Low Water Levels Affecting Danube, Rhine River Cruises

[xmaser]

Sadly, many of you are learning one of the reasons why I refuse to ever use Vantage again. They have little ability (desire?) to deal with any changes or correct problems. In my experience, last minute is their MO. I fully empathize with you.

 

Someone said they don't advertise. From now on you will get at least 3 mailings weekly and almost daily emails. They are relentless. I consider them reckless in their use of paper.

[bebtwice]

23 minutes ago, xmaser said:

Sadly, many of you are learning one of the reasons why I refuse to ever use Vantage again. They have little ability (desire?) to deal with any changes or correct problems. In my experience, last minute is their MO. I fully empathize with you.

 

Someone said they don't advertise. From now on you will get at least 3 mailings weekly and almost daily emails. They are relentless. I consider them reckless in their use of paper.

Yes, they have handled this very poorly considering they knew last week the ship was stuck in Amsterdam so a "warning" e--mail should have been issued at the time. Will be interested to see how the hotel stay works out. Unfortunately, the group will be split into two sections for the first 5 nights, so it's currently unclear how much interaction will take place between the two groups. While it's easy for Vantage to arrange for breakfasts, how they handle the lunches and dinners will be interesting. Since we will now be traveling longer distances on buses, it won't be practical to travel back to the hotel for a lunch, as usually occurs on the cruise. As for dinner, will it be a voucher, a group dinner at the hotel, will the two groups be combined at one hotel? At least the hotels seem to be decent, but again only time will tell.

 

As for advertising, yes once they get on their mailing list you will receive catalog after catalog, but I hardly go a week without getting at least from either Oceania or Scenic, sometimes both. My recycle bins get filled up with this stuff. These lines could cut their prices some by doing away with so much advertising.

 

[Cisterna]

On 10/28/2018 at 7:42 AM, DaveinCharlotte said:

Re Vantage River Voyager:  Wouldn't another possibility be that Vantage concocts a bus-based itinerary from Basel to someplace above the Rhine Gorge (e.g., Koblenz) then continues the other 2/3 of your itinerary as planned?  (If this were possible, though, I wonder why they wouldn't have done that in reverse for the 10/18/2018 cruise.)  cruiser747 said refunds were offered for the cancelled cruise, and I'm hoping that will be true for ours too (the Nov 16 cruise). 

 

[bebtwice]

Cisterna, basically that is what Vantage has done for this week's cruise. Currently we are supposed to visit the areas between Basel and Mainz  that were outlined in the itinerary, but it will be by bus rather than cruising. We will simply have longer bus trips to get there. If water conditions change, the plans will be amended again. We just have to go with the flow. Based on what I have experienced with Vantage, if they are going to cancel it will be at the last minute. Lots can change with the water levels between now and Nov. 16th, both for the good and bad.

[Cisterna]

We were booked on Crystal Debussy for the October 27-November 6 Amsterdam to Basel Rhine cruise. (We privately booked 3 days Amsterdam pre-cruise and 2 days Basel post-cruise extension with Zurich by Train trip). I had been following the Rhine low water level situation for a couple of weeks prior to our departure date.  Crystal notified us the evening of October 19 that due to the low water levels the itinerary would be severely altered, in that the river boats cannot make it past basically, The Netherlands. The altered itinerary was not one that we wanted to take - basically in the same vicinity for 11-12 days.  Your hoping that Vantage can make it to Koblenz is not likely. Check out cruise mapper and you will see that all the river ships are "stuck" cruising in the Netherlands area.   The low levels on the Rhine has been a situation since August, and the hope of a lot of rain never happened. Crystal offered $1000 per person to enable us to change our flights  from Amsterdam back to the US, or to fly from Amsterdam to Basel to catch our original flights home from Basel. They also offered us 100% of our cruise fare if we chose to cancel, which we did.  We made our own flight arrangements, as well as booking and purchasing Ann Frank, Van Gogh, The Tub, and a private food tour upon our arrival October 24 in Amsterdam. Luckily we were able to cancel all our hotel accommodations both in Amsterdam and Basel, as well as all our transportation arrangements (7 in all - LAX, AMS BSL and Zurich).   All the museum tickets are non-refundable as was the private food tour (which had a 14 day refundable cancellation period - which we could not make when notified October 19) . The airlines cancellation (purchased thru a consolidator) cost us dearly. All in all we are out over $1600.. A big chunk of change, but we choose to lose this amount rather than spend $11+K on a river cruise that was not going to be what we planned. Crystal was amazing - received our $11K refund in two days!  Bottom line is GREAT communication and  service by Crystal.  We will book an Amsterdam to Basel cruise  with them again, but will wait until the drought situation in that part of Europe is over!

