What is going on with Scenic Cruises

[sparrowhood]

• Yes,  I was referring to getting tested to get back into the states.  I've found one company who will do a video test with you no matter which home test you use or bring with you for about $15.  Just wondering what other options might be available.

[jimmymac613]

On 5/25/2022 at 1:20 PM, CJANDH said:

You are right. Both sites show Jade going in and out of Duisburg over the last two weeks. This again raises the issue of whether she will be back cruising on June 8? Based on the call with my TA, it seems the cruise is a go. But which ship?

 

Just got back from a meeting with my TA and we were all on a call with Scenic.  It seems that the Jade will not make the June 8th cruise out of Amsterdam and there will be a ship swap that they said would most likely be the Pearl.  They said everyone would be put in comparable rooms but not sure how that will work because we were supposed to be in a Deluxe Balcony Suite and the Pearl doesn't have those.

[Host Jazzbeau]

1 hour ago, jimmymac613 said:

Just got back from a meeting with my TA and we were all on a call with Scenic.  It seems that the Jade will not make the June 8th cruise out of Amsterdam and there will be a ship swap that they said would most likely be the Pearl.  They said everyone would be put in comparable rooms but not sure how that will work because we were supposed to be in a Deluxe Balcony Suite and the Pearl doesn't have those.

Looking at the deck plans for both ships, I see the issue – but the difference between the Balcony Suite on Pearl and the Deluxe Balcony on Jade is about as minimal as you can get:  exactly the same furnishings in exactly the same layout.  As far as I can see, the only difference is 2 sq.m. more in Deluxe which is used to widen the space on either side of the bed by a few centimeters.  If they offered me the fare difference plus a 'sweetener,' I would be happy enough...

[DougK]

On 5/25/2022 at 7:40 PM, notamermaid said:

Unfortunately, cruisemapper has tricked me a few times now into believing a ship is sailing. Not sure why they occasionally lag behind with info. Currently both marinetraffic and vesselfinder are more accurate with the Scenic Jade's little trips to test the engine.

 

notamermaid

 

 

I have found that the best site to track Scenic ships is http://www.anyoverip.de/scenic/index.php. You can either get an overview of where all Scenic ships are on a given day, or look at hour-by-hour (generally) tracking of any individual ship.

 

To me, the best thing about the site is that it includes historical information on that tracking, going all the way back to 2014. It's a great way to get a rough idea about when and how long ships are in a given port on a particular itinerary, by looking at what they did on previous trips. Sure, there are variances due to river conditions, etc., but there's actually quite a bit of consistency--and shows that the cruise line *could* post estimated times rather than simply listing the dates for each city. Personally, for planning purposes, I find it a lot more useful to know that a ship is likely to be docked in town for 12 hours vs. stopping only long enough to disgorge passengers onto tour buses to be picked up later further down the river, and I really wish cruise lines would include such information in their brochures or online.

 

In any event, the tracking is showing essentially no movement of the Jade since it arrived in Duisburg over two weeks ago.

[Canal archive]

Doug I didn’t realise that site still existed it’s the one Scenic told us about when we took our first cruise with them, what seems like eons ago. I’ve spent quite a few hours following the different Scenic vessels around Europe thank you for reminding me.

[loriva]

9 hours ago, DougK said:

 

I have found that the best site to track Scenic ships is http://www.anyoverip.de/scenic/index.php. You can either get an overview of where all Scenic ships are on a given day, or look at hour-by-hour (generally) tracking of any individual ship.

 

To me, the best thing about the site is that it includes historical information on that tracking, going all the way back to 2014. It's a great way to get a rough idea about when and how long ships are in a given port on a particular itinerary, by looking at what they did on previous trips. Sure, there are variances due to river conditions, etc., but there's actually quite a bit of consistency--and shows that the cruise line *could* post estimated times rather than simply listing the dates for each city. Personally, for planning purposes, I find it a lot more useful to know that a ship is likely to be docked in town for 12 hours vs. stopping only long enough to disgorge passengers onto tour buses to be picked up later further down the river, and I really wish cruise lines would include such information in their brochures or online.

 

In any event, the tracking is showing essentially no movement of the Jade since it arrived in Duisburg over two weeks ago.

 

That is fantastic information, DougK!  Exactly what I hope to learn from CC.com--and pass along when I can.

