Danube water levels 2024 and similar topics - plus tips and info

[notamermaid]

5 hours ago, Maverick69 said:

I wish Emerald would cancel our Trip leaving Budapest on Sunday the 22. Can't see anything positive happening in a couple of days. Not interested in an expensive bus trip when it can be avoided.

Welcome to Cruisecritic. It is several days still till the beginning of your cruise but I share your sentiment and concern.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Passau gauge has peaked and is now at 776cm. The Isar is very high and the Vils is also still draining excess water so the level at Vilshofen is rising again. This should be manageable at Passau. The Danube at Schwabelweis has also gone up again a little. The level there is 391cm. Although it has stopped raining and the levels should get better in Germany and Austria soon, this will be a drawn-out high water situation while all the tributaries give their high volumes to the Danube.

 

Linz gauge has already peaked and the level has fallen significantly since lunchtime, yet overall the level is still very high. The situation tonight:

 

notamermaid

 

 

[notamermaid]

Movement in the border section allowed:

 

The Viking Gymir is still in Tulln:

 

I cannot see any ships moving into and out of Budapest (two ships signal as underway but the signals are outdated).

 

And speaking of being stranded: I have never heard of this town but it apparently has a landing stage big enough to allow two ships being rafted together:

 

I will leave it at that for tonight and retire. Talk to you tomorrow.

 

notamermaid

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:31 PM by notamermaid
deleted double screenshot

[luv2trvlmep]

This is so weird looking at all the longships parked together, kind of reminds me of 2020 during COVID. I really hope we are able to cruise as I would love to hear what it was like from the crew, looks like in Bratislava there are 7 Viking ships together sounds like a party waiting to happen.

[RDVIK2016]

6 minutes ago, luv2trvlmep said:

This is so weird looking at all the longships parked together, kind of reminds me of 2020 during COVID. I really hope we are able to cruise as I would love to hear what it was like from the crew, looks like in Bratislava there are 7 Viking ships together sounds like a party waiting to happen.

luv2trvlmep,  Vessel Tracker enforced some discipline to those party goers and got them all to line up! 

[RDVIK2016]

3 hours ago, notamermaid said:

....

And speaking of being stranded: I have never heard of this town but it apparently has a landing stage big enough to allow two ships being rafted together:

 

I will leave it at that for tonight and retire. Talk to you tomorrow.

 

notamermaid

 

Here's another boat stuck in an out of the place.  Viking Tor docked at Brandstett (Pupping) a place with a population of 111.  On the map it looks like just a couple of Gasthäuser put in their own berth.

[notamermaid]

Brandstatt at the Aschach river? I checked the location, it is indeed near Aschach where one of the locks is. I guess in Aschach itself the dock is already occupied, I can spot at least one barge there. It looks really desperate and short notice, docking at Brandstatt.

 

Looking better:

 

notamermaid

 

 

[notamermaid]

Passau gauge has dropped into flood warning level 1. 733cm is still too high but we will likely see a further good improvement within 24 hours. There is still a lot of water in the Isar and that needs a bit of time to pass through.

 

Not up to date but here is the article of travel weekly and how they report on the flooding: https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/tourism/floods-trigger-warnings-over-rising-danube-water-levels

 

Up to the border with Slovakia the situation has improved now and public transport is returning to normal service.

 

In Poland, the flooding is worse than in 1997. In Austria, some gauges are coming close to the flooding in 2013. That year saw widespread flooding that affected more countries and regions in Europe. This weather we have just had in Europe is called a Vb, in 2002 such a weather pattern wreaked havoc on the Elbe, we are seeing it again now, but the river appears to be staying under the levels of that year.

 

Back to Austria: No change to the navigation in the last five hours. Which leaves the Viking Gymir still in Tulln:

 

But the situation is improving. Where the Austrian Danube ends and the river becomes the border between Austria and Slovakia is the town of Hainburg. The last Austrian gauge there is Thebnerstraßl. This is what the graph looks like now:

The current level is 916cm. You can see that this is a long plateau but the level should come down soon.

 

Esztergom is on flood alert level 3 and Budapest has reached flood alert level 2. The worst is yet to come in Hungary. Remember that the river in Austria, Slovakia and the border regions of Hungary has to take on an enormous amount of water from the tributaries.

