notamermaid

Thank you for reporting. Have a nice day in Regensburg tomorrow and then a hopefully smooth coach ride with change to the Lif. notamermaid

Not a clue that far out, gut feeling points towards continued "wobbly" levels at Pfelling. Budapest to Passau of course looking better it is just that bit at the Danube Bend which may be a problem. What will be in two weeks time there I think anyone would be guessing wildly now, perhaps with the locals being better at the educated guess. Gauge at Budapest suggests a drop below 100cm on 6 October so at least we can kind of tell that the dry weather will be in Austria, Slovakia and Hungary as well, meaning no helpful additional rain falling in those countries. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge measures the river level at a small place called Bogen, between Passau and Regensburg. Within that section of river is the stretch that is free flowing - from Vilshofen to Straubing (looking upstream). The navigation channel is uneven with shallows becoming more pronounced, i.e. the hulls get closer to them, with every centimetre less on the scale. Getting out of the navigation channel or fully hitting a gravel bank makes a ship run aground of course. It could block the channel or even damage the ship. Captains decide for themselves if the passage is safe for their ship or not. They have special maps and use radar and up to date info on the internet about shallows. A cross section of a river with ship which helps to explain it: notamermaid

Let us have a look at what the river did at Kaub gauge in September: At the beginning of the month we see the effect of the heavy rain we had but it is not as pronounced as on the Danube. However, the Rhine's levels tend to keep up better, in this the nature of the Rhine basin is different from that of the Danube basin. The level stayed on pleasant to satisfactory levels throughout the month and we are only now entering the realm of "splendid dry autumn weather that unfortunately gets the river too low" worries. So, October has started with enough water but the forecast is not good. Kaub gauge is now at 110cm which is below the forecast for today. As a result the forecast for tomorrow is off. As it stands now we are to expect a further slow decline with 100cm being reached on Thursday. The probability chart gives us a very high probability of 90cm on 9th October with the risk of lower figures on the 10th. notamermaid

Let us have a look at Pfelling gauge in September: At the beginning of the month we still see the effect of much rain, the flooding that occurred and disrupted river cruise itineraries. A fast drop was inevitable but some rain could have kept the level up more. But it was more or less satisfactory till the 21th with the low water affecting individual itineraries rather than a large part of the fleet. A good amount of rain helped on the 23th when the level recovered swiftly. This was bound to be only brief in this warm and dry autumn weather. October started on a low and with the mostly dry weather continuing this situation could stay with us for a while. We will need to see what the rain forecast to sweep through Tuesday into Wednesday night does to the levels in the Danube basin. The forecast for the gauge at Pfelling suggests no further drop with minimal improvement of the figures but only looks 36 hours into the future so we cannot see any rain considered in that yet. notamermaid

Thank you for reporting about your experience. That is very disappointing. To clarify this. Viking does not sail in summer so he will most likely have been looking after his ship with crew members. As far as I know for safety and security at least one person has to be on the ship at all times, possibly two. The first real sailing was scheduled for September. If things continue as they are now I can believe that. They probably mean you can apply this to a cruise that you have not booked yet. So you have paid for this non-sailing cruise and to get the full cruise experience you have to book another cruise which will cost you half of a cruise. It is a way of dealing with this low water problem that has me getting annoyed with Viking for several years. Sorry. Not sure if there is a chance to get a better result if you contact Viking again. This will not help you now but I know that other companies - not just the ones that have to abide by European consumer rights laws - have better conditions. notamermaid

The companies are so good at these plans B these days so I am sure it will all go smoothly. You can certainly look forward to stunning scenery and very interesting cities and small towns. Have a great cruise. notamermaid

Pfelling at 257cm. Glad to see the minimal recovery since yesterday. Clear skies in Germany this morning. Isolated clouds with minimal rain. The hull construction makes such a difference to sailing in low water and barges have of course the advantage that they can be loaded and unloaded, river cruise ships once fully fitted cannot reduce load that much. What they can do is reduce the water in the tanks, empty the sundeck pool and off load the passengers (the last makes little difference). The unfinished hull I captured on webcam on the Rhine last year showed how little depth they basically need, once turned into a fully functioning river cruise ship that "room to wiggle" is substantially reduced. notamermaid

