ingo_e

I was under the impression that our feedback to the cruise company would result in poorly rated guides not being used. Can you comment?

That is the case. However, these decisions are usually (!) not based on a single review (or reviews from one single group). But keep in mind: With the boom in the river cruise industry at the moment, companies are happy to have guides at all (better a poorly rated guide than none at all).

What I meant is "the next level" above "too lousy for tours at all". Fixed tips will stall individual developments, as reduces the motivation to improve ones tours..

Let me add a few thoughts from a guides perspective: Tipping us all inclusive is a big mistake :)

If you got all included tips, the following will happen.

- Bad guides get more than they deserve

- Excellent guides are not honored any more

In the end, no one has an interest any more in improving his / her tours.

From my experience: When I work for an all inclusive tip, my tours are still rated excellent (probably because I am too lazy to screw them up on purpose :) ) - but when I check how much energy, awareness for certain guests, the general mood (trying to raise it if they start lame) etc.. I invest, they are nothing compared to non-included tours. The included tip is usually 20%-30% of what I would make myself. So I do not go the extra mile on these tours. I know, it may not sound fair, but why should I change anything if it has no (fiscal) consequences for me?

Furthermore tips are an important indicator, as we usually do not have access to feedback surveys. Lets assume I change some storylines, want to try something new. Then I notice tips are dropping - so I go back to what I did before. If tips rise, obviously my new concept works better, and I keep it.

So tipping service, staff, guides, drivers all inclusive may not cause any problems this year, or the next. But on the long run, it will drag quality of tours down.

My 2 included cents :)

Ingo

It Europe always better to travel East to West since the weather (rain) travels

West to East.

As some others have pointed out Tauck and Uniworld are the more upscale lines(less children) than some of the other lines.

Not just Rain, also good weather travels West to East... So if you go East-West You usually just got a bigger Chance of weather changes.

Children are really Not an issue with any cruiseline. I've been on 350-500 Ships over the Last few years and can still count the number of Kids and Teenagers.. Guess the Lack of onboard activities and the Price do help :)

We think the "season" is about April to October, however we have question going early in the spring possibly due to high water levels/floods and wonder about late season possibly due to drought/low water. That would seem to suggest that maybe the June/July timeframe would be a good choice. Is there an opinion out there on the best time to cruise in Europe?

Well, the big flood in 2014 was June (until lock damages were repaired July). You might always experience high water issues from April to July. September - November are the waterlevels rather low. Another thing: The federal states of Germany have their summer vacations for students around July and August. These two month are usually really crowded.

Can anyone recommend a good cruise consultant (what does TA stand for?) with specific experience in European River Cruises? Might be nice if they were US based, but I guess that's not critical as long as they speak English.

I think thats not allowed on the CC board?

Is there a side of the ship that is preferable? I'm sure that varies by cruise and direction, but thought I'd ask?

Not really. While cruising you should prefer the lounge or sundeck to get a scenic 360° view. Double docking (mooring next to another ship) is ordered by local port authorities and thus beyond the influence of cruise companies (but again, the risk is bigger during main season).

I've see a few posts indicating that the times in each port vary generally from early morning to late night. It appears that the ships generally move at night. Is this perception correct or is there also significant movement during the day so that you can see the scenery along the rivers?

Companies usually cruise at night to bring you to the next destination, exept for very lovely views: The Rhine gorge and Wachau valley are cruised during the day. I think the only (minor) cruiseline that tries to cruise every stretch during the day is jerry van dyke (but therefore their cruises take longer: 17 Days for Vienna to Amsterdam / the average cruiseline takes 15 days AMS to Budapest)

- I've read the Tauck is know for being very kid friendly. Does anyone know if that means they are always overrun with children?

Tauck & Uniworld offered a few family cruises (same cities but different activites). Uniworld does not do that for 2014/2015 as far as I know. Most cruiselines do have paragraphs in their terms like this: "Travelers who are under 18 years old on the departure date must be accompanied by an adult throughout the vacation and are requested to share an adult's accommodation. Children under 8 years of age are not allowed on any vacation."

Also, ways to meet the locals would be nice to know. For example, there clubs that meet in local pubs or bars and invite native English speakers to stop by so the locals can practice speaking English.

This would be another project, maybe one could connect it to the app / maps :)

BTW, i've added the photography category.

