ingo_e
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Posts posted by ingo_e
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We did wonder if included tips would affect the attitude of the crew and especially the guides in port.
In some way it does... I'd say most of us are too professional (and still love their jobs). But those who are above average are losing some serious money. To give you an idea - for a guide the included tip is about 1/3 to 1/4 of the regular tip - but at least you still get it in an envelope. For cruise directors and the crew it is even worse. Their tips are now often wired to their bank account, so they have 1.) less tip than before 2.) pay taxes on tips 3.) because officially it is now "more" income, costs for insurrances rise too. Which means at the end of the season we are easily talking about 5 digit numbers here. So from my experience: When working for included tips the tour is the same as for none included tips. I just try to stay away from these tours. In general I am concerned that the whole included tips thing looks great for advertisment but drags everyone back down to mediocrity. Maybe it is a bit sad that it works that way, but earning more money is an incentive to go the extra mile and try to improve constantly.
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At the moment I would more be concerned that the canal (or locks) could freeze over while cruises are still going on until January 4th.. :)
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The Quietvox receivers are about the size of an iPhone 4/4s (in length and width), but twice as thick. They weight a bit less than an iPhone though :)
They have no clips, but the earpiece has a cord to put it around your neck. But many guests just put them in their pocket, seems to work well too. But I am usually one of the guys using the red transmitter, which has to be carried around the neck for free transmission and due to the internal microphone built in.
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ingo_e,
Is the IPhone App working properly? I have not used it in several months and when I do now, it works for a minte and then locks up. I have to "kill" the app and start over but again, it locks up. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
Uhm, interesting phenomenon.. I use it constantly, so I guess something might have to do with data update. Plus there was a major update inbetween. Best solution would be to delete the app, reload it from the store..
Keep me informed at ingo@rivercruiseinfo.com if anything does not work, so I can help you faster :)
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Yes, this is the site I saw. The only problem is that it shows "lower than usual", but doesn't show what usual is.....so we can't determine HOW far from normal the river is up/down.
CaroleSS: The chart is based on a simple boxplot, where I defined the ranges as following:
Maximum value - Quartile 75: Higher than usual
Quartile75 - Median - Quartile 25: Comfort zone
Quartile25 - Minimum value: Lower than usual
actually the extreme values help me a lot, as I can now clearly define when navigation becomes impossible, so this site will improve a lot with more data :)
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notamermaid: yeah, I know, there is range concerning the draft. Maybe the lowest draft for the longships is 1.50m, but in reality (including food,fuel, crew..) I have never seen them below the 1.80 mark on the bow.. Btw, please contact me for the source of your information, got the longships at minimum draft of 1.80m.. Would like to get it more accurate if possible - and "Danke für das Heads Up" :)
pbnjrockette: Eek indeed. But to be fair, that page will always show you a lot of eeks, as it only shows the measures BELOW or ABOVE on at least one of the two items. All levels in the "comfort zone" are excluded. To get detailed information, just click on the river name and check the charts. But I agree, there is a lot of red right now.. But as English Voyager said, there the levels might change very fast, so just keep track yourself - it is going to get relevant about 10-14 days prior your departure. And to be fair, the levels in Germany are quite accurate (actually I got them back until 1901 - love german bureacracy), but for all other stations they are only based on the last 1.5 years. So don't be worried too much at the moment.
(EDIT): sippican: Well, what the companies are doing right now is switching ships. E.g. the Embla does not make it from Passau to Regensburg right now. So the Embla PAX are going to disembark there, are bussed to Regensburg and embark another longship that can not go from Regensburg to Passau (while their PAX are boarding the Embla). So all PAX are more or less going to take the same cruise on the same ship type. But that means, the Embla won't be in AMS in 7 Days, but in BUD. So until everything is solved and the ships are back at *where they are supposed to be* it takes some time. This also means, the guests embarking the week after some high/low water issue are usally facing a ship switch as well.. I guess the top priority for the cruise lines is to keep the ships where they should be according to the seasons itinerary, so it is easier for them to have a second group switching ships instead of altering the whole plan (and making even more guests unhappy or confused due to ship changes)..
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Minor factual error in the article: I have never seen a Viking Longship with a draft of 1.50m, usually they draw around 1.90-2.00m of water.
As I have noticed (here and by email), some found it rather tricky to read the waterlevel charts, so I programmed a new feature - a one click solution. It consists of two fields. One compares yesterdays level with all levels from this month of the year, the other is an overall comparision. You#ll see a lot of RED / LOW warnings everywhere atm:
http://rivercruiseinfo.com/content/river-levels
I#ll write a more detailled explanation later ..
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So far no delays are reported for the Danube stretch to Budapest (or lets say at least none of the ships coming from Vienna / Linz to Regensburg / Nuremberg reported delays as far as I know). The Sava river contributes its water upstream of Belgrade, so this can only affect the cruises going to Bucarest / the Danube Delta.
According to austrian news I saw on TV, the biggest advantage for the upper Danube was the dry winter, so the ground was able to buffer a lot of water and it did not affect the river levels right away (like last May / June, where the ground was totally saturated).
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Please be careful with rivercruiseinfo I have looked at their list of boats and there are quite of the descriptions that are inaccurate.
Canal archive: I tried to get the information available on the internet (companies websites, shipyards and so forth..). Hence I often just give a range (draft 1.4m - 1.8m). It would be great if you could get in touch with me via email / contact form in order to point out any specific factual errors, so I can fix them :)
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Also keep in mind the cruise season lasts 9 month, so everyone working in the industry (cruise directors, ships crew) have to earn enough to get over the winter / off season.