 

That site furthers my confusion over what the Pearl (which may or may not be the ship we're traveling on starting 22 June if the Jade is still not sailing) did yesterday.  According to the usual "Romantic Rhine and Moselle" itinerary, it should have spent the day docked in Kehl (for Strasbourg) but the track for yesterday shows it north of Bonn.  Today it is in Mannheim, so that would not seem correct.  Some sort of glitch with the transponder on the Pearl?  CruiseMapper, MarineTraffic, and VesselFinder all showed the ship bypassing Kehl yesterday.  That is when they showed positional information--all had alerts about the long length of time from last report.  Anyone have any idea why the ship would not dock at its scheduled stop?  Per @notamermaidreporting, it should not be an issue of water level on the Rhine.

 

And DougK's comments about the ability of river cruise companies to post estimated times in port is spot on.  The companies must have this information internally.  Scenic does not even post the estimated length of its included tours--Viking has detailed descriptions of its excursions as well as start and stop times.  The lack of information from Scenic makes planning very difficult.  For example, the stop in Rastaat for Baden-Baden.  The docking location is about 15 miles from Baden-Baden, so a coach ride will be required to get to the Scenic FreeChoice option of a "Walking tour of historic Baden-Baden."  (That is the full description of the tour from the Scenic website.)  How long is the walking tour?  Is there free time in Baden-Baden prior to the bus returning to the ship?  We'd love to visit a spa in Baden-Baden after our walking tour, but have no idea if that will be possible so cannot reserve a time slot at the spa.  Or determine if we'll have a ride back to the ship or need to plan on finding our own ride.  Perhaps the Scenic personnel onboard (and on the land portion before we board a ship) will be fantastic in helping us plan all this, but it might also be too late to reserve anything.

 

All tiny problems in this world today, I realize.   But it seems a luxury company should provide a better experience prior to travel for its clients.  Scenic would seem to be able to be reaching out to clients proactively about the ship swap from the Jade as well, instead of clients having to seek out that information.

 

[loriva]

As promised, here is an update on our attempts to obtain information on our scheduled cruisetour with Scenic next month in hope it will help others navigate dealing with the company prior to travel.  (Holding a conference call with TA and Scenic, as @jimmymac613did, seems like the way to go given the game of telephone I appear to be caught in.)

 

We've had two rounds with our travel agency, asking two questions--can Scenic guarantee they have purchased tickets for the Passion Play in Oberammergau and can we obtain our final documents on an expedited fashion?  The questions were not answered the first time around, so we tried again.  In the second round of answers, received yesterday, Scenic did say the Passion Play tickets had been bought.  They still did not commit to providing expedited final documents, which, of course, we need to fill in missing details.  

 

The Scenic representative did, however, ask what hotel we were using so they could arrange transportation to the ship.  Scenic, of course, already knows this information as we are on a cruisetour where Scenic is providing  the hotel in Zurich prior to the transfer to the ship in Basel.  (The TA should have also known this and responded correctly, but we are now dealing with a succession of representatives of our travel agency as the TA who originally booked this trip has left the agency.  We're in the process of obtaining a new TA, but it is too late for this trip.)  But it indicates to me a knowledge gap on the part of Scenic personnel dealing with TAs.

 

Still hopeful (because I am a pathological optimist) we can get past this, receive our final documents, and meet our tour director in Vienna in 2.5 weeks and start providing glowing reviews of Scenic as others have done.

[CJANDH]

42 minutes ago, loriva said:

Anyone have any idea why the ship would not dock at its scheduled stop? 

Maybe it is not carrying passengers. If it is going to substitute for Jade, it might just be repositioning. We are booked on Jade on June 8 out of Amsterdam. Still do not have final documents or any confirmation of a ship switch.

[notamermaid]

10 hours ago, DougK said:

I have found that the best site to track Scenic ships is http://www.anyoverip.de/scenic/index.php. You can either get an overview of where all Scenic ships are on a given day, or look at hour-by-hour (generally) tracking of any individual ship.

My, had not looked at that site for two years for the C reason, i.e. hardly anything to track. Thank you for reminding me of it.

 

10 hours ago, DougK said:

In any event, the tracking is showing essentially no movement of the Jade since it arrived in Duisburg over two weeks ago.

I think there was a short "testing the engine" trip to Leverkusen, but time flies, so that may have been just over two weeks ago. Anyway, the engine problem is serious obviously and now we know - as we have kind of suspected - that the 8 June sailing will be on another ship.

