notamermaid

I do recall Viking passengers saying a few years ago that they were informed via e-mail prior to departure from the US that there may be itinerary changes, i.e. 24 hours before embarkation. I wonder if that is still done at least sometimes. notamemaid

Good to hear. Hope you are having a great time. The Main river has virtually no problems with low water apart from the potentially tricky bit at the mouth when the Rhine is very low. The Main is dug deep and with the locks always has enough water for river cruise ships. notamermaid

Welcome to Cruisecritic. Still more likely than not at this point. That is as far as I can say. Trickiest day will probably be the one that you are scheduled to go through the Rhine Gorge. The majority of ships sail at levels of under 80cm - that could be 78cm, 76cm, etc. Usually. The Rhine swap is normally shorter in distance and the coach trip more scenic. It will depend on where the ship needs to dock and which river cruise company you are travelling with. Do not give up on river cruising yet. Plenty of choices out there. notamermaid

travel weekly uk has got an article on Christmas cruises - oh well time to get that thread going I suppose. It is warm and sunny here, balmy autumn day - before the storm and drop in temperatures. Talked to a very dear person yesterday on his way to get winter tyres on the car. Agreed with me that it does not feel quite right yet in this weather. I write about the Roman Empire a lot because it is part of my immediate surroundings and I find it fascinating how much it has shaped the modern world. I have just read that there is a trend on social media, something about a historian asking his female followers to ask their husbands about the Romans. Saw a video yesterday of such a recorded conversation. Sheer coincidence really. Very interesting. notamermaid

New longer itineraries by Amawaterways (combined cruises) in 2025: https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/tourism/amawaterways-creates-new-14-night-european-river-cruises It states that "The Grand Seine & Bordeaux, Grand Seine & Rhone and Grand Rhine & Dutch Canals sailings include transfers between rivers where applicable." This means of course that the topography of France is such that you need a coach to get from the Seine to Bordeaux or the Rhone whereas you can sail straight into the Dutch canals from the Rhine. I wonder how many days will be devoted to the Rhine up to the Nijmegen and how many will be spent on the canals. notamermaid

The modern Roman ship "Bissula" has now arrived in Cannes. I had mentioned her a few weeks ago. There was a slight delay at a harbour on the Saar - something with the authorities and paperwork - but then she was finally loaded onto a truck and is now ready for sailing the bay. Quite an excitement for the scientists. notamermaid

Kaub at 85cm. No significant change to forecast. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 251cm. Budapest at 80cm. Continued slightly lower levels expected there until 15 October, most likely 76cm. notamermaid

Thanks for the info. French newspapers reported. This one says no one was injured... which is not what you saw clearly: https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/faits-divers-justice/drome-un-bateau-de-tourisme-et-de-commerce-se-percutent-a-chateauneuf-du-rhone-6994203 And it was followed up by stating that the ship was immobilized for three days and then allowed to leave the following morning with a rather benign tone to the whole article: https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/transports/ardeche-la-croisiere-immobilisee-dans-le-port-de-viviers-devrait-partir-ce-lundi-soir-7001050 Not sure that there is anything more you can do apart from telling other people of your experience - which you have done here. Someone else by the way did so earlier this year in a review: https://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=703195 Edit: I think this the one you have just posted. Sorry, what an experience. I hope all your travels since then have been without problem. Safe travels from here on. notamermaid

Okay, were you on the Scenic Sapphire in April? I recall reading about that accident briefly. notamermaid

A while ago I said I would post some historical data on river cruising on the Danube. Why do we hear so much more about low water these days? Is it more than it used to be? Are people just more aware? Is there just more reporting? It is a combination of factors I would say and I will give you some of the real hard data type. I start with water levels at Pfelling where most of the trouble usually is. The Bavarian authorities have a great feature, charts of a complete year in a good format. These are available for many years. I start with 2003 to explain how it works: Important for us is the level in cm on the left. That is basically what I post like "Pfelling gauge at 300cm", etc. You can see that the year started with flooding. We can ignore this for our purposes but I explain this: the daily fluctuation is given as minimum and maximum and evened out to give a mean which is the "Mittelwert". That is what makes the graph look blurred. So the daily figures are recorded and the year put in such a graph. Now, the important figure at Pfelling is 290cm. Below that the river is too low for ships depending on the individual draft. That is important to remember. Why? It is fairly straightforward. Imagine the graph is below 290cm for four weeks in a year and almost no 135m ships sail. Now imagine the figure is always above 270cm though. Which means ships with a more favourable draft sail, those will mostly be shorter in length. Now imagine a year like 2008. How many river cruise ships of 135m length where there? You can guess, not that many. Look at 2003 and draw an imaginary line at 290cm. Several weeks are below and the river was very low. But fewer ships were deployed on the river and most of those had a lower draft than the modern ships. That will have resulted in far fewer headlines in the media naturally and fewer river cruise passengers affected that could tell of their experience. I need to mention the slight change in the river bed that has occurred since 2003 which slightly alters the navigation at Pfelling but it does not significantly alter the overall scenario. A few more graphs to follow. notamermaid

Wow! What a shock. Glad to hear you were let us say somewhat fortunate and recovered quickly. May there have been staff injuries? Sounds as if something was not right. You say it was foggy, always a more potentially dangerous situation. Not sure about weather conditions on the Rhone, was there already fog? I mean when did you sail you have not given a date or month? You say they never got back to you. What was the time frame? I agree with Canal archive that if you are sure that this was handled far too poorly do contact authorities. notamermaid