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rjscott: could you contact me via email? ingo@rivercruiseinfo.com
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Are there typically taxi's waiting at the port or should I look at prearranging? Allow about 30 minutes for the transfer? (10:25 departure so say about 9:15 check-in at the airport. It will be a weekday, don't know what kind of traffic issues there might be about then).
I would estimate more time: There is an innercity motorway with a trafficlight on the route. Especially on a weekday during rush hour you might get stuck there for 20 - 30 minutes (or just be able to drive through ). I would rather estimate 45 min at least.
As pointed out, the port of Nuremberg (Personenschifffahrtshafen) is a dock along the industrial port, far down in the south(while the airport is in the north). Taxi drivers know it, but they never wait there on standby. The ships crew will assist when you ask them to call one.
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So different from last year!
yeah, it snowed last year at the end of march & begin of april :)
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For those who have never been on a ship while double docking: This is how much space is left.
http://rivercruiseinfo.com/content/space-between-ships-when-double-docking
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Scenic considers itself 5 star service (competing with Tauck, Uniworld etc...).
As a budget line, they had founded a cruise line named Evergreen Tours. Evergreen chartered its ships from austrian cruise line Lüftner (the green / white Amadeus ... class). In August 2014 Scenic has founded another subsiduary company: Emerald Waterways, which owns two ships: The Emerald Star and Emerald Sky.
Besides just having its own fleet (instead of chartering), they try to advertise shorter cruises and get a foot on the US market as well. By comparision, as far as I know (when I did tours for them), Evergreen had mainly offered 14days + cruises (AMS - BUD).
For this seasons, Evergreen still advertises cruises, but if you have a look at their website, the fleet shows the deckplan of their new Emerald ships
http://www.evergreentours.com.au/destinations/europe-river-cruising/
A bit confusing, I know :)
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That's not how I read it. It doesn't matter how many reviews there are (except for resolving a tie in the rankings), it's how positive the reviews average out to. The people who reviewed Viking cruises gave them higher ratings.
You are right, as they calculate the review scores as averages (Sum(n) / N). Which means if you have more reviews (more cruisers), the devisor will be bigger as well. For reviews this is fine, for other data groups, I actually prefer the median and quartiles, as you eliminate extreme measures..
But like anything, the ratings are based to a large part on the initial expectation -- so it may not really be useful to compare ratings of cruise lines at different price points. For an example, a major site for restaurant reviews lists all restaurants in a location based on average rating -- this often puts a pizza joint or donut shop in the #1 position with the really gourmet restaurants down lower. It may be good pizza, but it's not chateaubriand.But I like pizza :)
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Had my first tour this year, the ship was stuck on the Main Danube Canal due to another Verdi warning strike (not unlimited as the last in 2013). Seems to affect not just the lock workers but the whole public domain.
Have some more stuff to do here, will provide more information later or tomorrow.
Ingo
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notamermaid: I think we (hochwasser rlp & me) both use the same data source. I will definetly have a look at their app to get some inspirations for next year :)
jpalbny: would be great if you use my review interface after you enjoyed your rhine cruise :)
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Regarding the website for water levels - was that posted by ingo_e? He has a river cruising app that gives water levels, and a website http://www.rivercruiseinfo.com - though the website itself doesn't have the water levels; they are only on the app IIRC.
Hi,
actually I got the waterlevels, for each river is a Tab: http://rivercruiseinfo.com/content/rivers?ri_id=1 (would be the rhine), if you click on unfold you'll get a lot of nice graphs and can also have a look at historical waterlevels (going to do some major upgrades on that this spring :) )
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I can only speak for (western) european cruises: Nearly all ports in the Danube delta are on the romanian branches of the Danube. Only A-Rosa goes to the ukranian branch (Izmail ..). They have not given any statements yet.
Don't know about the situation with Don/Volga cruises atm. I am sure all cruise lines are monitoring the situation.
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I would say every mapping program / app (except of google, apple and microsoft maps) is using the openstreetmap database - so am I :) . In general, when it comes to large cities, it is sometimes more accurate than the big three. For example local contributors are dealing quicker with construction sites, new shops in their area.. For villages in exotic countries, even the commercial publishers do not offer much information.
In case you want to put OSM maps on a garmin device, I suggest you start to read here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Map_On_Garmin
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I checked the link you provided but could not figure out how to get it.....using my phone, would I just go to the Playstore and search for "River Cruise Info"?
exactly :)
What's the cost for this app?it is free
actually later this month will be a major update (fixing a map freeze bug and other minor issues).
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Can't the cruise company just pay them enough to begin with?Say, same as what they d normally get WITH tips.So everyone happy?
The whole river cruising thing started like 12-14 years ago with mainly US / UK guests. So I guess companies were happy that they did not had to pay that much (to their mainly east-european staff) as their guests were used to tip. Now things start to change (more non-tipping nations on board) and they start to see "all inclusive" as a sales argument. So long story short: In a highly competitive market as river cruising is at the moment, they are not going to raise salaries enough in order to compensate the change. So these decisions are making a lot of people in the industry unhappy (except those marketing folks who can write the 'all inclusive' in their brochures) as they tend to lose money. Which will most likely affect the quality..
We were advised by Scenic (when in Canada last year) that our review of our included tour and tour guide decided what payment was made to them.In Europe, Guides gets envelopes before or after the tour, but it is always the same fixed amount. They do not base it on reviews and wire the money later on - then the tip would appear on a bank account and hence would be taxable. So to keep things simple, everyone gets the same.
Elbe blocked at Dresden
in River Cruising
Posted
Until further notice, the Elbe is closed for all ships at Dresden. According to the WSV ( http://www.wsv.de/ftp/presse/2015/00092_2015.pdf ) the reason is a damaged bridge and the authorities are concerned that pieces of a crumbling pillar and arch could hit ships.