Rhone River Conditions

[ATSEAMYLIFE]

In September 2023, we are doing the Rhone southbound to Arles on Avalon.  I would be interested to hear from people who are doing it this year.  With all this drought I'm concerned about the river conditions.  

[Gourmet Gal]

How late in Sept.?

[ATSEAMYLIFE]

On 8/11/2022 at 12:38 PM, Gourmet Gal said:

How late in Sept.?

We sail 9/5/2023  

[Gourmet Gal]

Well, looks like this Sept 5 will probably have issues on the Rhine…seems to just be getting worse this month but I don’t know if there’s a parallel with the Rhöne. Next year is another year and you never know. I prefer later in the Fall anyway…cooler with Fall color and by mid-Oct. some rain could relieve conditions.  The Rhöne river valley is very hot in the summer.

[notamermaid]

The Rhone is a major commercial waterway in Europe and controlled by locks. While obviously the river can be low when it does not rain, problems like on a free-flowing river are less likely to occur. You can read a little here: https://www.french-waterways.com/waterways/south-east/river-rhone/

 

The upper part including the sailed bit on the Saone, if you do that, may be different. Not sure about that area.

 

But hopefully a recent cruiser will tell you about their experience.

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

Unbelievable the last time I experienced 36 degrees was on our Rhône cruise now I’m at home with the same temperature, but there’s something missing ohh could it be our wonderful Scenic crew.

[ATSEAMYLIFE]

We leave in 15 days for a southbound Rhone river on Avalon from Lyon to Arles.  Anybody know the current river levels?  Anybody going with us?  

[Host Jazzbeau]

There are three forum for River Cruising related questions:

•  this main River Cruising forum

•  the River Cruise Ports sub-forum – which is only for questions about individual river ports

•  the All Other River Cruise Roll Calls forum – which is where your second question belongs (but where you are highly unlikely to get any answers, because roll calls don't work for river cruises with the small number of passengers on river ships)

[gnome12]

58 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

There are three forum for River Cruising related questions:

•  this main River Cruising forum

•  the River Cruise Ports sub-forum – which is only for questions about individual river ports

•  the All Other River Cruise Roll Calls forum – which is where your second question belongs (but where you are highly unlikely to get any answers, because roll calls don't work for river cruises with the small number of passengers on river ships)

Shouldn’t it be three fora? 😀

[Host Jazzbeau]

2 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

Shouldn’t it be three fora? 😀

I meant to say 'forums' – once it became an English word it goes with English pluralization.

 

Oh, but you're Canadian, sorry:  pluralisation  😉

[gnome12]

1 hour ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

I meant to say 'forums' – once it became an English word it goes with English pluralization.

 

Oh, but you're Canadian, sorry:  pluralisation  😉

I was going with the counting analogy a-three-a, a-four-a. (Yes I would use forums too.)
 

And as a Canadian, I think we generally use the zed (not zee) in words like pluralization. We go for the British spellings on ou words like neighbour, but I think we go with American spellings on the zed words. 🤔

[Host Jazzbeau]

1 hour ago, gnome12 said:

I was going with the counting analogy a-three-a, a-four-a.

Sorry to admit that went right over my head.  

[Canal archive]

Oh just shove the ubiquitous apostrophe in then that will cause no end of troubles or trouble’s. 🤪

[pontac]

On 8/22/2023 at 1:32 AM, ATSEAMYLIFE said:

We leave in 15 days for a southbound Rhone river on Avalon from Lyon to Arles.  Anybody know the current river levels? 

 

To answer your question. We got back Tuesday 22/8 from a Rhone cruise Avignon-Arles-Lyon

 

No river issues. Lyon is the point where the Saone river joins the Rhone. We didn't sail on it, but crossed it by bridge a couple of times and it looked in good health.

 

So you are going down river on the contents of the Rhone & Saone. I don't think you'll have water problems.

 

However - it was very hot, 35-38C.

[ATSEAMYLIFE]

1 minute ago, pontac said:

 

To answer your question. We got back Tuesday 22/8 from a Rhone cruise Avignon-Arles-Lyon

 

No river issues. Lyon is the point where the Saone river joins the Rhone. We didn't sail on it, but crossed it by bridge a couple of times and it looked in good health.

 

So you are going down river on the contents of the Rhone & Saone. I don't think you'll have water problems.

 

However - it was very hot, 35-38C.

Perfect exactly the info I was looking for.  We are south bound from Chalon sur-Saone to Arles leaving September 5th.  It appears the weather will cool down for us to around 26-28C.  

[Canal archive]

It was exceptionally hot when we did this cruise and when the weather broke, boy did it rain wow then it stormed wonderfully. The only challenges I have ever heard of on the Saone and Rhône is that one of the bridges in Lyon gets lower when the water levels rise and has some time ago caused a few challenges.