Rhine water levels 2018 and similar topics

You are right that the Scenic buses have toilets but there are still a couple of problems. Generally you are told not to use them except in an emergency.

If you have to use the toilet then use it.

The bus drivers ALWAYS say that about using the toilet only in an emergency, because they have to empty the tanks, fill up with water and clean the toilet before they can go home.

When the water tank is empty then the toilet is closed, so then one has to make more photo stops.;p

Notamermaid, thank you for all your wonderful information...what a wealth of knowledge. We (2 couples) are sailing Viking Basel-Amsterdam in late November. My questions have to do with water levels & weather -- high or low? Cold & snowy or Cold & raining?

Thank you, squarepi. End of November is normally fine as regards water levels. Rain and cooler temperatures should have filled the river by then. Flooding is not likely yet. Expect night frosts or close to that. It hardly snows in the Rhine valley in November. Rain is more likely then. It can snow in the hills and you could well encounter that during an excursion then.

notamermaid

(yn)(yn)(yn)(yn)(yn)Any updates on the forecast for Rhine Valley? Is there any rain expected in the coming weeks?

The current water levels: Maxau 352cm, Kaub 69cm, Koblenz 68cm. There has been a significant drop at Maxau which is now on official low water status again. Downstream from Koblenz the situation appears to have got worse a little as well, as regards levels. The navigation channel being deeper there means that the impact is not felt as much though.

With hot temperatures of 30 degrees and over in parts of the Rhine valley and no rain forecast for three days this situation is not going to improve really. A tentative prediction is for Maxau level rising again towards the end of the week with the rain that is forecast then. That would bring us back to where we were a week or two ago, I cannot see a substantial improvement coming soon. I hope the weather people and river experts with the sophisticated computer data - and eventually mother nature - will prove me wrong.

With ships being sent in different directions and on alternative itineraries, companies making use of different ports even, as seen in Crystal using both Koblenz and Lahnstein as embarkation ports (!), one would be able see this reflected in changes in port dockings. As I have not stored previous data that I could compare with the current publication I cannot verify this. Rüdesheim looks as busy as ever from data. Koblenz certainly is very busy judging from their list of dockings. The town might even be busier than it would be without the rearranging of ships. Here is the current list of dockings in the Moselle harbour area. Viking you will not see on the list (normally) as they dock on the Rhine. https://www.koblenz-touristik.de/fileadmin/Mediendatenbank/PDF/Belegungsplaene_Hotelschiffe/Belegungslan_2018.pdf

The colour red means the harbour is full on that day.

notamermaid

We left Amsterdam this morning, a couple hours earlier than normal. They said it's because the boat will go slower due to low water levels but they've not done any further adjustment as of Today.

-on the Monarch Queen.

With hot temperatures of 30 degrees and over in parts of the Rhine valley and no rain forecast for three days this situation is not going to improve really. A tentative prediction is for Maxau level rising again towards the end of the week with the rain that is forecast then. That would bring us back to where we were a week or two ago, I cannot see a substantial improvement coming soon. I hope the weather people and river experts with the sophisticated computer data - and eventually mother nature - will prove me wrong.

 

notamermaid

Thank you again, notamermaid, as alway most informative. I have been watching the precipitation forecast on dwd.de . it didn't look too promising. We have had nothing but rain here in Scotland, which we could send some your way!

Notamermaid, and others, I'm pretty sure this has already been discussed on this thread but please be kind enough to comment again. We will be on the Viking Rhine River Getaway Amsterdam to Basel departing Amsterdam in late September. This will be our first river cruise and we hope it will be a river cruise and not a coach tour. What are the minimum water levels that will allow Viking to cruise the Rhine and not have to swap ships and/or revert to coaches? Is there a website where can I find Rhine water levels at the most important/critical measuring stations? I welcome any information you can provide and I thank you in advance for your advice and guidance.

eal7,

Thank you. Yes, please, have some tankers filled in Aberdeen please and send them somewhere convenient so we can fill helicopters to rain the water down onto Switzerland and the Upper Rhine valley.

It is certainly getting more difficult here for everyone. I heard the first comment of vegetable shortages on the market last week, i.e. I could not buy what I wanted. The heat has made harvests early but the lack of rain means produce is often smaller than it should be in size.

