Danube water levels 2019 and similar topics - plus tips and info

[notamermaid]

Let's see. Pfelling is at 288cm this morning. Light rain nicely covering the catchment area of the Danube in Germany today, forecast now changed for tomorrow with a bit more rain than previously thought. Saturday hardly any.

 

One wonders if this will be enough. Pfelling is looking stable for today with a potential rise to 293cm tomorrow afternoon.

 

notamermaid

 

[G.M.T.]

Notamermaid, there was an interesting program on BR TV last night about the problems people are facing from the cruising ships in Passau:

 

https://www.br.de/br-fernsehen/programmkalender/ausstrahlung-1902632.html

 

https://www.br.de/mediathek/video/dokthema-traumschiff-oder-dreckschleuder-wie-umweltschaedlich-ist-die-binnenschifffahrt-av:5cc05621a61e4a001ae62119

[notamermaid]

Thank you G.M.T.

I will have a look at it in more detail over the weekend. From the description I would like to single out the figure 700,000. That many tourists from river cruise ships?! That is massive. Would like to see a plan for dockings. Schiffsanlegungen. Have you ever spotted one online? Could be interesting to compare that to Rüdesheim on the Rhine.

 

notamermaid

 

[G.M.T.]

35 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

Thank you G.M.T.

I will have a look at it in more detail over the weekend. From the description I would like to single out the figure 700,000. That many tourists from river cruise ships?! That is massive. Would like to see a plan for dockings. Schiffsanlegungen. Have you ever spotted one online? Could be interesting to compare that to Rüdesheim on the Rhine.

 

notamermaid

 

I think the figure 700,000 includes day visitors and embarkation /disembarkation passengers.

 

Oh yes, your wish is my command:

 

https://www.stadtwerke-passau.de/hafen/liegeplatzeinteilung.html

[Wannawander]

7 hours ago, G.M.T. said:

Notamermaid, there was an interesting program on BR TV last night about the problems people are facing from the cruising ships in Passau:

 

https://www.br.de/br-fernsehen/programmkalender/ausstrahlung-1902632.html

 

https://www.br.de/mediathek/video/dokthema-traumschiff-oder-dreckschleuder-wie-umweltschaedlich-ist-die-binnenschifffahrt-av:5cc05621a61e4a001ae62119

Interesting and sad. I am sure you have seen the news as of late regarding Amsterdam working on controlling tourism by moving their famous IAMSTERDAM sign around the city to keep areas less congested. Also Venice has or is planning not to allow large cruise ships in the canal. Recently I also saw a post about Barcelona not allowing as many cruise ships in their port due to overcrowding. It seems that cruising has become more affordable which is good to some degree, but the consequences for local people, the environment and our beautiful historical sights being adversely affected is greater than sad! The world is getting smaller.....

[MLA]

Good afternoon from the beautiful Berkshires in western MA USA. My husband and I will be taking the Grand Circle Travel River Aria riverboat trip from Vienna to Amsterdam in October. Please pardon my ignorance, but is the possibility of switching ships due to low water level (Passau etc.) true of all the ships, or just the bigger ones? I suspect our ship, being older than many, is on the smaller side. 

 

Or or am I mistaken about this?

 

many thanks for any insight. 

[notamermaid]

55 minutes ago, MLA said:

Good afternoon from the beautiful Berkshires in western MA USA. My husband and I will be taking the Grand Circle Travel River Aria riverboat trip from Vienna to Amsterdam in October. Please pardon my ignorance, but is the possibility of switching ships due to low water level (Passau etc.) true of all the ships, or just the bigger ones? I suspect our ship, being older than many, is on the smaller side. 

 

Or or am I mistaken about this?

 

many thanks for any insight. 

Good question, with in your case a slightly unexpected answer. You are basically right about the ships in general and the River Aria is an "older" ship.

 

I explain in detail. When we talk about large and small(er) ships, in river cruising we normally mean the length as the width of the beam is relatively similar in European river cruising (by that I exclude Russia). Large in length is normally 135m, small is 110m or less. With such a difference in length the draft is different and makes a slight difference when sailing. How much that is depends on the ship and its net weight and when full. We have reports from past cruisers where the drinking water tanks were emptied and the passengers transported by coach which gave the respective ships the few centimetres extra under the keel.

 

Back to the River Aria, with her there is a catch to this. She does not fit into this reasoning as she is in between! Her size is given as 125,50 length on German Wikipedia. This could mean she looses much of the advantage a small ship of 110m could have. Sorry. It could be possible to just get through a shallow stretch, but she will probably not do much better than a large ship.

