notamermaid

@gnome12 Interesting, tells you that I am not that informed about Canada, we here tend to think you are in constant snow almost everywhere from December till February. Remember I said last week that things are not going as planned? Our builder dealing with the hole in the yard did not come on the appointed day so a phone call to him confirmed that he is ill with Covid now. The hole in the ground is actually a trench covering almost a quarter of the yard, the rubble is next to it, the bins are scattered around the mess and the digger is also standing there. Sadly, a neighbour died just before New Year, now the family needs to empty the flat and negotiate round the mess in the yard. Another neighbour has been confirmed to be in hospital needing heart surgery. Never gets boring around here these days, unfortunately the fun stuff is somewhat absent. I think when the mourning period of one year is over it is time to get new cats overseeing the yard and making the humans happy. notamermaid

@Canal archive I see you had quite a bit of snow in England, even in your low-lying area, I think. Snow has returned to Germany overnight and the hills are clad in white, even causing traffic disruption in the valleys, for example in Bavaria. Some high winter resorts in Rhineland-Palatinate are ready for customers, but not all regions have had snow yet. The Erbeskopf, the highest hill in Rhineland-Palatinate at 816m, apparently has now 10cm of snow. It is a nice region but unfortunately not near enough a navigable river. Just for some info should anyone think of doing a hiking trip there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erbeskopf I know, I know, 10cm is nothing in Canada and I will not ask how much you have 🙂. We are happy with what we have got to keep winter sports going. notamermaid

The Moselle water level at Trier is back down to 622cm, all going as expected. Situation has eased. Snow has come to the hills! South of the Moselle the Hunsrück hills have seen quite a bit of snowfall so the winter resorts - yes we have them - are ready for customers. It is close to zero Celsius in the valley, the hills being at zero or a little below. notamermaid

More about the plans of Riverside Luxury Cruises: https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/ship-operations/riverside-luxury-cruises-aims-pick-where-crystal-left notamermaid

The Moselle at Trier has reached flood mark III, that is 695cm. No ships are allowed to sail on the Moselle now. It is expected to last into Wednesday, meaning the river will reach its peak during tomorrow and then fall below the flood mark III again. It is mild flooding that is expected to happen every two years. This is what the graph at Trier gauge looks like right now: The weather pattern is interesting right now, much rain has fallen to the West of the Rhine but not quite as much in the valley and in the East so that the Moselle is carrying a considerable amount of water while the Rhine has not risen to official flooding level (yet). Therefore we see high levels upstream from Koblenz but very high levels downstream from Koblenz where the Moselle of course drains into the Rhine. Cologne went to flood mark I at lunchtime, an alert status that necessitates first measures, and may well reach proper flooding status when the Moselle's volume of water reaches the city. notamermaid

For now it looks like the flooding along the Rhine will not be extensive - a bit more on other rivers - and could subside a bit from Thursday. Police launches are patrolling the river, a normal thing as the authorities are on alert. Ships are sailing and traffic is still running well. Work is gathering pace again, but I will probably not be robed in to work at a fair in spring. Good, do not really like the booths, bad air and loud voices in those halls. The first fair close to my realm is going to be at Koblenz, the Touristik Messe from the 4th to the 5th of February to which I will go as a customer not a tourism industry employee. Which unfortunately means I have to pay travel costs and admission fee myself. Fortunately not far and also reasonably priced. Looking forward to talking to the people showcasing river cruises and rail travel. There will be sales pitches by travel and coach operators, you know, with slides and videos. Fun to watch and listen to! This year there will be Namibia, London and Italy, for example. I uttered my interest at work to go to the big fair in Brussels called "Salon des Vacances" that weekend and my colleague and I had a few minutes of indulgence in wishful thinking - knowing that our management would think that this is over the travel budget allowance for us employees... notamermaid

travel weekly looks back at 2022: https://www.travelweekly.com/River-Cruising/Insights/The-biggest-stories-in-river-cruising-2022 It was a chaotic year still but summer already held the promise of autumn and winter - and 2023 - getting us back on track I would say. For me as a relative local low water is always on the radar but for international travellers it is not an inviting prospect to potentially have your plans altered. Flooding to some extent and low water in late summer and autumn will always be a thing to reckon with. Just whether it will affect a specific cruise and to what extent we may only find out 48 hours in advance. Good to read that Asia is so much more open for travelling again. I must admit that I did not expect Crystal the brand and its ships to come back so quickly. A kind of happy ending, or at least the promise of one, for what was a shock to the industry at the beginning of 2022. For me, new itineraries in Germany and a couple of new ships on the Rhine are again the exciting developments this year. Yes, although the river and many ports are more or less crowded and full of river cruise ships, I still see more room to grow and space for a few ships. A 110m ship, please, operators! While this two-night "male" river cruise by Thurgau Travel called "Männersache" https://www.thurgautravel.ch/reisen/thurgau-prestige-maennersache/ is a nice start I while utter my woes of there not being a river cruise itinerary on the Rhine and or Moselle that has a "steel, stones, technical details and beer glass" focus. Needs to be seven nights long - at least - and go from Basel to Amsterdam with a pre cruise around Basel. Come on river cruise companies, be daring. I am working on one... Rest assured you can take your better half along, they may well enjoy the excursions or the coach can pick her up at the shopping center or spa. notamermaid

