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

Pfelling gauge at 242cm. Komarom: notamermaid

Kaub gauge at 89cm. 84cm expected tomorrow. notamermaid

My pleasure. Kaub gauge at 92cm, not looking too good for next week which I have already hinted at. Figures below 80cm are expected, range 65cm to 80cm. Lowest currently anticipated 14/15 October. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 255cm. notamermaid

Should you happen to find yourself in Winningen or nearby on the 15th you can go and see the "Genussmarkt". A first for Winningen ,this type of event focusses on regional food and drink. Eat or buy anything from honey and lavender to jam and meat products (sorry, no English info): https://winningen.de/winninger-genussmarkt/ If you have a few hours to spare in Koblenz you can make your way to Winningen by train or take a taxi (15min) but remember that this is a small village so do not expect a grand affair. notamermaid

To add the statistics: notamermaid

Engelhartszell fortunately has been used for some years now as an alternative port to Passau. It is a small place but should work fine. notamermaid

Sorry to hear that. Hope you get better quickly. The nights are markedly cooler now but it makes for nice autumn mists and pleasant sunny days. Pfelling gauge at 253cm. notamermaid

Kaub gauge at 100cm. Saturday to Sunday night 90cm. Lowest level will most likely be on 13 October. Excursion boats are now in the low season. The paddle wheeler "Goethe" as has been reported to me sailed the Lower Middle Rhine valley yesterday morning to the winter harbour at Cologne. notamermaid

Okay, that was fun. Had a good day of food, drink and laughter and loud music from Oktoberfest anthems and schlager to Sixties classics. A small affair with shop bought food and homemade fares. I think I drank the wrong beer - needed a day to recover. No seriously, it was not too much beer. notamermaid

River cruise ships may be able to ride on this wave which is keeping the level at Dresden up - which after a short time over 100cm is now at 99cm. September did not look good: From a (just) satisfactory level it went down and apart from a small peak stayed at levels that were too low. Half the month we see the level close to the statistical mean low water level. notamermaid

Not ideal I admit, it is just the money aspect that makes it bearable I would say. The Serways on that motorway stretch has a North and a South building. This is North, which does not have a McDonald's but a bistro restaurant. All the facilities are mentioned here: https://www.serways.de/standorte/bayerischer-wald-nord/ Certainly more European/German... This one is actually at Bogen near Pfelling so a bit too close to Passau for a stop perhaps. Still, if one "meanders" on the coach through the Bavarian Forest for a bit this could work out nicely. notamermaid

I will be busy in the next few days so not sure how much I will post. Situation tonight is as follows. Pfelling gauge at 259cm. The trend is for minimally higher levels, probably not exceeding 270cm. Sunny weather over the weekend. No rain forecast at Regensburg. Screenshot from German website: See here https://www.br.de/wetter/action/5_tage_prognose.do?regio=Oberpfalz&plz=10776 I do not know how often this is updated. notamermaid

McDonald's??? One can certainly do better than that but I get it about the money. There are more regionally-operated facilities near motorways (often tricky as regards time and number of ladies toilets) or one can go to the "Serways" places. These have coffee, a McDonalds or a Burger King and a kiosk or small restaurant, etc. The Serways facilities usually operate like this: a company - mostly this one https://www.sanifair.com/guestarea - operates the toilets and the voucher you redeem at the shop/restaurant according to the operating partners' conditions. You get clean toilets and there are several cubicles which reduces waiting time. Drawback is that one can linger in the shop to choose an item or wait for the coffee that will get you the (part) money from your voucher back. You do not need to redeem the voucher, that means the toilet is not cheap but I find the price reasonable for what they provide. This is what Google gives you when you put in the German word Raststätten: Not much really. There are websites that specifically give you ideas off the beaten track but I have not looked at those for ages. I have done that in Britain and found a few great places between 1 and 5 miles off the motorway. If I may be so bold - I have copied this from @reeves35 's review: "The afternoon was spent travelling the 200km to Passau by coach going around the low water near Regensberg. There was a stop at the Seidl chocolate factory for a coffee and toilet break about halfway." If that means the toilet break was right at the chocolate factory give me that place over Serways any day. notamermaid

Kaub at 106cm. Minimal adjustment to forecast. Saturday to Sunday night 94cm. Slow decline to potentially 91cm on Sunday evening. Continued decline till 12/13 October. notamermaid

For the Grand European it is this, like island lady did: Or the shorter version Vilshofen to Regensburg. Budapest to Regensburg may mean you disembark in Passau or Vilshofen and doing a day trip to Regensburg or arrange the flights or arrange transport to Prague. These are details that I cannot know and that will be decided by your river cruise line when you get close to Passau. notamermaid

No. Pfelling gauge down to 262cm after a small wave. notamermaid

Hello piginmud. Thank you for pointing this out, I think I have not mentioned this for a while. Ships always sail the Rhine and commercial shipping never stops as it is an individual captain's decision to sail or not. Barges and tankers can sail fully loaded or half or even less, so depending on size and load have a draft that will allow them to sail at very low levels. River cruise ships cannot reduce their draft as much. That puts them at a disadvantage so will have to stop sailing when commercial traffic still happens. Again, every captain knows how his (or her) ship will react and decide accordingly. This means that there is a "too low" for each individual river cruise ship that will vary but there is a range of figures at Kaub which indicates problems such as slow sailing or changing a docking location to swapping ships meaning not sailing the Rhine Gorge. It starts at around 90cm and goes down to 40cm, at which point a large chunk of the Rhine river cruise fleet has to stop sailing. In the case of the Viking longships the "adjusted sailing" usually happens before a smaller ship or one of the same size but with a slightly more favourable hull construction gets impacted. Again, your captain will decide for your ship what is safe to do. Even in the drought of 2018 the smallest river cruise ships could still sail along with part-loaded barges and tankers. With that in mind let us interpret Kaub gauge. The level is at 107cm, that is enough for all river cruise ships. Saturday could see the level drop to 94cm. That is okay for all river cruise ships as far as I know but may well require adjusted sailing and perhaps avoiding a docking location which is a bit shallow, like in Cologne. Note that my assessment is based on reports from river cruisers in previous years. The latest long range forecast suggests that on 11 October the gauge may show 80cm which is still okay for sailing but much trickier and gets us in the realm where I could get in trouble if I say too much about sailing or not sailing - see my comment about individual decision. Viking is very experienced in all this and I am convinced will make this run smoothly for you as testified by many past satisfied cruisers. Have a great cruise. notamermaid

Cranes - I have mentioned Andernach, Koblenz and Bingen. We continue looking and sailing upstream, not much further, and get to Oestrich. At the kilometre mark 518.1 you can see the wooden crane, the mechanism is also a tread wheel. There is not much info in English that I can find, here is the German Wikipedia page: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oestricher_Kran It is says the crane is in principal still fully functioning. Mostly wine barrels where loaded (would any one have thought anything else in the Rheingau wine region ). This is Oestrich on the regional tourism site: https://www.rheingau.de/villages/oestrich notamermaid

Kaub gauge at 110cm, slightly above the forecast. Tomorrow should see the 100cm, falling below that on Friday. Decline is slow. Latest long range forecast not published yet so not clear what to expect for next week. It seems yesterday's cloudy and rainy weather has helped more than expected. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 260cm and forecast to rise. notamermaid

I can now clearly see the wave in the graph at Dresden. Looks like a release of water in anticipation of rain coming tonight, i.e. it is raining now over the Upper Elbe and Vlatava - or maintenance as you say. To be honest I find it a ridiculous situation. Sitting on the Elbe on a river cruise ship waiting for a wave like a surfer. September recap coming up. notamermaid