 

Hope all goes well for you. Have a great time on the river.

 

notamermaid

 

[RDVIK2016]

G.M.T., many thanks for the Passau specific info and links.  DW and I will be boarding Viking INGVI in Passau on 23.10.19.   The docking assignment table on the Stadtwerke website shows INGVI moving from Lindau L4 to Altstadt A5 at 20:00.  We will be turning in our rental vehicle at Sixt by the Bahnhof in the early to mid afternoon and we'll get a cab from there to Lindau.  I would like to come back into town after dinner unless it is really important to attend an orientation briefing at that time. 

 

Unfortunately the Heilig Geist Stiftschenke website says they close on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  Do have a good alternative for a glass of wine or "a Hoibe Bier".  I think you once recommended a brewery on the other side of the river, but I think we'll stick to the Altstadt. 

RDVIK

[gnome12]

6 hours ago, MLA said:

Good afternoon from the beautiful Berkshires in western MA USA. My husband and I will be taking the Grand Circle Travel River Aria riverboat trip from Vienna to Amsterdam in October. Please pardon my ignorance, but is the possibility of switching ships due to low water level (Passau etc.) true of all the ships, or just the bigger ones? I suspect our ship, being older than many, is on the smaller side. 

 

Or or am I mistaken about this?

 

many thanks for any insight. 

Just to add another caveat to notamermaid's, I don't know whether CGT would have a ship to swap to in the event of low water. GCT has only 2 ships on this 15 day itinerary. These 2 ships also do Budapest to Bucharest. (I can't find dates for this year anywhere, so I'm not sure what runs when.)

[G.M.T.]

8 hours ago, RDVIK2016 said:

G.M.T., many thanks for the Passau specific info and links.  DW and I will be boarding Viking INGVI in Passau on 23.10.19.   The docking assignment table on the Stadtwerke website shows INGVI moving from Lindau L4 to Altstadt A5 at 20:00.  We will be turning in our rental vehicle at Sixt by the Bahnhof in the early to mid afternoon and we'll get a cab from there to Lindau.  I would like to come back into town after dinner unless it is really important to attend an orientation briefing at that time. 

 

Unfortunately the Heilig Geist Stiftschenke website says they close on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  Do have a good alternative for a glass of wine or "a Hoibe Bier".  I think you once recommended a brewery on the other side of the river, but I think we'll stick to the Altstadt. 

RDVIK

The Stiftschenke is closed Wednesday and Thursdays.

 

Some alternatives:

 

https://dasoberhaus.com/en/welcome.html

Great views overlooking Passau

 

http://www.hacklberger-braeustueberl.de/

The brewery, about 10 minute walk from the Altstadt, they have 14 differnt types of beer. When we go there with visitors, we always recommend the Biertragl, this is to try different beers without becoming legless, 5 x 0.15l glasses.

 

https://www.loewen-brauhaus.de/

Typical old Bavarian tavern.

 

https://goldenesschiff.de/

 

Have a great time and cruise.

 

 

[notamermaid]

Pfelling gauge this morning has not changed that much, a few centimetres down, now at 283cm. Minimal change for the better by this evening possible. The trend is for rising levels which means we could see a figure a little above 290cm tomorrow.

 

The latest low water report by the German authorities is out and shows that both the young Danube up to Ingolstadt and the section from Ingolstadt to Achleiten (that is the first river level gauge in Austria) have had only two thirds and three quarters, respectively, of rainfall in the last 30 days of what the average is for this time of year.

The experts expect the grey and wet weather to persist into next week which could result in the situation getting moderately better. I hope they are right.

 

notamermaid

 

[thunter1224]

3 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Pfelling gauge this morning has not changed that much, a few centimetres down, now at 283cm. Minimal change for the better by this evening possible. The trend is for rising levels which means we could see a figure a little above 290cm tomorrow.

 

The latest low water report by the German authorities is out and shows that both the young Danube up to Ingolstadt and the section from Ingolstadt to Achleiten (that is the first river level gauge in Austria) have had only two thirds and three quarters, respectively, of rainfall in the last 30 days of what the average is for this time of year.

The experts expect the grey and wet weather to persist into next week which could result in the situation getting moderately better. I hope they are right.