 

Wish other cruise companies had their own tracking for river cruise ships. Phoenix Reisen has it for ocean but not for river. Would be nice to have the holes in the terrestrial tracking of the usual sites filled by the companies' own trackers.

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

Please note all docking is under the control of the local docking manager or master he or she has complete control of when and or where the final docking point is. 
I’m actually not surprised that exact timing is not given as it gives far more flexibility if for instance an excursion has to be cancelled and or substituted for whatever reason. What would happen if you booked your spa slot and say the water levels meant that the ship had to by pass that stop, one unhappy bunny. So what if you soon after boarding you talk to reception and see if there is anything they can do to make it happen.

[2012_Alaska_bound]

51 minutes ago, loriva said:

Still hopeful (because I am a pathological optimist) we can get past this, receive our final documents, and meet our tour director in Vienna in 2.5 weeks and start providing glowing reviews of Scenic as others have done.

 

On our Douro river cruise with a pre-cruise extension, even though our TA kept reminding Scenic that we would be leaving 3 weeks beforehand, they never did send the documents and backpack before we left. Came while we were gone. That said, all travel documents were also emailed to us, and none are necessary for traveling.  The Scenic transfer was waiting for us in baggage at the Lisbon airport just as the email told us he would be.

 

Is there something in the documents that you think you need to have in hand?

[notamermaid]

45 minutes ago, CJANDH said:

If it is going to substitute for Jade, it might just be repositioning.

Certainly a possibility. Weird with these tracking sites sometimes...

The river levels are fine.

21 minutes ago, Canal archive said:

Please note all docking is under the control of the local docking manager or master he or she has complete control of when and or where the final docking point is. 

Indeed. Viking is a bit more free with this on the Rhine, Moselle, Main and Danube as historically, i.e. coming from the use of KD ships and locations when they first started in Germany, have their own landing stages in many places. Having said that, Viking now has so many ships that there is sometimes no space at their own and they use local authority and docking company locations.

 

1 hour ago, loriva said:

We'd love to visit a spa in Baden-Baden after our walking tour, but have no idea if that will be possible so cannot reserve a time slot at the spa. 

Have you been in touch with the spa per e-mail or on the phone? You could put them to the test and see how far they are willing to go and rise to the challenge to make something happen for you. Tell them your problem with scheduling.

 

German companies often post times online for the excursions. It is of course always with the understanding that things can change at very short notice.

 

notamermaid

 

[pete_coach]

14 hours ago, jimmymac613 said:

 

Just got back from a meeting with my TA and we were all on a call with Scenic.  It seems that the Jade will not make the June 8th cruise out of Amsterdam and there will be a ship swap that they said would most likely be the Pearl.  They said everyone would be put in comparable rooms but not sure how that will work because we were supposed to be in a Deluxe Balcony Suite and the Pearl doesn't have those.

In my experience (limited having had to change ships 3 times on Budapest to Amsterdam trip), the difference between deluxe suit and regular balcony suite is the location. The deluxe suites were]closer to the foyer (reception) area. All are the same size.

[Canal archive]

On Scenic the Deluxe Balcony suits are yes closer to reception but also as Jazz has said slightly more floor space of 20 sq ft. I quite like them.

[Canal archive]

Pete-coach what deck are you on? Genuine question?

[DougK]

17 hours ago, loriva said:

That site furthers my confusion over what the Pearl (which may or may not be the ship we're traveling on starting 22 June if the Jade is still not sailing) did yesterday.  According to the usual "Romantic Rhine and Moselle" itinerary, it should have spent the day docked in Kehl (for Strasbourg) but the track for yesterday shows it north of Bonn.  Today it is in Mannheim, so that would not seem correct.  Some sort of glitch with the transponder on the Pearl?  CruiseMapper, MarineTraffic, and VesselFinder all showed the ship bypassing Kehl yesterday.  That is when they showed positional information--all had alerts about the long length of time from last report.  Anyone have any idea why the ship would not dock at its scheduled stop?  Per @notamermaidreporting, it should not be an issue of water level on the Rhine.