[Begete]

Has anyone heard anything from Uniworld?

[G.M.T.]

14 minutes ago, Begete said:

Has anyone heard anything from Uniworld?

They're cruising on Viking.

[millebe]

8 minutes ago, G.M.T. said:

They're cruising on Viking.

Interesting, I did not know that.  I assume you are referencing Viking if there is a need to bus and swap?  We are leaving Amsterdam on Friday (11/2) on Uniworld’s River Queen for a 13 night cruise to Basel.  When I called Uniworld about a possible need to swap boats, they said they will do that if needed.  I was concerned as Uniworld does not have many boats on the Rhine so swapping to a Viking boat would be a good thing.

[Mark_T]

1 hour ago, Cisterna said:

Your hoping that Vantage can make it to Koblenz is not likely. Check out cruise mapper and you will see that all the river ships are "stuck" cruising in the Netherlands area.   The low levels on the Rhine has been a situation since August, and the hope of a lot of rain never happened.

Right now that is not the case, the rain did happen the levels are up and ships are moving from Amsterdam past Koblenz through the Rhine Gorge and beyond...

 

The question is for how long though.. ?

[Mark_T]

Also, if it helps the confidence levels, the River Voyager is already in motion, she left Amsterdam this morning and has just passed Nijmegen on her way to Koblenz which she is scheduled to reach around 6am on Friday.

[G.M.T.]

12 minutes ago, millebe said:

Interesting, I did not know that.  I assume you are referencing Viking if there is a need to bus and swap?  We are leaving Amsterdam on Friday (11/2) on Uniworld’s River Queen for a 13 night cruise to Basel.  When I called Uniworld about a possible need to swap boats, they said they will do that if needed.  I was concerned as Uniworld does not have many boats on the Rhine so swapping to a Viking boat would be a good thing.

My original post was suppod to be sarcastic and not to be taken at it's face value.

[Roz]

56 minutes ago, Begete said:

Has anyone heard anything from Uniworld?

I posted this on the Rhine thread, but I'll re-post here:

 

Dear Roz,

 

We are writing with an update for your upcoming cruise with us on Remarkable Rhine beginning November 5^th, Uniworld booking XXXXXXX.

 

Due to low water on the Rhine, this cruise will operate on the River Princess instead of the River Empress. While the River Empress will be docked in Amsterdam, we have decided to replace her for this sailing with a vessel that has a lower draft. This will allow us to sail with few, if any, changes to the itinerary.   

 

The River Empress and River Princess are sister ships with nearly identical deck plans. You will have the same stateroom number in the same location onboard, with the same amenities.

 

As both ships will be in Amsterdam when the guests arrive, please be sure to board the River Princess. There is no change to the embarkation port location in Amsterdam, which is listed here. The River Princess phone number is as follows: +49 15 222 6 999 60

 

Thank you for your understanding and we cannot wait to welcome you in Amsterdam.

 

Kind regards,

Emily Rolon
Reservations Services

[Begete]

Roz, our Uniworld trip, European Jewels on the River Duchess, starts in Budapest on November 10, 5 days after yours. The Duchess is only 110 meters, so maybe smaller than yours? I read all the posts about water levels, etc., and though I have an advanced degree, frankly, I do not understand them. 

 

At at the moment, I am apparently having a sciatica attack (never had that before) and am on steroids, so if we hit a dry patch, I might be able to carry the boat!

 

Seriously, I do have grounds, as per my doctor, to cancel for medical reasons as per our travel insurance policy, but if there is any chance the trip will proceed as planned, we do not want to. Last year we did the Budapest to Passau and one person in the gentle walking group said we walked an average of 7 + miles per day on excursions, and right now, I am having trouble walking from the bedroom to our living room.

 

So I am going to give the steroids a few days to kick in, and see if this goes away, because we really want to do the cruise, as scheduled....if I can.

 

 

[bebtwice]

We can only deal with what the cruise line is telling us and fully realize that things are fluid. One passenger on our Vantage cruise was leaving yesterday and told we would meet the ship in Koblenz , yet when we received our notification 5 hours later, we were told we will be meeting the ship in Mainz. Between now and next week when this is scheduled to happen, things could change again. It will be an adventure. We can always return at another time to do things we might miss on this cruise.

 

We could have cancelled the cruise, but decided that to do so was gong to be complicated , especially as we  already have 3 major vacations scheduled for next year. Finding another time frame for doing it next year was going to be tough, plus undoing arrangements for things we have scheduled for the next two weeks isn't as simply as it sounds.