 

notamermaid

 

 

I hope you are right .. We will be on the AMALEA from Vilshofen  to Budapest  on the Oct.4th ( 7 days to go )

[MLA]

15 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Good question, with in your case a slightly unexpected answer. You are basically right about the ships in general and the River Aria is an "older" ship.

 

I explain in detail. When we talk about large and small(er) ships, in river cruising we normally mean the length as the width of the beam is relatively similar in European river cruising (by that I exclude Russia). Large in length is normally 135m, small is 110m or less. With such a difference in length the draft is different and makes a slight difference when sailing. How much that is depends on the ship and its net weight and when full. We have reports from past cruisers where the drinking water tanks were emptied and the passengers transported by coach which gave the respective ships the few centimetres extra under the keel.

 

Back to the River Aria, with her there is a catch to this. She does not fit into this reasoning as she is in between! Her size is given as 125,50 length on German Wikipedia. This could mean she looses much of the advantage a small ship of 110m could have. Sorry. It could be possible to just get through a shallow stretch, but she will probably not do much better than a large ship.

 

Hope all goes well for you. Have a great time on the river.

 

notamermaid

 

Thanks for the response. 

 

[egw1]

I have been trying to monitor this thread for a couple of months now and although I'm starting to understand some of the terms and acronyms, it is still very confusing. We are leaving for a cruise on the Danube (Bucharest to Budapest) in two weeks and have one key question - if the water is low (or high) in Germany, how long does it take for that to impact the water in Romania and Bulgaria. 

 

I am not nearly as worried about boat swaps and a few bus rides because our trip was cancelled at the last minute last year (literally, we were already packed) and I would hate to have it cancelled again.  Just getting there, even if there was some inconvenience with a few extra bus trips, would be preferable to having to miss the trip completely again. I guess my question is how do I translate this information to what the consequences will be at the end we plan on traveling. 

[notamermaid]

On 9/26/2019 at 12:31 PM, G.M.T. said:

I think the figure 700,000 includes day visitors and embarkation /disembarkation passengers.

 

Oh yes, your wish is my command:

 

https://www.stadtwerke-passau.de/hafen/liegeplatzeinteilung.html

You were right, heard the explanation in the video. Thank you for the link. I shall explore that further and see how it relates to "my" busy places here on the Rhine. When I was in Passau in Spring 2013 on my cruise it was so quiet. Okay, there where coaches queueing at the train station to pick up the passengers for the transfer to the ships, but it was not really crowded. I guess I would be shocked if I saw it now.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

On 9/25/2019 at 5:32 PM, G.M.T. said:

The river level at Pfelling is like the second verse of the nursery rhyme The Grand Old Duke Of York (no this does not refer to the current one "Randy Andy"):

 

When they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only halfway up,
They were neither up nor down.

Yes, frustratingly well described.  One of these days I shall swim around madly and tear out my scales in desperation.

 

While doing research for thunter1224, I naturally came across websites mentioning the Donauausbau - my search criteria being Straubing and Vilshofen. One interesting site compared the Danube stretch to the difficult shallow stretch on the Rhine around Kaub. Well, it said of the two the Danube one is the more difficult one as regards sailing conditions with it being more unreliable and a greater daily fluctuation of river level. To which I thought "I have noticed that alright". While at Kaub recent daily variation has mostly stayed within 15 centimetres, at Pfelling figures have varied repeatedly by 20plus centimetres (in similar conditions as regards rainfall). I have not followed changes that much but if it is more the norm than the exception, one can imagine how much stress and short notice decisions this causes the river cruise companies. Of the two shallow stretches the Danube around Pfelling has statistically more days of low water conditions than the Rhine around Kaub per year.

 

I can clearly understand the arguments for deepening the Danube. Even more so after last year's drought.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2019 by notamermaid
Clarification

[RDVIK2016]

 

 

 

15 hours ago, G.M.T. said:

The Stiftschenke is closed Wednesday and Thursdays.

 

Some alternatives:

 

https://dasoberhaus.com/en/welcome.html

Great views overlooking Passau

 

http://www.hacklberger-braeustueberl.de/

The brewery, about 10 minute walk from the Altstadt, they have 14 differnt types of beer. When we go there with visitors, we always recommend the Biertragl, this is to try different beers without becoming legless, 5 x 0.15l glasses.

 

https://www.loewen-brauhaus.de/

Typical old Bavarian tavern.

 

https://goldenesschiff.de/

 

Have a great time and cruise.

