NCvol24

23 hours ago, notamermaid said:

By the way, we have had a short river traffic ban again - during the defusing of a WWII bomb in Cologne. The bomb was found while dredging and put on a lighter (boat). This was then positioned away from residential areas and the bomb defused.

 

As regards the Scottish fans - one of them stripped naked and jumped into the Rhine from the embankment. Not recommended, do not do that, too dangerous. Not because of the potential bombs but there are far too many other obstacles under water and small currents. The Rhine is such a fast-flowing river. People swim in the river much further upstream near Basel but they know where they can do that and it is relatively safe in comparison.

 

notamermaid

 

That is so crazy, would have never expected that as a reason for a river ban when planning!

I've read posts of recent travelers, and it appears the ship a day after us crashed and guests had to be bussed from the last full day port to Basel. We lucked out being in a window of a full cruise success!

We returned home last night, had a great trip!

We have had a lovely trip! We are on our way to Basel to spend time in Switzerland for 5 days. The only hiccup I noticed was we had to dock early for Cologne as we wouldn't make it in time for the morning tours. We docked and were bused for 30 minutes. While exploring the city, our ship made it to Cologne. We made all stops and did not swap ships.

Thanks @notamermaid for all your information the past week, including your buts with the improvements! 

On 6/13/2024 at 7:50 PM, notamermaid said:

It has been a nice afternoon, a bit on the cool side for June but good for photos with clouds in the sky for backdrop of the castles I think.

 

Hope you have had a splendid day.

 

notamermaid

 

It's definitely been cooler than expected everywhere on our trip, but I really can't complain! The sailing by the castles was just beautiful! 

We made it to Speyer today, and that itinerary spot could be X'd in my opinion. We are currently in route to Strasbourg. 

11 hours ago, notamermaid said:

So last night I also checked on the Emerald Dawn with @Dwg7127 on board. The ship arrived at Rüdesheim last night, here is the screenshot of the webcam, time stamp 18:50:

 

This morning she left for Koblenz and sailed into the Rhine Gorge. I hope the passengers have all had a splendid time seeing the castles.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

 

 

We have made it to Koblenz this morning! We have been told we are sailing to Rudesheim this afternoon. 

2 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Well, we have our river back. Maxau gauge peaked last night and went down well during the night. The figure now is 738cm. The authorities gave the go-head early this morning, river traffic is running again. This was just under 24 hours I think, the expectation a few days ago had been about 36 hours of no traffic. All good.

 

Time to relax? I would say so, with a caveat. Not perfect sailing conditions, regulations for high water apply. But it is better, we are going into summer with normally very warm days, snow melt is still happening but overall the situation looks stable at a very high level. With a couple of days of downpours we may need to watch Maxau again, as there is a lot of water in the basin of the High Rhine with its tributaries coming from Switzerland.

 

Lake Constance is of course still at flooding level but appears to be stable, with the prospect of gradually going down from later today. By that I mean a centimetre or two per day.

 

That small wave at Maxau gauge has no real impact further downstream. By the time it gets to the Middle Rhine valley it is no more than standard "up and down" due to rain.

 

A couple of graphs to follow later when we have a look back at May.

 

notamermaid

 

Relaxing 😁 Thanks for a very good update!

5 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

The crosses have been put in all sorts of places on paper in all sorts of colours and a lot of people will have a busy evening and busy Monday. Local elections are a lot of work to count. Posters will soon disappear from towns and cities. Where they will remain "for posterity" [pun unintended] is - in videos of flooding. Yesterday I watched a video of the river Neckar and there along the embankment road were the posters on lampposts.

 

On the Rhine, well, we still have official flooding, at Lake Constance, at Hauenstein and at Maxau gauge. The Swiss levels are a bit different from the German way of doing it but for us for river cruising the most important one is the figure at Maxau gauge. After a dip during the day the river level has gone up again, is now at 721cm and forecast to rise to 740cm during the course of tomorrow. The 750cm will almost inevitably happen in due course.

 

notamermaid

 

What ports do you see this potentially hurting?

1 hour ago, notamermaid said:

I have read of ship swaps being done just to get ships back where they are supposed to be, so with those ships not being the same layout I guess they will really have to swap. Hope your Rhine and Moselle journey works out as planned. With four weeks to go, it should.

 

Officially the flood warnings for the Middle and Lower Rhine have been lifted and Maxau gauge is at 740cm. Good, with a huge big BUT. You have seen the Rhine Falls, and all that water together with the Aare river needs to get through the Upper Rhine valley. So the weekend now looks alright, but... I will let it play, i.e. let the computer modelling update during the day and then will check again.

 

notamermaid

 

 

No buts allowed! 😄 We are off to Amsterdam for a couple of days soon, fingers crossed for next week still!

37 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

We have got the Speyer section back for river traffic as well as far as I know, so this leaves only a relatively small part of the German Rhine to return to shipping.

 

If you would like to see lots of water, have a look at the live webcam of the Rhine Falls:

 

It says on the official website that discharge today is over 900m³ per second, the average for summer is 600m³ per second.

