Grand Circle and the Elbe

We have been waiting for next year's schedule for the Elbe. Want to take the Christmas Market trip. Called snowy Boston the am to find out that GCT is suspending all Elbe trips next year. Said that 70% of the year has been "bus trips". Bummer!!!!! Pat

The Elbe has not even kind to the river cruisers. Next year is the Luther anniversary in Wittenburg. I suspect they know that hotels will difficult to come by, particularly at the last minute. We did this trip, as a non-cruise cruise and absolutely loved it . . . It would have been great to actually cruise.

 

Hopefully GCT will do a land tour of that area in December.

Be thankful they are suspending the cruises. Other companies are still going there with their cruises also turning into bus trips.

If you've been to Valencia, Spain you can enjoy the meandering park in what used to be the riverbed. Maybe they should do that with the Elbe! :)

We are due to sail with Viking on the Elbe in mid-March. It may be that at that time of year there is enough water for ships to sail the whole journey, but if they can't I suspect we may get little notice of the change. Has anyone sailed at this time of year?

 

Many people have written about having to do long coach journeys because there is too little water to sail the whole way, and sometimes there has been no sailing at all. May I ask where the ships are usually berthed, and how long the coach journeys are from Prague and Berlin? Is it to one ship at a mid-point, such as Dresden, or is there a ship at each end with coach journeys to all the towns en route?

Our Viking Elbe "cruise" in July 2014 was disrupted by low water. We spent three nights moored close to the centre of Dresden, a brilliant spot to moor, if moor one must. Then a long bus trip to Wittenburg (2 nights) at a mooring way out of town, nowhere to walk but a busy, narrow dusty road. We had one day's cruising to Madenburg and mooring was an easy walk to the city centre. All our local guides were excellent.

You may be right about very little notice of change. In our experience Viking subscribes to the mushroom principle of keeping passengers in the dark. To be fair, river levels are ever changing and beyond Viking's control. There are no locks downstream of the Czech German border to control river flow and the Czech water authority controls the border gate to retain water in its territory.

You will get more information from these boards (including the All River Cruises Roll Calls) and from the excellent websites that monitor the river levels of European rivers. Links to these are given in other posts, try a search here and on the river roll calls board and if you can't find links to the river level websites, post again and I will post website address.

We are due to sail with Viking on the Elbe in mid-March. It may be that at that time of year there is enough water for ships to sail the whole journey, but if they can't I suspect we may get little notice of the change. Has anyone sailed at this time of year?

 

Many people have written about having to do long coach journeys because there is too little water to sail the whole way, and sometimes there has been no sailing at all. May I ask where the ships are usually berthed, and how long the coach journeys are from Prague and Berlin? Is it to one ship at a mid-point, such as Dresden, or is there a ship at each end with coach journeys to all the towns en route?

We did the Elbe the beginning of April 2010 on the old Viking Clara Schuman. Our water levels were fine - perhaps because of me - in over 20 river trips I have missed only one (1) day of sailing per schedule - I am available to be a paid traveling companion for anyone wishing to guarantee their water levels:rolleyes: Actually the previous cruise (late March) had had issues with high water;the dock in Meissen was covered in dried mud.

 

Viking's itinerary on the Elbe has changed somewhat, so I can't be precise on the bus rides. For us the bus Berlin to the boat (then at Magdeburg, now scheduled for Wittenbrug) was an all day affair, but it involved numerous stops of interest, with no ride longer than about one hour. The bus ride to Prague was 1, maybe 2, hours.

 

Viking runs this cruise with a pair of boats going in opposite directions. IF there are water problems, where they will be docked depends on how much advance planning (ie how rapidly did the water level change) Viking was able to do, but probably one boat to the North and one toward the South. If they are not moving at all, you may well flip between boats in the middle of the "cruise" - somewhat of a pain to have to pack/unpack, but IMO worth it to shorten the tour bus rides.

 

Best wishes for good sailing

Thom

Thanks to HDS and TravelerThom for the helpful comments. I agree about the mushroom allusion, although I don't think it's just Viking. Hopefully there won't be too much water either, but at least we'll be warned; I had looked at that official site, thanks - mentioned in another thread.