So, it is not friday any more, but I managed to fix all of the remaining minor bugs. There might be still some mysql warnings, but that's (hopefully) only because I got no reviews submitted so far. When I filled the Review DB with dummy data, everything looked fine :) So here we go:

1.) The submit system - http://www.rivercruiseinfo.com/content/write-review

This consists of two parts: First you'll have to select a cruiseline, an itinerary, cruise season and cruise direction (if available). Based on this, you will get suggestions for departure dates and the ship(s) you cruised. As not all companies do provide these data (e.g. Scenic just gives you a ships class - which is fine as all ships technical installations are identical; but I want to be more specific), there is a second select tab for fine tuning.

Based on the entries, you'll get a specific data sheet for your cruiseline, all ships and cities you visited. This always has a quantitative rating (numbers from 0 / poor to 10 / awesome) and a qualitative comment field (write something down). Furthermore you can select categories and tour types for cities.

2.) Simple Review overview- http://www.rivercruiseinfo.com/content/read-review

This is just a simple review overview, newest review submit on top. Each review has a total score, a cruise line score, an itinerary score, and a ship score. All are simple averages at the moment.

The cruiseline score is based on the service provided by the company before + after your cruise (+ crisis management) + rating of cruise director

The itinerary score is based on all rated cities and tours.

The ship(s) rating is based on the ship items :)

Total score is (cruiseline + itinerary + ship) / 3

Furthermore, you'll have a similar review overview connected to the database for all cruiselines, cruises, ships & cities, which have been reviewed. This is actually why I did all the efford in designing the review spreadsheet: No information will be lost! With one mouseclick you will see all reviews where the ship or cities you're interested in have been an item.

3.) An automated ranking system - http://www.rivercruiseinfo.com/content/review-rankings

This is going to be the second advantage of this system While the qualitative textfields are displayed under ships, cities.. with no information lost, this is just some first chart to show you the options of the quantitative ratings. Who has the best fleet, best single ship, which city is the place to be, and so forth. Everything is comparable.

4.) Whats next?

Well, first of all I am going to connect the review submit to my apps (will be done in february, just in time for the next season). But there is much more the database can achieve: We can rank cities according to categories, connect categories and cruises (and the cruise search). Last but not least I want to figure out, how much of a problem double docking really is. Where it occurs, when, which cruise line is statistically affected most..

But in order for these things to become relevant, I need a few dozen reviews :)

5.) Beta testing

Until the 2014 season starts, feel free to play around with the 2013 season data. In case you find a bug, please let me know ingo@rivercruiseinfo.com :)

330 threads on all the ports boards, only 11 are not Europe. Why bother with separate boards?

As already mentioned, the search of this board is rather weak. The idea behind splitting the EU and non-EU ports was to keep the second visible, that it would not just disappear in the wast amount of EU related traffic.

I support Steamboats, CC rearranged the boards according to the majority of our suggestions when this debate came up last time. It is up to us, the users to read the subtitles of the boards more carefully and consider WHERE to ask the question. And the admins should be a bit more active when it comes to moving topics around.

Enough people are doing river cruising now, it seems that the various companies could generate enough "board chatter" to merit their own sections. For example, we have Viking. How about having Uniworld, AMA and others under their own listiing. Keep ports of call as a separate topic

Where would you put all the "Compare cruise line A to B" topics then?

CaroleSS: I was too optimistic with "in two or three days", but am finishing it at the moment (removing typos and a last nasty bug). you'll get a link on friday :)

Does anyone know where I might find forecast(s) of projected river levels on the Rhein and Mosel for this Spring?

There are none, as there are too many short term parameters (snow, temperature, rainfall). So it does not make sense to predict any waterlevels months in advance. But I provide some historical data for these rivers (1901 until today):

Rhine: http://rivercruiseinfo.com/content/rivers?ri_id=1#tabs-3

Moselle: http://rivercruiseinfo.com/content/rivers?ri_id=3#tabs-3

A short guide how to use it: http://rivercruiseinfo.com/content/historical-water-level-1901-2012

Ok, to specify: I am finishing up programming a review system. Based on a preselection of cruiseline, cruise, direction & ship one will get a quantitative & qualitative rating system for everything. This was a bit complicated to write, but has a few huge advantages (compared to one long text), as it is linked against my cruise database.

