Water Levels, Night Sailing etc

[letsgoeverywhere]

More questions!!

 

Does anyone have information on what sections of the rivers are usually affected by water levels and how often does it happen? Is it more frequent at any particular time of year.

 

Do the boats all travel at night? If you are docked at a Town what time would you depart? I am wondering if there is any opportunity to visit the local cafes after dinner before the boat leaves.

 

Thanks again!

[paul929207]

We took a Uniworld river cruise across Europe in 2003. The weather had been ver dry. Our ship had trouble on the lower Danube. We spent about 4 hours the first night out of Constanza trying to get across a sand bar. The captain finally turned the ship around and used the propeller to clear a channel as we backed across the sand bar.

 

As we headed towards Amsterdam, we were told the return cruise would probably not be able to go into the Danube. They would go to the Danube end of the Rhine/Main/Danube Canal and transfer everyone to buses for the rest of the tour.

 

We sometimes sailed at night, but mostly we sailed early in the morning 2 - 4am. It depends on how far to the next port.

 

Paul

[steamboats]

River cruise ships usually do travel by night as you have to be at the next town the next morning.

 

On the Danube river there a section near Straubing which can be a problem with low water and another section in the Slovakian Republic. High water usually affects the whole river as bridges are having less clearance. As in Passau there are two rivers merging into the Danube river this is a pretty difficult spot with high water. Usually there are spring "floods" because of the snow melt. This can be either in March or April. Won´t be much this year as we didn´t have much snow. But we also had severe flooding after two weeks of continious rain in August twice. It´s like the weather forecast: noone can tell you when the water is coming.

 

steamboats

[Buckland]

We were underway every night at dinner time. There was no chance of having dinner at any place except for those places where we docked for more than a day, like Amsterdam, Vienna, and Budapest. It would have been nice to sample the local fare, but the food on the ship was exquisite, and free! They would also tailor the menu to mirror that which you might find in the areas visited.

 

Buck