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Uniworld's Maria Teresa not able to dock in Budapest due to low water


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We are scheduled to board the Maria Teresa tomorrow in Budapest. Ship is docked in Bratislava instead and will be bussed there to board. Precruise passengers are being moved to new hotels today because of the delay. We are very disappointed that we are not going to be on the boat leaving Budapest. Will try to keep posting.

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Sorry, now we have been told the boat is in Vienna. Hoping the communication gets better!

 

 

 

There is another thread discussing water levels on the Danube. May I share your posts?

 

I am really sorry, I will be cruising (?) in 5 and a half, and working on Plan B. My cruise line Avalon has been offering refunds and or compensations to current cruisers. I won’t know anything til last minute.

 

Wishing you the best!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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We are scheduled to board the SS Maria Theresa in Passau on 9/30 and debark in Budapest on 10/7. Very interested in your experience and issues with Danube water levels. Keep posting if possible.

Thanks!

sea bright

 

We are boarding late tomorrow in Vienna after our Budapest City Tour and lunch in Budapest. The cruise director has been available all day at our hotel. We are being well informed of everything and hoping things settle down once we board.

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We are on the long bus ride from Budapest to Vienna. We are not expected to arrive until late this afternoon. We all had to switch to other Budapest hotels last night . Ours was not by any means a luxury hotel...very small room with charcoal grey walls. It has been difficult and we're trying not think of what this so called luxury trip has cost us. Tonight is our Welcome Dinner on the Maria Theresa...at this point, we are exhausted and we have lost 2 days on the boat. We will be bussed to Bratislava tomorrow from Vienna.

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We are on the long bus ride from Budapest to Vienna. We are not expected to arrive until late this afternoon. We all had to switch to other Budapest hotels last night . Ours was not by any means a luxury hotel...very small room with charcoal grey walls. It has been difficult and we're trying not think of what this so called luxury trip has cost us. Tonight is our Welcome Dinner on the Maria Theresa...at this point, we are exhausted and we have lost 2 days on the boat. We will be bussed to Bratislava tomorrow from Vienna.

 

Are they offering any "bonus" Vienna excursion options, for those who don't want to spend more time on the bus? I'd have a hard time getting on a bus again......even if it was for a missed port. So sorry your trip is off to a less-than-perfect start.

 

Robin

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Yes, some people are touring in Vienna today, rather than Bratislava. Embarkation was chaotic and we didn't arrive at the boat until 5:30 pm. It was not a luxury experience! Today, we are hoping for some normalcy in Bratislava.

 

The boat is gorgeous and our cabin is too, but unfortunately, we have lost 2 days of this trip. Many people are not happy and will be writing to Uniworld when they get home.

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The boat is gorgeous and our cabin is too, but unfortunately, we have lost 2 days of this trip. Many people are not happy and will be writing to Uniworld when they get home.

 

Has Uniworld offered you any compensation? On our first Uniworld cruise (Budapest to Amsterdam) in August 2015 - when the river also had serious low water problems - we were notified 2 days before that we would have a ship swap, disembarking at Melk and re-embarking at Regensburg. We were given the opportunity to cancel (not possible since we had just gone through security at Dulles Airport), or to receive a $1000 credit on our next Uniworld cruise which we thought was excellent for an afternoon bus ride.

 

I hope the rest of your cruise goes smoothly.

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We are in Linz today. We had planned to go on the Salzburg excursion, but late last night we bowed out. We couldn't sit on another bus for 3 hours. We decided to have lunch in Linz and do some shopping. Our dinners have improved on board, but the dining room is so noisy that we leave with headaches every night. We discovered that there's one table by the door where the noise level is slightly lower.

Yesterday, we went to Durnstein and Melk. In Durnstein, we went on the walking tour and did some wandering on our own. In Melk we went to the Abbey, but had to wait about 30 minutes for the guide before we started the tour. The tour was so-so. We never saw Melk because time was scarce. There was quite a lot of walking involved just to start these tours. We didnotice that other riverboatr lines had small trainlike vehicles to get passengers to the starting points of each tour. Unfortunately, Uniworld did not.

The only scenery we have seen from the boat was the Wachau Valley...it was very pretty.

Will try to keep posting.

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We are in Passau today and did the walking tour through Old Town. We wanted to go to Artist's Alley, but almost all the shops were closed. Tomorrow, we get bussed to Prague after the post-cruise extension. We are happy that we booked 3 private excursions in Prague...so much better than those through the cruise line.