 

We sailed with Crystal in June in AK and loved it.  With the choices of cruise lines that now exist for river cruises, we will likely be trying them and other lines in the future, but for now we will make the best of what the situation provides. Any vacation that is contingent on the weather can have its ups and downs. We've been in hurricanes and blizzards during vacations,  so this is going to be relatively easy by comparison.

 

Mark_T - thanks for posting that the River Voyager is on it's way. Only time will tell whether it makes it past Koblenz and to Mainz or not.

[Mark_T]

40 minutes ago, bebtwice said:

Mark_T - thanks for posting that the River Voyager is on it's way. Only time will tell whether it makes it past Koblenz and to Mainz or not.

 

I suspect that they will moor in Koblenz and then make a judgement call on exactly when/if they head south down the gorge as they will not want to do that if there is any doubt about their ability to get back north again ...

[Mark_T]

9 hours ago, Mark_T said:

 

I suspect that they will moor in Koblenz and then make a judgement call on exactly when/if they head south down the gorge as they will not want to do that if there is any doubt about their ability to get back north again ...

 

River Voyager continues to make good time and has recently passed Düsseldorf on her way to Koblenz.

[TFree]

11 hours ago, Begete said:

Roz, our Uniworld trip, European Jewels on the River Duchess, starts in Budapest on November 10, 5 days after yours. The Duchess is only 110 meters, so maybe smaller than yours? I read all the posts about water levels, etc., and though I have an advanced degree, frankly, I do not understand them. 

 

At at the moment, I am apparently having a sciatica attack (never had that before) and am on steroids, so if we hit a dry patch, I might be able to carry the boat!

 

Seriously, I do have grounds, as per my doctor, to cancel for medical reasons as per our travel insurance policy, but if there is any chance the trip will proceed as planned, we do not want to. Last year we did the Budapest to Passau and one person in the gentle walking group said we walked an average of 7 + miles per day on excursions, and right now, I am having trouble walking from the bedroom to our living room.

 

So I am going to give the steroids a few days to kick in, and see if this goes away, because we really want to do the cruise, as scheduled....if I can.

 

 

We are on the same itinerary as Roz.  Both the old ship (the River Empress) and the new ship (the River Princess) are 110 meters long.  They were built the same year and apparently have the same layout.  So it is not clear why the River Princess would have a lower draught.  But evidently they think it does.

 

Tom & Judy

[notamermaid]

Sometimes even reporters are caught up in the low water problems. Here is how on who has been on an AmaWaterways ship sees it: https://www.travelweekly.com/Blogs/Dispatch/AmaWaterways-crew-resourceful-when-river-conditions-change?ct=river

 

notamermaid

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

3 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Sometimes even reporters are caught up in the low water problems. Here is how on who has been on an AmaWaterways ship sees it: https://www.travelweekly.com/Blogs/Dispatch/AmaWaterways-crew-resourceful-when-river-conditions-change?ct=river

 

notamermaid

 

I was very impressed by the offer AMA made for passengers on that cruise: "a full refund or the chance to take the altered route and get a credit for the full cruise price to be applied to a future sailing."

[Mark_T]

15 hours ago, Mark_T said:

 

River Voyager continues to make good time and has recently passed Düsseldorf on her way to Koblenz.

 

... and she is now safely in Koblenz.

 

Looks like she is going through the locks to moor on the Moselle which makes sense as there is still a lot of traffic at Koblenz on the Rhine so mooring is at a premium right now.

[clarku]

Heard from our TA that 11/11-18 Crystal Bach Frankfurt-Mainz Rhine cruise will now be on Crystal Mahler, same dates, Cologne-Antwerp instead due to water levels and recent damage from accident.  Up to $1k/person for needed airfare adjustments and 30% of what we paid now applied to future cruise....or full refund.  Decided to go with flow since our dates aren’t flexible. Not the itinerary we had originally wanted, but still looking forward to it.

Edited November 2, 2018 by clarku

[planner123456]

We're currently on the Viking vilhjalm. Left Budapest last night and just conquered the first loch. It's 69 degrees and sunny but they aren't expecting any issues m

[notamermaid]

9 hours ago, Mark_T said:

 

... and she is now safely in Koblenz.

 

Looks like she is going through the locks to moor on the Moselle which makes sense as there is still a lot of traffic at Koblenz on the Rhine so mooring is at a premium right now.

The River Voyager's normally allocated docking space is on the Moselle between Deutsches Eck and the bridge. But you are right in that she has gone through the first lock and is "parked out of the way" at the suburb Metternich. That sounds to me as if she will not move onto Mainz. But we will see. To greet her passengers I am sure she will be moved to her standard place in Koblenz. They are really struggling in Koblenz with all the amended itineraries. Hence the fact that they are using the small marina area of Metternich.

 

notamermaid