 

 

Something strange is definitely happening with the transponders. It would appear that *two* ships have been reporting as the Pearl, starting on the 27th. The tracking showed that the Pearl came down the Rhine as expected on the 27th to Kehl, arriving around 6:00A, and then left around 1:30P (a normal stop), continuing on down the Rhine and stopping again at Rastatt around 7:00P (for the evening concert). But *also* on the 27th, it shows the Pearl suddenly appearing at about 8:00A around Düsseldorf and travelling up the Rhine, stopping in Cologne for the day, and coming close to Bonn past midnight. And just to complicate matters, the tracking site defaults to showing this phantom track on the map; you have to move the map to see the real track around Kehl and Rastatt showing up as well. On the 28th, it also shows the Pearl twice, once continuing down the Rhine from Rastatt, stopping at Mannheim, but also continuing up the Rhine from Bonn to Koblenz. 

 

I would say that one of the other Scenic ships accidentally switched their transponder to report as the Pearl, but that doesn't seem right, since none of the other ships in the area have disappeared. So I have no clue as to what ship is doing the phantom reporting, or what's going on. But it looks like the (real) Pearl is proceeding on the normal Romantic Rhine and Moselle itinerary.

[Canal archive]

Interesting on Anyoverip she is currently moored, on marine traffic in the same area but moving and showing Swiss Pearl in the same area and on vessel finder two Scenic Pearl are listed one shows her on the move and another implys she is out of commission. Now there’s a conundrum!

[notamermaid]

As annoying as it is for the cruisers this has turned into an interesting detective story. I think some ship spotting is in order. I would miss the Pearl if I went to the river probably, I will use the webcam option to find the real Pearl.

 

Last signal place is Rüdesheim dock with Bernkastel-Kues set as destination.

 

Bingen webcam towards Rüdesheim shows the Scenic Jasper as having just left Rüdesheim (around 12.55pm) going into the Rhine Gorge! The Scenic Pearl I cannot see, she may be hidden from view behind the island.

https://www.bergfex.de/sommer/bingen-am-rhein/webcams/c18050/

 

 

Not much signalling in the Rhine Gorge due to the hills, so if we cannot find the Pearl at Rüdesheim, next good webcam is Oberwesel, after that Boppard.

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

Ohh new game hunt river cruise vessel 🚢 

[CJANDH]

23 minutes ago, Canal archive said:

Ohh new game hunt river cruise vessel 🚢 

Let's find her. 😆

[pete_coach]

21 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Pete-coach what deck are you on? Genuine question?

On the Sapphire, mid deck, near front, Sapphire deck I think it is called. Balcony suite.

All balcony suites are 205 sq ft, regardless of location.

Edited May 29, 2022 by pete_coach

[CJANDH]

2 hours ago, notamermaid said:

As annoying as it is for the cruisers this has turned into an interesting detective story. I think some ship spotting is in order. I would miss the Pearl if I went to the river probably, I will use the webcam option to find the real Pearl.

 

Last signal place is Rüdesheim dock with Bernkastel-Kues set as destination.

 

Bingen webcam towards Rüdesheim shows the Scenic Jasper as having just left Rüdesheim (around 12.55pm) going into the Rhine Gorge! The Scenic Pearl I cannot see, she may be hidden from view behind the island.

https://www.bergfex.de/sommer/bingen-am-rhein/webcams/c18050/

 

 

Not much signalling in the Rhine Gorge due to the hills, so if we cannot find the Pearl at Rüdesheim, next good webcam is Oberwesel, after that Boppard.

 

notamermaid

 

According to myshiptracking.com Pearl is still heading north and just passed Sandaue at around 12:20 local time. notamermaid:  can you charter a helicopter and go find our girl?

[notamermaid]

Found her! I used the brilliant archive option of the webcam I linked to above and time stamped 14.10 she is sailing facing downstream:

 

Which means that as usual the current signal is lost at Rüdesheim which happens to most ships, i.e. here vesselfinder still places the Pearl as docked, last signal five hours ago as I write.

 

The signal will probably reappear as the actual real time signal around Boppard. Depending on website it could be as far downstream as Andernach or, in the Pearl's case today, on the Moselle.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[notamermaid]

2 minutes ago, CJANDH said:

can you charter a helicopter and go find our girl?

That would have been the other option . But as you see (we posted at the same time) the webcam was adequate enough.

 

The Oberwesel webcam is not quite as good on features, so we may miss her there. Have got a few things to do, so if anyone wants to "watch telly" at Oberwesel

https://www.feratel.com/en/webcams/germany/schoenburg-oberwesel.html

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Canal archive]

Pete-coach deluxe are slightly larger and on Diamond deck but not all Scenic vessels have deluxe cabins.