 

We were on the Douro a couple of years ago, when Viking were about to launch a new ship. We could see no mention on the Viking site until the week before we travelled, which had us wondering if it existed. Then the cruise ahead of ours did almost the whole journey by bus, some very long trips. Ours turned out to be fine because the Captain hadn't been able to get down to Porto, through the lowest lock, so he was moored above the problem. We did the whole cruise in a different order, and it was a superb trip.

 

Mike

Edited December 18, 2016 by MikeD1000

If you are still interested in a "real" cruise on Elbe river, the french river cruise company "Croisieurope" has launched a new modern ship, specially built for low waters : the ship has a very short depth and is propelled by a wheel (like old Mississippi showboats!). Cruises are from Berlin to Prague (and reverse of course!) and, being one of the last ships really able to sail on Elbe, cabins are sold out very quickly.

 

 

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If you are still interested in a "real" cruise on Elbe river, the french river cruise company "Croisieurope" has launched a new modern ship, specially built for low waters : the ship has a very short depth and is propelled by a wheel (like old Mississippi showboats!). Cruises are from Berlin to Prague (and reverse of course!) and, being one of the last ships really able to sail on Elbe, cabins are sold out very quickly.

It is difficult to get much info on CroisiEurope here in the US. I thought I had read somewhere that even they were having problems on the Elbe (although probably less than other companies) - but I can't locate that article now.

 

This summer on a CruiseCritic Q&A with CroisiEurope http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2384450&highlight=elbe I asked about their success on the Elbe and the Loire and the answer indicated less than 100% success: "Even with the unpredictability of these rivers, we have had very few interruptions, no more than our standard boats face on the major rivers." Can you locate any information on CroisiEurope interruptions on the Elbe?

 

Thom

The Elbe Princesse ceased sailing a little later than other ships on the same stretch on the Elbe. The low draft means the ship can sail better and for longer than other ships but in September last year even the Elbe Princess ran into problems and could not complete its itineraries (German news report by schiffsjournal.de).

 

The Elbe Princess is a success for CroisiEurope, though. Some sailings on the German website are waiting-list-only now. Specific dates for the UK I can access, as google recognizes me to be in Germany I have problems with the American site. Here is the UK one: http://www.croisieurope.co.uk/cruises/berlin-prague-cruise-elbe-and-vltava-rivers-0.

 

Viking Schumann max draft ca. 1.26m, Viking Beyla ca. 1.15m, Elbe Princesse 0.90m (1.00m in a couple of news reports).

 

notamermaid

Edited January 10, 2017 by notamermaid

Sorry, I was unable to find anything about some interruptions in Elbe princess cruises, even on french websites. Just found something about a problem on the Loire princess (wheel been damaged in august by a violent stream, in low waters). To answer your question, absolutely no cruise line can give you a 100% success insurance : I've sailed a lot, with many cruiselines (oceans and rivers) and had sometimes problems : QEII unable to come back to Southampton because she had an accident in Bar Harbour, impossible to use tenders on rough seas, ship delayed (8 hours!) in hamburg because of strong winds, no stop in Klaipeda because clearing problems with port authority and no water enough on the Pô to sail. The Elbe princess has a short draft (90 cms) and she is more able to sail on the Elbe than classical ships, but she probably could encounter some problems if the river is very very low. The only thing I can say is that croisieurope is building a Elbe PrincessII (will be launched on 2018) and, as the owners have the reputation to be very successful businessmen , they probably wouldn't do if the ship had too many problems!

 

 

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Thanks to notamermaid and Al54 for your updates. I certainly know that issues are possible in any form of travel: I have missed ports a number of times because of weather or medical diversions, have encountered 20 metre waves in the North Atlantic on QE2, been stranded for some days during a general strike in Bolivia, been on the wrong end of an assault rifle during the Junta in Argentina, etc. But given all the experiences I have had, I feel that I've been lucky to have had as few problems as I have had.

 

Thom