The Elbe river 2022 - not just water levels

[AnhaltER1960]

On 12/5/2022 at 2:59 PM, Mkripke said:

How is the water level currently? We are looking to do Christmas markets in Dec 2023, but wanted to get a feel for how it is this time of the year?

All Viking sailings this autumn and winter sailed as scheduled. It looks like as this will continue until the end of the season (end of December). I am not aware, if CroisiEurope are sailing on the Elbe right now; some of their cruises later this moth apparently had been called off due to the lack of bookings.

[Ummie4799]

What hotel in Berlin has Viking been using pre-cruise? Thanks

[ural guy]

On 12/8/2022 at 5:44 PM, AnhaltER1960 said:

All Viking sailings this autumn and winter sailed as scheduled. It looks like as this will continue until the end of the season (end of December). I am not aware, if CroisiEurope are sailing on the Elbe right now; some of their cruises later this moth apparently had been called off due to the lack of bookings.

AnhaltER-  Any idea of how Viking's early spring sailings went in 2022?  High water the problem then?  Sailings start 8 March in 2023.  Bring warm clothes for that one.

 

I thought that there is more to the Viking boat than just diminished size, didn't they do away with propellers and are more like a jet-ski type propulsion system?  I remember there being some 'excitement/PR' at the time that made Viking seem to have solved low water due to no dam issue.  Unfortunate the end result wasn't better suited for the Elbe.

[AnhaltER1960]

On 12/11/2022 at 12:22 PM, ural guy said:

AnhaltER-  Any idea of how Viking's early spring sailings went in 2022?  High water the problem then?  Sailings start 8 March in 2023.  Bring warm clothes for that one.

The spring sailings 2022 went as planned. There had not been any issues, neither low nor high water, at the beginning of the season. As far as I remember, there had been trouble for low water in June, but that was only for two weeks or so. Apart from that the Elbe did behave well this year.

High water on the Elbe ... that is even longer ago than Germany reached the play-offs in a football World-Cup 🙂

 

The new Viking ships on the Elbe, Astrild and Beyla indeed use this water pump thrust, not propellers. They also have a reduces draft of some 80 centimetres. Indeed, they could sail longer, when other ships like the Viking Fontane, SAGA, Grand Circle had been grounded. But that was not enough, the Elbe had even lower water tables than the new ships had been built for. Whether this was an even unforseen change in the river's behaviour, a planning mistake or a result of a compromise between economics and design, I leave it to the technical experts to judge. Anyway, CroiseEurope's Elbe Princesse, which uses a paddle wheel instead, faces the same problems. When the Viking ships are grounded, the Elbe Princesse is too. I cannot recall much of a gap (Croisi still sailing, while Viking not or vice versa).

Viking also have developed a standard "plan B" for low water with one ship berthed in Dresden, the other one in Wittenberg and adapted timetables for the excursions, ship swap, buses, guides. Of course this only works, if both ships reach their harbour, so they might not take chances and stop their ships sailing a bit earlier than really necessary.

 

[loriva]

On 12/10/2022 at 10:13 PM, Ummie4799 said:

What hotel in Berlin has Viking been using pre-cruise? Thanks

The Grand Hyatt, at least for the Christmas market cruises.  Buy a day pass for the BVG (public transportation) and you can ride the 100, 200, and 300 buses to all the major sites (plus U- and S-bahn.)

[Host Jazzbeau]

This should go in the next edition of this thread [2023], but before I forget...

 

Here is an interesting article about the Elbe cruise from Prague to Berlin that Noble Caledonia offers on the Elbe Princesse (charter from CroisiEurope), written by Guest Speaker Michael Hindley:

Passage Along the Elbe

 

Here is info about the cruises:

https://www.noble-caledonia.co.uk/tour/3008/passage-along-the-elbe/?search_url_id=184

 

[ural guy]

Jazz-  I see that Noble includes airfare from UK.  For US passengers, do you know if they offer a credit if you line up your own airfare?