Here is a photo gallery of an aerial photographer. Taken over Düsseldorf, it shows too much brown where there should be green. And too much sand: https://www.nrz.de/staedte/duesseldorf/extremes-niedrigwasser-im-rhein-in-duesseldorf-id215131963.html

An excursion boat got stuck in Cologne this morning. No injuries as far as I know.

Apparently on 11 August a Viking ship got hit in Koblenz by a barge. The window panes in the restaurant burst. There were no injuries. It sounds as if the accident was unrelated to the low water situation.

notamermaid

jeb_bud. We may very well be on the same trip - we are leaving (hopefully) on 14th October, Amsterdam to Basel on the Pearl at this stage.

 

 

 

You are right that the Scenic buses have toilets but there are still a couple of problems. Generally you are told not to use them except in an emergency. In my case there would be a lot of emergencies and it does get a little bit embarrassing. The comfort of the toilets wouldn't be an issue, having travelled a lot in Asia with this condition, believe me I have seen some horrendous toilets. It is more the embarrassment that bothers me.

 

 

 

 

 

The other issue is that from reading some Facebook posts, because there are so many issues on the rivers at the minute, there are not always enough Scenic buses to go around and so quite often people are put on other buses with no toilets. That would be totally impossible for me to do.

 

 

 

RDC1, you are also right that they are maximums and they don't provide any minimums which is fairly poor. My husband and I have already decided that if we have a similar situation, we will elect to leave the trip and use trains. We already have plans involving other people in Amsterdam pre-cruise and elsewhere in Europe after it, so total cancellation won't be happening.

 

 

 

I must admit that at this point, I am seriously regretting the non-refundable $2000 AUD that we have paid but it's too late for that now.

Actually we’re on the October 9-23 cruise. We’ll be starting a week earlier than you. Hopefully there will be enough late summer/early autumn rain to keep the river levels up.

In the USA Scenic is offering a $1,000 discount for early full payment. We’ve decided to go all in on the bet that the cruise will happen and are paying in full this month.

I normally make my own travel arrangements but I decided to let Scenic do it this time in the hope that if there is a cancellation Scenic will be responsible for the air cost as well as the cruise cost.

Here’s hoping for a lot of nighttime rain in the Rhine valley.

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Smart to let the cruise line book your flights. Will save you possible headaches if anything changes or cancels

Thank you again, notamermaid, as alway most informative. I have been watching the precipitation forecast on dwd.de . it didn't look too promising. We have had nothing but rain here in Scotland, which we could send some your way!

we have been watching rivercruiseinfo.com - waterlevels and they have been showing green this week with no low levels

http://www.rivercruiseinfo.com/content/river-levels

this is the page we have been watching.... Is it correct information for the area?

Rivercruiseinfo is a unmaintained site. Check it's blog page dates. It's data is not current, regardless of the dates shown.

You guys and gals are very knowledgeable on this stuff - THANK YOU. Anyone have any updates on the Danube from Budapest to Bucharest?

toseaornottosea,

I can only give a brief answer tonight. Here is the website I use for posting the figures on this forum: http://www.pegelonline.wsv.de

It is official and updated regularly. Some more details will follow tomorrow if possible.

notamermaid

Like eal7, we could also gladly send some rain, as we feel as if we have been living in the tropics, although we actually live in northeast US. Our grass remains green - by this time of year, it is usually brown and parched...

In any case, we did get the following notification today from Viking re: our Amsterdam - Basel Rhine cruise, departing Amsterdam on August 26th:

"Thank you for choosing Viking for your upcoming European voyage. This message is to let you know that the Rhine River is currently experiencing low water levels that may impact your itinerary.

 

When water levels are too low, navigation on the river may become restricted. As a result, we may need to adjust our sailing speeds, which could result in slight delays, or dock in alternate locations in areas where our regular docking spots are adversely affected by the conditions.

 

If water levels continue to drop, we may also need to enact what we call a mid-cruise "ship swap" to bypass areas impossible to sail through. Since Viking operates identical ships traveling in opposite directions along the river, we are able to transfer you by motorcoach from your ship to an identical sister ship further along the river so that you can resume your itinerary with minimal impact.