That is of course the long journey with two potential problem areas. For Kaub it could go okay but it appears that the drop below 100cm is inevitable with 90cm high in the probability chart. But we will see tomorrow what the computers say. Oh, and it is time for the recap of September. A quick dash up and down the river took me to Spay village near Boppard this afternoon. One of those places one normally sails and drives past. A pleasant trip. More on that another time. The place lies at Rhine kilometre 577: Yes,it is not far from the Marksburg (marked in top right corner). notamermaid

Yes, North of Passau, or rather Vilshofen. December fine normally, but can get a bit of flooding. Not sure about the intricacies of sailing a ship but I think this could be the squat effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squat_effect notamermaid

Yes, the problems are more or less the same just not at the same time always and the Moselle is lock controlled in its entirety for river cruising whereas the Rhine is not. We have had years when there was flooding on the Moselle but the Vosges mountain range prevented the rain from causing flooding on the Upper and Middle Rhine. But that is again down to weather patterns so luck and not what one can plan. Yes, those are great itineraries on a smaller ship that has all the ease built into it, meaning small enough not to get into trouble easily and the cosiness that some people really appreciate. Sailing the Saar, Moselle, Rhine and Neckar is a good unusual route and the Swiss Ruby as I said is small enough to avoid problems in the Rhine Gorge. Bremen to Saarbrücken is the even weirder one but has so much history as it takes you from the flat North with all its red brick and low German dialect to the hilly French-leaning Saar people with their very different dialect. Only drawback is that all of that is in Germany. I am really happy that this itinerary is easily bookable on the Anglo-American market now. But, again, if one prefers the standard routes there are tons out there, like on the Seine, which rarely cause problems. One particular feature on the Main, which we have discussed elsewhere, is that the sundeck is mostly closed due to the low bridges and in flooding is a more pronounced problem than on the Rhine for example. Again, to avoid this chose a ship that has one deck fewer like some of CroisiEurope for example. Or indeed the Swiss Ruby. notamermaid

So on the Rhine we have Kaub with its famous gauge tower building, on the Danube we look at Pfelling which has - a hut. This is the hydrological information page on the history of extreme high or low water: https://undine.bafg.de/donau/pegel/donau_pegel_pfelling.html Note that the authorities prefer to measure and note the extremes by volume of water, which is apparently called discharge in English, rather than level. notamermaid

Level at Kaub at 1pm was 117cm. Adjusted forecast for tomorrow 1pm suggests 114cm. The 110cm has been pushed to Tuesday. It is sunny with the temperature having climbed above 20 Celsius. With the leaves slowly turning all shades of yellow, orange, red and brown will we get a "Golden October"? I would say it looks promising. Right, I am off to enjoy a bit of that sunshine. notamermaid

You are of course right. Seasonal problems can and inevitably will occur on any river, a bit of careful planning and a bit of luck will help to find a "best" one. You have left out the Moselle. Which made me think that the Moselle is quite a good river to choose. I always say to avoid the bottleneck Rhine Gorge. Which you do when sailing from Luxembourg/Remich to Amsterdam. At least for low water that is good, flooding can occur everywhere and is pot luck really - although one can plan to avoid it a bit. The Moselle has high modern bridges but the problem is more that the authorities ban river traffic in flooding. I will extend the question to which river and which ship. Then you can get close to 100 percent success rate in finding the cruise with virtually no problems. 110m with just two passenger decks on the large rivers (does not apply to the Douro and Elbe is a different case almost entirely) will almost completely ensure perfect sailing. The big thing to remember is that flooding is a short thing normally, low water can be a longer duration. Lock controlled rivers and canals like the system in Northern Germany or in the Netherlands are normally a safe bet as regards low water, for flooding this will depend on season, weather and other variables. I have read comments from people in the industry saying that 95 percent and more of river cruises run smoothly. When you think about the problems on the Danube right now and how many cruises are affected there must be tons of other rivers and canals with smooth sailing that help to get the statistics up that far. Although I am usually a bit sceptical of statistics. 😉 notamermaid