Contrary to other rivers, transport on the Moselle is subject to shipping duties, money collected for maintenance and lock personnel. From 2025 this scheme will be scrapped. If you are interested in this: https://www.luxtimes.lu/businessandfinance/moselle-countries-scrap-shipping-fees-to-boost-river-cargo/2856125.html The Moselle is nowhere near as busy as the Rhine but was turned into a major, deep waterway for the industry in Lorraine (France) and Luxembourg so sees regular transport of bulk commodities. The additional effect is that the Moselle has almost no problems with low water levels and that makes it a sure bet for river cruises. Hence the fact that this river has no thread with monitoring the water levels in mind. notamermaid

I understand your disappointment. Viking really are of the opinion - per their office and we saw it in writing a few years ago on the internet - that if they get you to all the ports somehow they have delivered a great product. They are better at giving notice than until 2018 but are not that good enough that I would ever sail with them - I mean giving you time for a cancellation and so on due to water levels - even if I could put up with their payment policies. Yes and no. If you phone them 24 hours before embarkation they will almost always know. If you phone them 48 hours before they will most probably know. The rain on 23/24 September was enough to last the river a few days, i.e. keep river cruise ships going. By 28 September the situation was clear in Germany, but Hungary trails behind by two to three days so around that time it will have made the situation in Slovakia predictable for what happened in that country and further downstream. Of course, office personnel that is well informed can be straightforward and honest, meaning tell you if they do not know what will be on 6 October if you phone up on 5 October for example. Or be honest and tell you what is happening. Or give you the ship number to find out what is happening. I must admit that I am not so happy with what you heard via phone on 6 October. To show what I mean: RNW is the line considered to show that problems are imminent for river cruise ships on the German stretch of the Danube. One can assess what is going to happen further downstream... I fear that the crew member is right about the level stay low for some time. For river cruising it really is important to understand that things can change for the better or the worse within hours - problem is if no one points one to that possibility. Small print of the "changes can be made at short notice" kind does not actually say what time frame "short notice" is. I hope you can enjoy the many other aspects of being on a river cruise, like food and fun conversations, and while I can understand that you feel river cruising may not be for you perhaps give it a thought when you are at home and potentially look at other lines in other areas including the bike and barge options. So many choices. notamermaid

Not sure where you are now but the Wachau valley is a highlight, with smaller towns and the fabulous Melk Abbey I am sure more to your liking than the cities. notamermaid

As the river level at Kaub is doing what it was expected to do we can with confidence look at the next three days. The weekend is still a bit uncertain but the further slow decline looks definite at least till Friday. Forecast: tomorrow evening 78cm. "Tentative" forecast: Thursday evening 73cm, Friday afternoon 71cm. Modelling shows lowest level on Saturday. notamermaid

Thanks for the update. I saw the promising cloud cover late last night. And as you say more appears to be coming. Dresden gauge at 106cm. notamermaid

Kaub at 88cm. notamermaid

@mkerner I think I need to clarify my post. I was specifically referring to the Rhine, but the basics apply to the Danube as well. On the German Danube we can get low levels a bit longer in the year than on the Rhine but as the general direction of rain is from the West and sweeping over Germany - normally including both the Rhine and Danube basins then - November into December sees the rivers leave the low levels. The Danube always, with minimal exception, has more problems with low water than the Rhine. So, in an unfortunate scenario one could start in Budapest and get just past Nuremberg with a ship swap, the rain sets in and the Main and Rhine rise well making the rest of the journey very pleasant. To be honest, I have no gut feeling as to how October will progress and what November will bring this year but overall November is a better month than October statistically. notamermaid

We saw that nice jump yesterday but it has not been followed up by much more (yet) - Pfelling gauge at 255cm. notamermaid

Thanks for the feedback people. I love being at home around Christmas. Have been away but always with dear people - a home from home. Perhaps unusually, being away from home on New Years Eve appeals to me even less. Gotta go, time to check on river levels. notamermaid

Busy weekend at work with feedback phone call to boss this morning. Good to see people enjoying themselves albeit with a tiny bit of trepidation as regards health. A worry that I thankfully do not (feel the need to) share. Lack of time means only day trips for me till December. Was thinking I should do another thread on Christmas market cruises this year, people had fun with that last year. notamermaid

Kaub at 86cm. Holding up. 88cm expected for tomorrow, 82cm for Thursday. Just that tiny bit better than was modelled yesterday. At the moment it looks more like the lowest will be 70cm rather 65cm. That would be good. Tons of ships sailing as always, now with the landscape changing to autumn fast. If I can schedule a short trip to the river I will post a photo. Meanwhile, do feel free to share yours. 🙂 notamermaid

Not typically no. By then, the weather is cool and rain tends to have set in in normal amounts again with the level low to satisfactory for commercial traffic, i.e. normally not a problem for river cruise ships. Flooding can happen but is not common. notamermaid

Snapshot of weather: This says water for the Elbe basin, but also water for Austria (and every country downstream along the Danube after that). Not much for Pfelling in this photo, but as the clouds shifted in the standard direction there will have been more for the Upper Danube during the afternoon. Interestingly, we have not had any rain where I am and from what I can gather there has been little in the Rhine basin overall (here: France and Germany) as the clouds formed further downstream from the Middle Rhine valley. We will see how that plays out in rising (or not) figures on the gauges. For now, after the low of 241cm this morning, Pfelling has risen. The gauge says 252cm. notamermaid