Thank you for the links, ural guy, very interesting. The first is to the big excursion boat operator Wurm & Noé. I occasionally read about them and they have a wide selection of trip offers. I had forgotten that they do this overnight thing! Love the idea of evening cruise on the "Kristallschiff" - which is embellished with real Swarowski crystals - and hotel stay. I am sure this is a hit locally. Only a few days ago did I read about a cruise/hotel offer on the Fulda river this year. I know that this has been done on the Rhine before as well. Your second link leads to cruises that have passengers sleeping on the ship of course. Tripsite is a big operator in the States it seems, a partner of the companies that operate or own the small river cruise ships and barges. If one wants intimate river cruises without huge luxury I find they are a great way to explore the Danube and other rivers and canals. notamermaid

I think I should extend my response to the Reuters article a bit. When Reuters and especially Bloomberg write about low water levels it is generally in connection with barge and tanker transport of all sorts of commodities. For the Rhine that is anything from sand, scrap metal and grain to new tractors, new cars and heating oil. The Rhine and Danube being the two arteries for bulk transport in Europe it is a major deal when the rivers get low. The big difference between the two rivers for river cruising is that the Danube has a let us say different threshold that is usually reached faster than with the Rhine. With so many river cruise ships now sailing the rivers for the North American market at a length of 135m low water gets much more attention than it used to. I will admit that the low water "season" has been a bit more extended and more extreme in the last ten years statistically. The reporting on the Rhine gets a bit skewed as transport is impacted and word reaches international papers when the low water surcharge on transport costs kicks in at Kaub at 150cm. Logistics for river cruise ships only get problematic under 100cm and then not for every ship immediately. That is a very rough figure, please only use it as "pre-alert". There will be a tiny difference in each Avalon Waterways ship but generally speaking a short ship fares better. And remember that the captain who naturally knows his ship best will decide what is best and safest logistically. It is not much in draft but could make the difference between passing through the Rhine Gorge or not on that day in autumn that you happen to be due to sail there. The Avalon Artistry II with her 361 feet will do better than the Avalon Expression with her 443 feet, as an example. Enough elaboration from me. We will speak again about this in the new thread on the Rhine - well hopefully it will not be necessary. notamermaid

Canal archive sorry to read that. All the best. I am sure this is how a family member would think if he could think straight through his brain fog. Hit him hard whatever it was. Things not going as planned here, neither in my family nor in the neighbourhood. Flooding along the Moselle may get worse than I had thought yesterday and the storm here woke me up early this morning. Quite bad weather here, "sofa and hot chocolate weather with the blinds down" I call it. notamermaid

Great to read that you got somewhere with Viking. A wise decision. Sorry to read that the learning came through this sad event. I hope your cruise will be everything you wish for and a most memorable experience in the best sense. notamermaid

Thanks, that is the one I meant. Yes, I recall there being the mention in articles of the banks in the background. It will have made it more complicated. Not a straightforward sale for sure. notamermaid

Fascinating topic. I actually saw a river cruise ship hull being transported on the Rhine last year live! From a distance and without the means to take a proper photo. Do not even remember the name. Pity. On the river it is a ship attached to ship transport of course, either pushed or pulled alongside. Remember the webcam spotting at Rüdesheim of the MS Alisa being taken by the MS Johanna to the Netherlands? notamermaid

My pleasure. I read that you have booked the Danube for May. I am sure it will be great. I had no idea what to expect from Budapest and was really impressed. I enjoyed it more than Vienna. This here is a great thread for all those questions you may have about your river cruise experience, always fantastic help from folks, in addition if you feel like saying hello in the thread on the Danube and its water levels when it is up and running please do so any time. notamermaid