 

I will be writing a review when I return home...including the good and the bad.

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Our 1st. river cruise is over and unfortunately we only spent 6 nights on board the boat. The rest of the time we were in hotels...some were OK, one was horrible. Many days we were on buses for long times. When the S.S. Maria Theresa had to dock in Vienna rather than Budapest, Uniworld had passengers riding buses back to Bratislava to avoid skipping that port. In addition, at the end of the river cruise segment of this trip, Uniworld bused passengers from Passau to Prague. What was supposed to be a 3.5 hour bus ride turned out to be a 5 hour bus ride for us and greatly negatively impacted our first day in Prague. There were some plusses and many minuses on this trip. We will be posting a detailed in a few days.

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Our 1st. river cruise is over and unfortunately we only spent 6 nights on board the boat. The rest of the time we were in hotels...some were OK, one was horrible. Many days we were on buses for long times. When the S.S. Maria Theresa had to dock in Vienna rather than Budapest, Uniworld had passengers riding buses back to Bratislava to avoid skipping that port. In addition, at the end of the river cruise segment of this trip, Uniworld bused passengers from Passau to Prague. What was supposed to be a 3.5 hour bus ride turned out to be a 5 hour bus ride for us and greatly negatively impacted our first day in Prague. There were some plusses and many minuses on this trip. We will be posting a detailed in a few days.

 

How many nights were you supposed to be on board? Was the bus ride supposed to be something else, or did it just last longer than expected?

 

Robin

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How many nights were you supposed to be on board? Was the bus ride supposed to be something else, or did it just last longer than expected?

 

Robin

 

The cruise part of this trip was supposed to be 7 nights. The bus ride from Passau to Prague should have taken 3 1/2 hours. I even contacted a supervisor at Uniworld (prior to the cruise) to get a confirmation on the length of this drive because we were planning a private tour upon our arrival in Prague. I was assured that we would arrive in 3 1/2 hours, giving us plenty of time before we were to start our private tour. Four buses left for Prague and we know the other buses arrived there in 3 1/2 hours as scheduled. Our bus didn't because they stopped to get something similar to an "easy pass" to use the road. That process took about 45 minutes because it seemed the driver and the guide were having difficulty providing the documents to obtain the "easy pass." They kept going inside the building and coming back to the bus to look for other paperwork. We also got lost and both the driver and the guide were using their GPS for directions. It seemed as if they were "newcomers" to driving this route. We also found out that the other buses did not stop to get an "easy pass" which we thought was very odd! In addition, we stopped 3 times for restroom breaks. The first time was unscheduled and was in conjunction with the stop for the "easy pass." The second time we stopped at a gas station for a restroom break the manager refused to let us use the facility. The third time we stopped we were able to use the restroom available even though it was disgusting and filthy. So, our ride lasted 5 hours because our bus stopped for 45 minutes to obtain something similar to an "easy pass", our bus stopped 3 times to use the restrooms, and we also got lost. The irony of this whole event was that we were assigned to ride on the first bus which was leaving at 8:15 am before all the other buses!

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That bus ride sounds frustrating. Late transport of any kind that disrupts your prearranged touring plans seems to be the new normal these days.

 

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

 

Ain't that the truth! Our last Christmas markets trip (also on the Maria Theresa) gave us the 'gift' of a long bus ride also, but in our case it was due to Austrian Airlines cancelling our connecting flight from Vienna into Budapest. After a lot of confusion at the airport, including missing luggage, we ended up on a bus with a driver who spoke absolutely no English - and we speak absolutely no Hungarian. We were handed a bottle of water and a sandwich when we got on, and there were no facilities on the bus and no stops were made. Being dumped over a mile from our hotel, with no local currency and no warm clothes in the cold, made for an entertaining (not!) start to our trip. Our damaged luggage finally showed up around midnight. In hindsight, we should have made our own arrangements once the flight was cancelled and taken a comfortable train ride on the Railjet. The good news was that Austrian did everything they could to reimburse us for the damages and for substituting a crowded bus for our business class seats. We also got to Budapest in time for our dinner cruise reservation.

 

 

Hopefully Uniworld will appropriately compensate the OP for the missed night and the inconvenience. From everything I've heard, that is the norm for them.

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I’m starting to get nervous, we’re doing Christmas Markets 1st week of December and hoping no low water issues by then.

 

 

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Same here! We're due to start in Budapest on December 2 but will be leaving the US the last week of November. We'll make it work either way, but I do keep hoping for rain in the meantime!

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