It may look like a plug that has been pulled like @Canal archive suggested or the giant snake that I suspect is doing things or, for the more mundane explanation, the authorities are doing something at the dams and locks - whoever has done something at Pfelling is not making any friends with river cruisers. The gauge reads 251cm now. That is the realm from which the river can struggle to recover meaning just a hint of rain is not enough. I am not too hopeful looking at the radar images. Happy to be proven wrong. With every centimetre less more large ships struggle of course and the level is already low enough to impact the shorter ships which tend to have a lower draft. notamermaid

Budapest with forecast: Other graph gives evening figure, i.e. now, as 119cm. Slow decline is expected. The margin of error makes for real unpredictability from the 4th. notamermaid

Certainly: https://www.meteox.de/forecastloop.aspx?type=1# Real time "now" data I like to look at here: https://www.wettergefahren.de/wetter/deutschland/aktuell/radarfilm.html notamermaid P.S.: German info more or less agrees with meteox

Welcome to Cruisecritic. Thank you for the link. Serbia is of course further out than Budapest but there is a high chance the weather will be similar there as with us West of the Balkans. Weather pattern has changed and the clouds are now drifting such that it will rain mostly in higher altitudes, focussing on the Alpine regions. Clouds still sweeping through on 3rd October though (4th October in Austria). However, rain does not look to be for long. Substantial in some parts but drizzle only in others. Will see how it goes. September recap coming up tomorrow or day after. notamermaid

Change in weather pattern it appears. Less rain now forecast than had been. Kaub gauge on the way down. 110cm expected for Monday. Tuesday less, bringing 100cm into view. Wednesday further decline, probably to under 100cm. Thursday strong indication for further fall. We will review again on Monday. notamermaid

Welcome to Cruisecritic. Pfelling gauge at 271cm. All other stretches down to Budapest naturally better as a general rule. If Pfelling falls much further and no rain falls in Austria the Danube Bend (Esztergom) can get too low. No reliable forecast for 6 October available yet. Forecast for Pfelling (36 hours) not looking good. notamermaid

Still not looking good. Tiny ups and downs and now Dresden is at 67cm again. Rain is forecast for Europe and the way the clouds are expected to drift the Elbe basin and much of the Czech Republic could get a lot of it. notamermaid

Closure of the case of the horrible accident in Budapest? It may finally be but the captain can appeal. Just for your info (I decided against dragging up the thread from five years ago): https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/tourism/river-cruise-ship-captain-jailed-after-fatal-danube-crash notamermaid

The level at Pfelling is now at 274cm. It fluctuated during the night with minimally higher figures but keeps the downward trend. Regensburg is now (again) on its official statistical low water level. notamermaid

Welcome to Europe and "my" river and thank you for saying hello. I have had that problem a couple of times and fixed it via my computer but from a smartphone I am not sure what to do. notamermaid

Well, a few years ago I created the legend of a malevolent giant snake that gobbles up the water at will. It may just be the lock personnel retaining the water upstream from Straubing but I am still suspicious. Sorry. Up to Passau (and Vilshofen) things should be fine but there is a risk that Viking may need to make the dreaded announcement... The clouds have shifted so the rain will sweep through but with the centre having moved further North and taking more of the water to the Czech Republic and the Elbe basin rather than to the Danube basin. Rain currently expected in Bavaria for the early hours of Saturday. If the direction remains as forecast the Danube in Austria will get more water than the Danube in Germany. Current forecast for Pfelling suggests that the level will not fall much further and could rise a little but most likely stay below 290cm. Again, Pfelling is Pfelling so the situation is highly uncertain. Over on the Rhine the level is satisfactory but also falling. notamermaid