Hence it allows us

- to tag all reviews (link them against items that are mentioned in cruise), which means easier access to information in the first place

- on the fly ratings of cruise lines, cruises, ships & cities

- theoretical we can even predict review scores for cruises that no one has taken yet, as long as the ship and the cities on the itinerary have been reviewed on other cruises.

- a lot of other fancy numbers and graphs :)

Thats what I need the 3 categories above:

1.) will be connected to the cities, will allow users to tag cities

2.) will also be connected to cities

3.) will be connected to the cruise (& river) - that others know how a cruise line handled a problem along a cruise.

Now for your suggestions:

1.) Genealogy: This is a wide topic, may cause a problem? Does genealogy mean the same expectation for someone from the US vs. CAN, AUS, NZ?

2.) Photography: How about something like "Great Photo Opportunities?

3.) Special Interest: I will add it, again, users can specify in the textfield

On the Walking diversification(gentle, medium, hard..): This is kind of a problem, as I would have to add it to the "combined drive & walk" as well. So instead of 5 tour types we would have 10 or 12.. So in this case I would rather prefere to leave it as it is - there are textfields for comments anyway :)

On crisis issues: id4elizabeth' suggestions rather has to do with cities, so you can mention it in the cities textfield.. Crisis really should just deal with things that totally interrupt your cruise..

As you now know what I am up to, maybe you have other ideas :) For 1.) City Tags: we are up at 20 items so far, I do not want to exceed 25 total. But am open to the idea of dropping one or two that you find useless.

I got two days off, have to do some finetuning and polishing. So you'll get a first 100% usable version (still lacking a few charts) on wednesday or thursday.

Again, thanks for your help,

Ingo

I did not write much on CC for a few weeks (or month :) ), as I was busy programming and hoped to finish a new feature for the christmas cruises. Well, did not work out. Anyway..

At the moment I need to compile a list of categories describing what one could see (or do) in a city, tour types and things that could ruin your cruise. This is what I got so far (based on my experience 'in the field' and what I researched). I would like to hear your feedback, especially if I forgot anything.

1.) Tags for cities (excursions & tours):

Ancient History, Medieval History, Renaissance, Baroque, 19th Century, World War 1, World War 2, Jewish History, Cold War, Contemporary History, Art, Music, Food, Nature, Sports, Religion, Meet the Locals

2.) Tour types

Walking tour, Panoramic drive, Combined drive & walk, Bicycle tour, other

3.) Things that may ruin your cruise, crisis & disasters:

High water, Low water, Lock issues, Ship related problems, Other

In a week or two you are going to find out, what I need this for :)

Thanks for your help,

Ingo

Its sister ship the River Cloud II wiil be sailing the Danube next year and is doing fine.

Two weeks ago, Sea Cloud (Owner of River Cloud II) wrote to their german audience - they are going to sell the River Cloud II after the 2014 season.

Die Wettbewerbsentwicklung im Flussbereich hat es in den letzten Jahren zunehmend schwerer gemacht, unser Produkt als kleiner Anbieter ebenso erfolgreich zu vermarkten wie unsere Segelkreuzfahrtschiffe. Während die Sea Cloud und Sea Cloud II ein Alleinstellungs*merkmal im Hochseebereich haben und dadurch sehr erfolgreich in der Nische sind, ist es im Flussbereich immer schwieriger geworden, die hohe Qualität des Schiffes herauszustellen.

Looks like the market became too competetive. They did not mention who bought the ship. But as the other cruise lines are going to publish their cruise dates for 2015 in Q1 / 2014 we are going to find out soon enough.

(Edit: Typo)

Both cities have a highspeed train connection to Nuremberg. As my grandma lives in Frankfurt, I would recommend to go from Munich to Nuremberg. This is just based on what I experienced on that route the last year: 2x suicides, 1x animal hit by train, 1x motor damage, 1x foliage on the tracks (:eek: they really used that as an excuse for delay - as if a few leaves can endanger a few thousand tons of steel?). Maybe I just had a lot of bad luck on that route.

In general, in each case it takes about 1.5h-2h to go from MUC/FRA to NUE by ICE train, and spend the 5€ on a seat reservation. Train would cost around 60€ according to bahn.de . Taxi from Nuremberg Trainstation to the dock is around 15€ .