 

 

 

G.M.T. Many thanks for the tips.  The Löwen Brauhaus is only a couple hundred meters from our boat's scheduled berth after 20:30 on the 23rd.  The timing of our walk on the the 24th might have us at the Veste Oberhaus for lunch before the ship departs.  I am really looking forward to being in Passau.  After watching the BR video I hope our ship does not keep its engines running too long at the dock.  I am going to be looking for one of those fine dust particle sensors hanging from nearby windows.   

Edited September 28, 2019 by RDVIK2016

[jo-b]

On our Thomas Hardy cruise from Budapest downstream we are today in a very sunny Bucharest. We bussed here from Oltenita an hour and a half away and are going back to Fetesti which is 2.5hours away. 

 

The Iron Gates gorge two days ago saw torrential rain, yesterday was grey but no rain. 

 

The river seems a little low judging from the slope up from pontoons but obviously no navigation problems 

[Mimosa09]

We are doing the Uniworld Ultimate European Journey starting from Bucharest to Amsterdam starting Oct 2nd (the tour starts Sept 30th). We are presently on the Joie de Vivre on the Seine & have been talking to one of the crew members who is from Bucharest. So we were not surprised to get the official e-mail from Uniworld saying we are starting the cruise in a sister boat (River Princess) & will swap boats when we get to Wurzburg to get on the one we were supposed to be on (River Duchess) & finish the cruise on her to Amsterdam. 

  Hope this is helpful to egw1 who leaves soon for Bucharest. 

[notamermaid]

Let us have a look at Pfelling this afternoon. The gauge now says 273cm. So where is the 290cm that the forecast showed as a possibility? Quite frankly, I do not know. Has somebody pulled a plug out somewhere, is somebody stealing water or is the lock at Straubing keeping all the water? The last might have something to do with it, but I am doubtful that this accounts for the forecast having been wrong by 10cm already by the end of last night. There is no forecast published today, so we are on our own, wondering what is happening. The trend and the actual figure now differ by 20 centimetres. For tomorrow, no clue.

 

A nice bit of rain covering the German Danube today, virtually none tomorrow, Monday some.

 

A storm warning is in place for Bavaria for Sunday to Monday night.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

No real change yet to the river in Bavaria. Pfelling gauge is at 275cm. Forecast says that the level could rise briefly over 290cm during the night, with the level falling again during tomorrow. No rain of any significance for the Danube today and tomorrow while much of the rest of Germany, even the Elbe river in Saxony, will get some rain, even high amounts along the Western coast.

Storm warning level 1 for many areas with the Main river and the Bavarian forest on level 2.

 

notamermaid

 

[jo-b]

Today on the lower Danube heading back towards Budapest we have our first change due to low water . We should be docking at Cernavoda for a coach trip to Constanta on The Black Sea But are going to Fetesti on the opposite side of the river as the channel is deeper. Tomorrow also the boat will move whilst we are on a full day excursion as we are having to sail at lower speed due to low water levels. 

 

The-weather today is lovely, warm and sunny with light breezes, as it wa syesterday in our Danube Delta day from Tulcea. We sailed the delta in the morning on small boats and then in the afternoon Thomas Hardy sailed th e Saint George channel to the Black Sea and back which was glorious.    

[notamermaid]

jo-b,

Thank you for reporting from the lower Danube where the river looks so different from Germany. The delta is renowned for its wildlife and it is a protected area.

 

A quick look at Pfelling. At 303cm the river is doing a bit better than the forecast and not falling as fast as predicted. Level tonight is supposed to fall to 284cm, but we will see...  The forecast for rain is very mixed for the next few days so we cannot say how much the level in this shallow stretch will fall or if it may actually stay relatively stable.

 

notamermaid

 

[Space cookie]

We are boarding the Monarch Empress on October 6 in Budapest and headed to Regensberg.  I have been checking here regularly and really appreciate all the updates, especially on the section at Pfelling.  We won’t be hitting the Passau to Regensburg stretch until Friday October 11, so am really hopeful that the levels will rise enough by that time.  Getting really excited!

[Mimosa09]

We are now at the Radisson Bleu in Bucharest & went to the general meeting held by our local host. Besides giving us general information & discussing the tours available from Uniworld in/out of Bucharest, she has informed us we will not be embarking on our boat from Giurgiu on Oct 2nd, but the busses will drive another hour to get us to Turnu Magurele to embark. This also tells me that we will be taking busses back to Rousse for excursions there. 

Edited September 30, 2019 by Mimosa09