaterways. Check it out in this Amawaterways video at 30:56: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t37FdNKq9kM notamermaid

That is good to read. Vilshofen has peaked so the water is further downstream. Interestingly, the corresponding rise does not happen at Passau. There is a lock in between - and nature of course, meaning floodplains - so we can assume that this can alleviate potential problems at Passau. I am not familiar with the intricacies of the geography and man-made structures there. The graph looks more pleasant that I expected: Compared to Vilshofen: notamermaid

I have seen few in Germany, as far as I remember they are either on the Danube (Linz has a large harbour for example) or in the Netherlands. Duisburg in Germany also has a typical harbour but I think that is mostly used by German ships. There are a couple of others. CroisiEurope are in their home harbour in Strasbourg by the way. This is where I have seen a cluster of several ships (Avalon and others) in the past and three Avalon ships are there now. A screenshot, zoom in on marinetraffic.com to see them all: Maxau is doing okay, a slightly slow decline. 730cm. The area will stay on flooding level I for several days but no rise of note is indicated in the forecast, a slight rise may come next week. notamermaid

Cologne Niehl harbour is slowly filling with ships for the winter. Today the Viking Gymir - the one that hit a bridge on the Main - has joined the others already there: In case you are wondering: Cologne gauge has peaked far below the level for a river traffic ban. notamermaid