 

Not sure if I remember correctly, but didn't you extend your trip once, flew over to the UK for a quick visit, and then used the included airfare?

 

Either way, looks like it would be a nice trip.

[Host Jazzbeau]

10 hours ago, ural guy said:

Jazz-  I see that Noble includes airfare from UK.  For US passengers, do you know if they offer a credit if you line up your own airfare?

 

Not sure if I remember correctly, but didn't you extend your trip once, flew over to the UK for a quick visit, and then used the included airfare?

 

Either way, looks like it would be a nice trip.

Yes they offer a credit if you want to fly on your own.  

 

We have done it both ways.  The first two times was just after the Covid restart, so they were using charter flights from LHR with pre-cruise testing at the Sofitel; that made us feel safer.  For the Baltic, we were able to fly non-stop from JFK and explore Copenhagen pre- and Stockholm post- on our own by doing our own flights.  

 

If we took this river cruise [thinking about it, for a future year...] we would fly in early to Prague and stay a while in Berlin since we have never been to either city.  [BTW, what appeals to me about this particular cruise is that it combines the Croisi Elbe ship's great low-water design with Noble's British-oriented excursions and lecturers.]

[CPT Trips]

Based on the different  areas of expertise that the lecturers have it seems that the choice of itineraries might well be based on whether one is more interested in arts or politics. And extra time on each end would be well worthwhile. 

Edited December 24, 2022 by CPT Trips

[AnhaltER1960]

With Viking having completed their Christmas markets cruise season and Croisieurope not sailing any longer this year due to low bookings, the Elbe goes into a winter break until March 2023. The river says good bye with the highest water tables of the year, the recent patch of rain and warm weather melting all the snow in the area produced water tables well above the long term average.

 

To wrap up the season, the Elbe behaved well this year with only a few cruises in June stopped by low water. The two month summer break Viking have introduced to avoid the low water was not necessary,, sailing would have been possible throughout summer. This was in surprising contrast to the other rivers, which suffered badly from low water in summer. Still, the bookings lacked, some sailings cancelled altogether, Viking had their ships only half filled for most of the season; it got better only in the last months.

 

Let us hope for a peaceful and undisturbed travel season 2023.

[notamermaid]

2 hours ago, AnhaltER1960 said:

Let us hope for a peaceful and undisturbed travel season 2023.

It would be lovely. Thank you for rounding up the year and all your contributions throughout 2022 from the East of our fascinating country. I will be closing the season with a short graph of the river level in December at the beginning of 2023.

 

Bis zum nächsten Jahr. Guten Rutsch!

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Here is a last look at the Elbe river level at Dresden. This was December:

Ups and downs throughout the month until 20 December on pleasant levels above 100cm certainly kept the ships afloat. Remember that there is a lock and dam system in the Czech Republic which has skewed the levels in several months of the year to being not the norm on the Elbe and may have influenced the ups and downs in December as well - which I cannot confirm but just want to give you the info that the level at Dresden can show influences of humans interfering upstream. Snow melt and rain, just like on the other rivers in Germany, made the level rise close to Christmas to a level above the mean but not close to flooding. The level peaked and went down after that run-off, keeping at good high levels since.

 

The thread on the Elbe naturally tends to be much shorter than the ones on the Danube and on the Rhine but for 2022 we can also say that this is due to the levels of the river having been much better than average. Maintenance work in the Czech Republic completed, we can only guess what 2023 will bring.

 

Thank you all for contributing to this thread in 2022.

 

notamermaid

 

[grimsbybud]

We are Bud and Eva from Niagara area of Ontario. We're committed "Viking Sailors" having done 4 Rivers and 1O Ocean cruises with Viking and have loved how we were cared for, and the services onboard and off every time. 

We are booked for the Elegant Elbe sailing from Prague to Berlin departing Prague May 12, 2024. Doing post in Berlin.

 

Anyone on this cruise? Meet and Mingle?

budh@vaxxine.com