 

This is what happened in Vienna particularly. The Wien river flows through the city and into the Canal. It is a small river that swells dramatically in flooding and it is only the sophisticated engineering that keeps the river at bay and from causing enormous damage. The authorities have confirmed that the height of the Wien was in the range of a thousand year flood occurrence. The water was retained in large basins and and the discharge regulated in this way. German article, just to confirm my statement: https://presse.wien.gv.at/presse/2024/09/18/wiener-gewaesser-daten-zeigen-1000-jaehrliches-hochwasser-am-wienfluss

 

notamermaid

 

 

Edited 19 hours ago by notamermaid

[notamermaid]

Perhaps this is helpful. Excursion boat trips in Budapest are not running: https://budapestrivercruise.com/budapest-river-cruises-cancelled-flood-alert-and-protection-september-2024

 

notamermaid

 

[Yorkieboy1972]

Five Vikings and two TUI boats still snuggled together in Bratislava. I don’t know if there’s still any passengers onboard but if there is I bet they’re having a fun time with a mass Boat Hopping Party?🤪

[moonriver54]

I just copied this Danube - Budapest data from a few different web sites.  Unfortunately it's looking like a tough few days ahead for the city, with peak flooding occurring this Saturday, 21 September.

 

At risk of doing public math, the current water level is 720 cm in Budapest, with a forecast peak water level of 846 cm on Saturday. 846 cm - 720 cm = 126 cm, or for the Americans...an additional 4.1 feet of water yet to go.

 

Live Budapest webcam on the Buda side of the river showing a walk UP to each moored ship vice the more typical walk DOWN to the ship: https://www.earthcam.com/world/hungary/budapest/?cam=hotelvictoria#google_vignette

 

Edited 18 hours ago by moonriver54

[KathyK13]

Someone posted last week on social media that their Avalon Danube Dreams cruise this week was canceled.  While they were disappointed, they appreciated Avalon being proactive and not waiting until this week to cancel.  I wonder if other lines canceled Danube cruises for this week.

[luv2trvlmep]

36 minutes ago, KathyK13 said:

Someone posted last week on social media that their Avalon Danube Dreams cruise this week was canceled.  While they were disappointed, they appreciated Avalon being proactive and not waiting until this week to cancel.  I wonder if other lines canceled Danube cruises for this week.

We are doing a pre-cruise in Prague from 9/21-9/23 and are scheduled to board the Viking Ingvi in Passau on 9/24. According to the Viking WEB site everything is fine, I am looking forward to having a first hand view of the Viking magic and can’t wait to see how they make the flood disappear 🫠 I will continue to post as we arrive as I have appreciated all of the information that has been shared on this forum and would like to reciprocate.

[Maverick69]

We'll be arriving in Budapest on the 20 th.  I'll do the same.

[notamermaid]

19 minutes ago, luv2trvlmep said:

We are doing a pre-cruise in Prague from 9/21-9/23 and are scheduled to board the Viking Ingvi in Passau on 9/24.

It will likely work out as long as the Ingvi is in a location that is not having a prolonged river traffic ban.

 

There is a lot of water still in the area but Prague should be a pleasant place to be in. The map of the German authorities:

 

The Czech authorities put Prague below level 1 though so things are not too bad. you can see details here:

https://hydro.chmi.cz/hpps/pov/objekt/307225?lng=ENG

 

Right now the Ingvi is in Bratislava harbour. Four days to go and upstream a bit of a struggle but with no stopping, let us see 338km from Bratislava to Passau at 5 knots per hour is 37 hours travelling time. But there are the locks so that puts it at around 40 hours. Very rough calculation.

 

Have a great trip.

 

notamermaid

 

[luv2trvlmep]

2 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

It will likely work out as long as the Ingvi is in a location that is not having a prolonged river traffic ban.

 

There is a lot of water still in the area but Prague should be a pleasant place to be in. The map of the German authorities:

 

The Czech authorities put Prague below level 1 though so things are not too bad. you can see details here:

https://hydro.chmi.cz/hpps/pov/objekt/307225?lng=ENG

 

Right now the Ingvi is in Bratislava harbour. Four days to go and upstream a bit of a struggle but with no stopping, let us see 338km from Bratislava to Passau at 5 knots per hour is 37 hours travelling time. But there are the locks so that puts it at around 40 hours. Very rough calculation.