As river conditions can change on short notice, exact details of how your cruise may be impacted cannot be determined until closer to departure. Our nautical department is continuing to monitor the situation closely and we will keep you updated should any changes become necessary."

Like eal7, we could also gladly send some rain, as we feel as if we have been living in the tropics, although we actually live in northeast US. Our grass remains green - by this time of year, it is usually brown and parched...

 

In any case, we did get the following notification today from Viking re: our Amsterdam - Basel Rhine cruise, departing Amsterdam on August 26th:

 

I will try to drop a few posts once we are enroute, probably on Mon or Tues, Aug 27-28th, if there is any news to report.

Thank you .. Please keep us posted if possible...

jeb_bud, you must be on a different cruise to us then, because there is only one Scenic Amsterdam to Basel in October (and two going the other way). Ours is also only a 7 night cruise, where yours is obviously a lot longer, lucky you. We were originally planning Amsterdam to Budapest, but changed our minds with all the bad reviews. At least one week isn't too much of a waste if things go wrong.

We also have the discount offer for early payment, but to me it is far too early to commit that amount of money. We have paid $1000 AUD each deposit and the rest isn't paid until three months before.

We prefer to do our own flights as we love to fly Emirates and as I said we are also meeting other people, so much easier to do it ourselves. We won't be cancelling the holiday if things go wrong as we are celebrating major birthdays and a wedding anniversary, so will just swap the cruise portion to a train trip instead.

An excursion boat got stuck in Cologne this morning.

It´s been a river cruise ship, the Douce France by CroisiEurope (see here).

steamboats

Thank you steamboats. The report I read was so fresh it seems that they had not even figured out yet what type of ship it was.

River levels this morning: Maxau 356cm, Kaub 65cm, Koblenz 58 cm (that being a new record low for this year).

notamermaid

cruising denise - thank you for posting that! I have been so curious about what info Viking is sending out as they have not responded to any of my emails and my phone calls have been met with unhelpful people. Not their fault, I think they are sales people and don't have the information I am looking for.

eal7 - Yes, we've just been monitoring their "generic" link - see below. It's not tied into your personal journey page, so you'd never have seen it (my friend who's traveling with us found it). The email we got was seven days prior to our sailing. I believe it is true that "river conditions can change quickly", as Viking said in their email. So at that point we are just going into this that we will be traveling with three good friends to some great places, and it is going to be a great adventure and fun no matter what!

If you don't hear more from me for a while, we will be getting ready to leave and in transit. Expect to hear more from me next Mon or Tues.

https://www.vikingrivercruisescanada.com/my-trip/current-sailings/index.html

For Maxau gauging station the expectation of a rise in river level on Friday, following the rain forecast, has been toned down as of today. Current tentative prediction is for 360cm to 365cm. That does not bring the level back to where it had been a couple of weeks ago and means it would stay lower than the Glw figure of 369cm. At that figure the depth of the navigation channel is the desired/guaranteed 2.10m.

toseaornottosea,

I am still working on a detailed answer. Just so that it is quicker to find, here is the direct link to the page with the water levels on the map, taken from the website above: https://www.pegelonline.wsv.de/gast/karte/standard

The Federal Institute of Hydrology in Germany, by the way, has issued its 7th (!) update on the low water levels. It does not make for happy reading. The only positive info to be taken from it is that the stress on fish has eased as both temperature and oxygen levels are ok in the rivers (lakes are a different matter).

notamermaid

Djh1959: yes, I think you are on Rhine Highlights, a seven night cruise. We are on Romantic Rhine and Moselle which is two weeks. Our first cruise was Gems of the Danube. We took the one week cruise in case we didn’t like it. In the end we liked it very much but felt like it ended too early so we decided to go with the two week cruise on the Rhine. As long as there’s enough water in the river we expect to have a great time.

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We are doing the Romantic Rhine and Moselle this October 3rd. Hoping water levels are up by then.

Hello all,

We were going on the Berlin to Zurich & the Majestic Rhine cruise/tour with Emerald, which we were due to leave Canada on Aug. 23/18. We were suppose to embark in Mainz on August 26/18. We just got a call from our TA who advised that they received a call from Emerald advising that our trip has been cancelled due to the low water on the Rhine. We're now working on rescheduling or refunding if the former does not work out.