 

notamermaid

 

 

Thanks for sharing. The one thing after a rainfall that I love seeing are waterfalls! I remember hiking to one in NC after days of straight rain, and couldn't believe the intensity!

26 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

Welcome to Europe. Soon you will be at "my" river in Basel but I assume the Emerald Dawn will not be. I have not checked, perhaps there is a sister ship up there in or near Basel for you? It is less than 48 hours to go and I am a but surprised Emerald has not said anything yet. One could argue it is enough when the rep picking you up will inform you that you will be taken by coach or the ship is "that one over there instead of the Emerald Dawn" [finger pointing to dock]. Still, a bit odd.

 

So where is she? The Emerald Dawn left Koblenz during the night and is by now probably already in Rüdesheim. Yes, ships are moving in the Rhine Gorge! 😊

 

notamermaid

 

What a nice morning update! 🙂

23 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

River level update. Koblenz peaked at 575cm this morning. The crest of the wave is now going through Bonn and Cologne. Both look to have a peak below the line for a flood that happens every two years. So no big deal and far away from the line of a river traffic ban. A look further downstream reveals that the situation at Düsseldorf is most likely to be similar. So all good there. With no more tributaries providing higher than normal volumes of water to the Lower Rhine this could turn into a "straight run through" now for the waters. The Meuse is fine but the Dutch authorities are indicating elevated levels around the Ijssel. Not sure if that could have any impact in connection with the wave coming from Germany. Maxau gauge: nice drop, potentially lifting of the river traffic ban earlier on Friday than the authorities had anticipated. At weekend further improvement possible, a bit early to say.

 

Ship docking "madness". I never knew you could get so many river cruise ships into Koblenz. The Emerald Dawn is still there, with the Treasures alongside her. Another rafting couple is made up of the Scenic Crystal and the Emerald Sun. The Viking Alruna and the Viking Kara are the "mad" pair. This morning the Viking Kara joined the Viking Alruna and then had a run to Osterspai! First I thought she would drop passengers off at Braubach for Marksburg Castle but she did not stop there. She just turned around and went back to Koblenz. If anyone has a clue what the point of these two trips to Osterspai were please enlighten me.

 

notamermaid

 

Would you mind explaining the straight run through comment?

I saw someone post that they were being bussed from Stausburg to the Viking Kara tomorrow in hopes to travel to Cologne by the ship on Friday. Do ships ever "test" before passengers come? It seems like that would be a waste though.

11 minutes ago, goksucats said:

Just back it up a week and join us on June 19th!  Of course the flights will have to be changed, etc.  Right now my biggest concern is trying to figure out what to do about our personal extension.  We have the extension in Munich at the end booked through Avalon for the extra two nights.  They are putting us up in the Sofitel Munich Bayerpost which is right next to the main central train station.  After the extension we are going to Paris for a few days before flying home. Currently I have train tickets schedule for June 26th from Munich to Paris, but hearing about all of the travel issues by rail almost has me more worried then the river issues.  And if you look at Munich's long term forecast I swear there is rain in it every #$%^ day for the next 10 days!!!  Ugh.  Three weeks seems like plenty of time for the rail service to be restored in Munich.  And I also can't get a good feel if the Munich to Paris route is impacted, it currently doesn't look like it, but it certainly doesn't help I can't read a #$%^ on Deutsche Bahn's website.  lol.  Any locals have insight on the rail issues in Munich.. I would be deeply indebted cause I'm going crazy trying to figure out if I want to go to the hassle of booking flights from Munich to Paris instead of the rail.  The issue of course being.. the airport is an hour away from the city, flight times kind of are the pits for non-stops, and the train station is a convenient walk out the door from the Munich Sofitel Bayerpost.  

Thank you for this laugh in these other moments of focus. 😄

41 minutes ago, Lisa SG said:

Sailing out of Passau June 15. Well, hopefully. It is our first river cruise. Fortunately we bought trip insurance and have been told we can cancel at any time. Happy to hear of anyones’s experience filing for insurance or dealing with this circumstance. Apparently Viking will warehouse people on the boats as long as authorities will let them. 

We bought the cancel for any reason as well, and have considered this option too.

20 minutes ago, free101girl said:

No compensation has been mentioned. I think it’s fair to consider this force majeure. Probably it’s written into the cruise contract that they can change the excursions and destinations, though I haven’t checked. Under the circumstances, I don’t think there were any better options for our cruise.

 

Now, if we had been forced into a weeklong bus tour in lieu of any cruising, I would be quite unhappy and would have preferred cancellation. However, I understand it’s not uncommon for river cruises to become bus tours. Caveat emptor!

I think they should give the option to cancel at this point for those of us starting soon. I understand it is a lot of money for them to lose, but it's a lot of money for us too, and how they handle things will make me want to come back or not.

Thanks for your update, not feeling so good about being on the river next week.

2 hours ago, Dwg7127 said:

The boat we are scheduled to board on the 8th (Emerald Dawn) in Basel is coming from Amsterdam and scheduled to arrive Koblenz tomorrow June 5th. Looks like it will be held up there. Any idea when the river traffic will be able to move again?

How are you to tell if it is held up? We are scheduled to depart next week on the Rhine. Hoping to make the most of it like you.