There is no cruise that covers all of these countries. You can go Basel - Vienna (or Budapest), but that would leave Prague out. Or do a cruise from Prague / Nuremberg to Budapest and you'll miss Switzerland instead.

Has anyone traveled in the stern cabins, especially since the 2013 refurbishing of the vessel?

The refurbishment covered the lounge & restaurants interior design. And they converted all cabins from real balconies to these combined balconies (glas window in front of real balcony) like Scenic introduced on the Crystal in 2012 / http://www.rivercruiseinfo.com/content/windows-and-balconies . As far as I know they did not change the propulsion system.

If you want to cruise the Elbe, go with Vantage. They require final payment 3 months prior to sailing.

Vantage does not cruise the Elbe river. The only companies cruising the Elbe would be Viking and Grand Circle. GCT only allows bookings from the US (btw I think so does Vantage?), so this really narrows it down.

In an attempt to prevent guests being “trapped” between locks on the Rhine in Germany and unable to proceed to Amsterdam in time for the end of the trip, we did err on the side of caution and provided hotel stays for the last 2 days of the journey.

I think you do mean "on the Main river", as there are no locks on the Rhine (well, there are, but not downstream of the Main/Rhine confluence).

I have them, Not just Charts but visualisied. ;) Here are the instructions

http://rivercruiseinfo.com/content/historical-water-level-1901-2012

Marty: Thanks for the very interesting and revealing review as well! Just some background information:

Evergreen is the budget company of Scenic Tours. Scenic owns its ships, while Evergreen charters Lüftner ships. Scenic has at least 4 of its ships on the stretch Amsterdam - Budapest, so when the flood came and every ship was stuck, they had plenty of options to switch ships. Evergreen does only charter one or two ships every now and then.. This year Scenic announced that they founded a new company, Riva Waterways. RW is just catering two ships only for Evergreen, so it looks as if they are going to expand as well. Let's see if they will learn from this years PR disaster.

Scenic Tours started with AUS / NZ only, then came CAN, now they offer some 7 days cruises for the UK and target the US for next year.

On the Amadeus Silver: As far as I have seen they do have "real" balconies, the other Lüftner ships (Brilliant, Classic..) just have french balconies. Just checked my database - the first four rooms on the top deck close to the center do have real balconies.

We usually river cruise with Vantage. We understand they cancelled their tours during the floods, unlike others like Viking and Scenic.

I think it is interesting to note that those companies who expanded at all costs over the last few years did not cancel cruises, while those with moderate (more solid) growth rates did. Looks like some used the "Pay in advance" strategy to get some interest free loans from their customers in order to buy more ships? This would also explain why there are not more refunds for those who had a "cruise" like Marty.. They just don't have the money right any more.

www.vrc.com/weatherupdate

 

Are you aware that this link (weather update) is NOT available in Europe. According to an earlier post, unless you are in US, you get diverted to the normal local web site, which has no such info. Please can you correct this?

David: Enter the URL at a webproxy, e.g. http://www.usawebproxy.com/ - Just have to click away the annoying banners then.. Using geolocation is so five years ago, please Viking, get over it - don#t try to outsmart your users :)

remydiva: how do you know the reopening date of Altenwörth Lock? http://www.doris.bmvit.gv.at/streckensperren/StreckensperrenHome_de.html says it is going to be closed without further notice..

Is it just me ?

Every time I click on that link I get "page not available"

John

Viking does some "geolocation" stuff: if you are not from the US, they redirect you to the national site. E.g. I usually end on Viking-Flußkreuzfahrten.DE . I think this is more annoying than helpful, please Viking, turn if off :)

Solution / Workaround: You'll access the website through a US webproxy like: http://www.usawebproxy.com

My favorite two lines would be Uniworld and AMA. Their incoming agencies & cruise directors do the best job in dealing with unforeseen problems & issues. And remained most friendly and professional during crisis. Guests usually never notice. On the other hand I prefer the modern Scenic interior design and must say Viking has the best cookies on board :)

As of this point we have elected to take about 75% of the optional tours. (Including Prague). It's probably costing us another grand or so, but up to this point at least worth every penny and considering total cost - hey, how many times will we be back?!

Have you signed up for the WW2 tour at Nuremberg? Because I know who'll be your guide ;)