 

Have a great trip.

 

notamermaid

 

Thanks, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a different ship sitting in Passau waiting for us.

[66Kayla]

I was on the Viking Aegir last week (disembarked Sunday AM in Passau) and wondered what the status of the ship and the river was, and found this thread.

On Monday I looked at where the Aegir was and saw that they were on their way to Linz, where they are docked now (and IMO the least exciting of the stops on the cruise, unfortunately).

It looks like we were lucky to finish our cruise before things got bad, though when we were in Passau on our excursion the fire department was putting sandbags out everywhere. Our ship had initially docked at the city center, but after a few hours we had to move to Lindau due to water levels. 

 

 

[notamermaid]

1 hour ago, KathyK13 said:

I wonder if other lines canceled Danube cruises for this week.

German companies did, so did a Swiss one. Not sure about European river cruise companies.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

18 minutes ago, luv2trvlmep said:

Thanks, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a different ship sitting in Passau waiting for us.

Ah, yes. That may happen as well.

 

24 minutes ago, 66Kayla said:

Our ship had initially docked at the city center, but after a few hours we had to move to Lindau due to water levels. 

Welcome to Cruisecritic. Lindau has become a regular alternative to city docking now. Good to read that you had a very good cruise. I do admit that I found Linz the least exciting of our stops as well. It was interesting but I could not appreciate it much. Although I do have fond memories of Linzer Torte and buying souvenirs.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Kenster]

1 hour ago, luv2trvlmep said:

We are doing a pre-cruise in Prague from 9/21-9/23 and are scheduled to board the Viking Ingvi in Passau on 9/24. According to the Viking WEB site everything is fine, I am looking forward to having a first hand view of the Viking magic and can’t wait to see how they make the flood disappear 🫠 I will continue to post as we arrive as I have appreciated all of the information that has been shared on this forum and would like to reciprocate.

Viking is infamous for lying to its passengers regarding irregular ops. Their typical MO is to tell pax that everything is good. Then the minute you step on board, they drop the hammer. 
They are currently stating there are no issues or cancellations when, in fact, their ships are dead in the water, like every other line. 
They should stop this culture of corporate disinformation and the general spreading of BS to their customers. 

[notamermaid]

A German video with subtitles, for fans of machinery, that is helicopters. The military is securing a dam near Tulln:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btERET3nHQ4

 

And a short private video from Slovakia. I do not recognize the location but I can tell you that judging from seeing "my" river flood, this is a very strong current:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtr2c0URH6c

 

One can tell that something is still not right in Germany, if three river cruise ships are docked at Straubing. The TUI Isla has just joined the River Princess and the S.S. Beatrice:

 

I have not looked at the details but notifications have been sent to river traffic of lock closures and traffic bans over the last few days. I am not sure what still applies but it appears that Hofkirchen gauge is too high and a ban has come into effect there. The figure is 484cm, HSW (highest level permitted for traffic) is set at 480cm. Likewise Vilshofen looks too high.

 

Must admit that I had not expected that much of a rise at that spot, Passau is somewhat coping with the waters from its three rivers.

 

notamermaid

 

[JOR70]

Is there any way to find out where the Uniworld ships are now? We’re supposed to go from Budapest to Passau starting this Sunday. I’m assuming that’s not going to happen but wondering if they might be able to bus us to the ship a little farther up the river. 

[luv2trvlmep]

I use the ship tracker, pretty easy and flexible

https://www.cruisemapper.com

 

[luv2trvlmep]

Looks like a couple ships have moved out of Linz and heading up to Passau 

[cruisr]

i have friends who were to be going with Tauck River cruises on the Esprit from Budapest.

In true Tauck style my friends have already received from Tauck a lengthy email detailing the situation and advising that the itinerary will possibly be modified, stays may be longer in places and parts of the trip may involve motorcoach and hotels.  Whilst disappointed the fact that they will not be surprised upon their arrival in Budapest is greatly appreciated by them.