Currently lots of people are ill in Germany, with either Covid or cold/flu. Well it is winter after all. I think I have not mentioned this but we still have Covid regulations, i.e. mask wearing as a more or less last one. This is ending in more and more Länder on public transport, Deutsche Bahn may keep it on long distance trains potentially until April. The health sector is still doing more but I am not sure of any details. It is raining a lot so flooding is coming, probably mild only but we will need to see where the rain clouds travel to over the weekend. If you are interested, this is the map to follow: https://www.hochwasserzentralen.de/warnungen As I write, the Moselle and Sieg are on alert level, parts of Sachsen-Anhalt are on pre-alert level. We get prepared and mostly this is not a big deal. Will just see how the week progresses and keep checking our authorities' info services. Will probably start the river level threads later in the month and may mention a few more details about the situation. notamermaid

Does Reuters have a crystal ball? In all seriousness, there has obviously been less rainfall and due to the higher than average temperatures less has come down as snow. Yes, basically it can mean low water levels (and will in autumn as a standard seasonal occurrence) but a good dose of prolonged rain will alleviate this. No way of knowing the extent, all computer modelling and educated speculation at this point. As regards river cruising, as a side note, if river cruise companies were not mostly sailing with 135m ships these days, you would hardly hear about river cruising being impacted. We will just have to wait and see how winter and spring will do. Right now we have a lot of rainfall and we are awaiting mild flooding. A drop in temperatures of two to three degrees will bring us a higher percentage of snow among the rain which is forecast to happen on Monday. notamermaid

I do not recall Scenic but remember seeing the footage of the Ama ship being transported via sea to the Rhone. The name eludes me. notamermaid

Good question. I think I chose my sentence badly. I do not recall if they actually sailed on the Seine and the Rhone. The plan was to put the ships on the Seine and Rhone, the French name ones. Was it that they stopped it just before the season and put them on the Rhine and Danube? Perhaps someone remembers this better than me. notamermaid

Last autumn I was delight to read of a Moselle-only cruise by Viva Cruises and posted about the company's itineraries. So naturally I ask myself "what are they planning for this year"? Yes, the Moselle-only cruise Koblenz return trip is back and they also offer river cruises that combine the Moselle with the Rhine. But not only that, they also have the four rivers offer that used to be only possibly on the international market with Nicko Cruises in their portfolio (Stuttgart to Saarbrücken). Here are the Moselle cruises: https://www.viva-*****/en/cruiselisting?destinations=Mosel%2CMoselle&departures=all&dates=all&ships=all&adults=2 By the way, the rivers have risen and the Moselle is high but at Trier is levelling off. It did not get to flood mark I. If you are new to the topic on the Moselle: the Moselle can flood considerably but low water does not happen in any way (99 percent) that could affect river cruising as the whole navigable Moselle is controlled by locks, for our purposes here I mean from Metz to Koblenz. notamermaid

seatrade-cruise was picking it up but could not confirm it through their own sources it seems. The updated website appeared a couple of hours after I had posted that one with the doubt. All sorted and hooray for those that want to experience the luxury of Crystal under new people. I do wonder if they will put a ship back onto the Seine. At the time I thought Crystal may have taken them from that river as the 135m ships were in the focus for not being able to dock in Paris (the "Viking problem" that could not be solved with the authorities) although as far as I remember they declared it was because of more demand coming from the Rhine and Danube lovers. Whatever happened - 125m is now the "most economic" length to go for on the Seine - I think the Seine has got potential for luxury cruises for sure but for the new operator it may be better to wait and see how it plays out elsewhere. Love the idea of a luxury food cruise on the Rhone. It really sounds as if they got a good deal in the end. Good luck to them, taking five ships is a task. That price segment is not for me but it will be good to see the ships back on the rivers and hopefully some renewed employment for the highly trained staff of Crystal. notamermaid

The page has been updated, new version: https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/ship-operations/its-official-crystal-river-vessels-are-going-riverside-luxury-cruises notamermaid

Indeed. Germans, Austrians, Swiss, all with a bit of extra cash for indulgence over a long weekend. And others who think the trip is worth their while. The operator is based in Hamburg. Quite a few three night cruises and many four night cruises are offered on the European market by German language operators and CroisiEurope. That company is of course French but offers German, English and French on their itineraries (not necessarily all together). notamermaid

Still a doubt here: https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/ship-operations/crystal-river-vessels-reportedly-going-riverside-luxury-cruises notamermaid

Thank you, saw the article this morning, great news. Some reporting from the anglophone industry: https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/new-luxury-line-riverside-acquires-four-more-crystal-river-ships-37951 notamermaid

That is great! I reckon you probably did not go to the Lübeck one seeing that it is off the beaten track. For a Christmas market I would not immediately think of Lübeck myself but it looks really good and Lübecker Marzipan is so much part of my tradition and childhood memories - marzipan potatoes, yummy. I went to Lübeck many years ago on a Northern Germany trip. I enjoyed it a lot, it is still Germany but feels very different from where I live. notamermaid