notamermaid

Fancy a round of golf and cruising the Rhine? You can combine a trip along the river and that sport on a river cruise with Amadeus: https://www.amadeus-rivercruises.co.uk/river-cruises/detail/2023/golf-cruise-on-the-rhine-8-days I can confirm that the Golfclub Jakobsberg has a great setting on a plateau in the Rhine Gorge. An exclusive but good vibe was at the entrance gate - I do not play golf but was up there during a day trip with short hike in the area. notamermaid

Update from Geisling lock: https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/gesunkener-donaufrachter-soll-wieder-schwimmfaehig-gemacht-werden,TZ3by73 The plan is to float the barge. For that the hull will be stabilized with steel bars and the cracks sealed. Then the ship can be pulled out of the lock and to Austria - I assume to the ÖSWAG shipyard in Linz - as there is no place along the Bavarian Danube to get the ship into a dry dock. notamermaid

An interesting question. I do not think so. The geographical and the geopolitical views overlap. Germany can be put to West or Central; when we had an "iron curtain" West and Central (affectively "East" to the amateur view, i.e. looking at it from Germany) were distinguished more according to that political affiliation. There appear to be different views on this. The continental divide for the water also does not run in a line that is West, Central, East, it is more complicated. These are the basins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_watershed#/media/File:Europäische_Wasserscheiden.png Notice the divide that goes right through Britain. The Thames and the Rhine belong to the same wider geographical water systems. Way in the distant past they were connected, some reports even say that the Thames was a tributary of the Rhine. But that is a different story. Perhaps for the water cooler thread. notamermaid

A quick look at Pfelling. The level has fallen steadily now for a few days and tonight the figure is 385cm. This is good and despite the forecast giving a wide margin of error in the next 48 hours the most likely expected figure is no lower than 370cm and both high and low predictions are pleasant figures as well. I dare say this looks promising for the next few days as the trend is more towards up rather than down further upstream. notamermaid

I had been wondering, too, if there was too much stress on the hull midships. Basic rules of loading and unloading are of course known to everyone... We may find out what happened to the Achim exactly in the reports. A ship did break in two while loading in the harbour at Kehl on the Rhine several weeks ago. notamermaid

River traffic would look quite different, I agree. It is possible though and the Romans proved early that it can be done. You just need the right ship for the right river. Granted, not all river sections would work, on the Rhine basically everything apart from the Rhine Falls (massive water fall) would, but other rivers would be trickier. As regards river cruising, well this is - let me be cheeky here - probably more the size of Viking ships we would see on the rivers, the Viking Orvar: https://binnenschifffahrt-online.de/2019/12/schiffstechnik/12041/ notamermaid

Thank you for saying hello and following. Have a great cruise. To expand on the topic of locks and put it into context, here meaning the river having locks and then being free-flowing which leads to being affected by the changes of the seasons and the weather more, I post you a screenshot of the waterway Rhine: The Rhine with locks is purple, after that it is blue all the way to Rotterdam, "free" to do what it wants. The Neckar and the Main coming from the East are the main tributaries supplying water up to the Rhine Gorge. The Moselle coming from the (South)west is too far North, it does not have an affect at Kaub. notamermaid

Indeed it isn't. You can go on several river cruises on the rivers and canals of Europe over the years and never encounter a problem. Or you can be just completely unlucky as you have to deal with the aftermath of an incident, like for you the grounding of the ships on the Rhine. The one thing that can happen that we have not mentioned yet is strikes. Yup, the French were at it again about two weeks ago. The lock times were affected by the people on the French side striking. And they mean business. Some of the locks up there on the Rhine are run by the French authorities. This being a very busy river a backlog of ships waiting to be locked can happen easily and is no fun at all for shipping companies. German report: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/suedbaden/schleuse-marckolsheim-blockiert-100.html notamermaid

The "Achim" has re-emerged from the water in Geisling lock, that is to say the water has been pumped off so far that the whole ship is visible. You can see the damage in the video. During the course of today the inspection is being done and a decision made whether the barge can be taken out of the lock as a whole or needs to be cut into sections: https://video.mittelbayerische.de/geislinger-schleuse-bergung-von-frachter-achim-steht-bevor/ notamermaid

Traben-Trarbach also has a castle, the ruin called Grevenburg. There is not much left of it at all, but apparently the view is spectacular from up there. If you manage to get up there - not too difficult, it is accessible by a small road - you can eat something in the small restaurant called Burgschenke. The building is "built with love" to resemble something old. It is not old at all. After a long renovation the plateau with view is open to the public again and the Burgschenke has got a new proprietor. A Joseph Griffin from California! So should you happen to order a "Würstchen" up there on the hill, do not be surprised to hear a familiar accent... News article behind paywall unfortunately. notamermaid

Welcome to CC. I mentioned the size of river cruise ships. Viking with the 135m ships tends to go for ship swaps before other companies, but that is a general rule and not carved in stone. The bottleneck is at Kaub, as I mentioned, but it is actually a stretch from near Rüdesheim to Braubach. Kaub gauge is the marker for shipping. When the level gets really low, this stretch naturally expands and can be quite long. In a bad year it has been from Worms to Koblenz. But for now all looks good, Kaub is at 270cm. Your dates are actually a bit too far into the future to give accurate data, the official forecast is only for 36 hours, after that we get a probability modelling. But the modelling puts any scenario well above 150cm and below 350cm so in all likelihood your river cruise will start on 2 April with perfect levels. notamermaid

My pleasure. I have a bit of time on my hands this weekend. You are sailing with Scenic. I have actually little recollection of scenarios of what the company has done over the years when the water was low. I think I should expand on my mention of river cruise ship sizes. Each ship is a tiny bit different but as a general rule, the shorter ships fare better when the river is low. As the standard is either 110m or 135m these days - few in between sizes remain - we can say that the difference in draft of those two sizes gives the smaller ships an advantage. It is not much but and not clear cut science. Your captain on your ship will know what is safest. I tend to give the figure of 90cm to look out for on the graph at Kaub on a downward trend. If the volume of water coming from the Upper Rhine valley is low and it does not rain, this could take the level at Kaub down to where you do not want it to be. Again, your ship counts, so you may be fine at 80cm, 70cm, 60cm. In most years, almost all 110m ships get through the Rhine Gorge fine. notamermaid

That put a smile on my face - well put together. 🙂 It is indeed the case that barges and tankers run at reduced load before any river cruise ship is affected. The river may be low for the logistics of trade and it makes the headlines in the US, especially in business papers. It could be low for weeks before any river cruise ship passenger needs to worry. An example: Kaub could fall to 150cm, which triggers the low water surcharge for the shipping industry, on 2 August, then fall further to 95cm in the following two weeks, only to go up again to 105cm. This is all low in figures but not a problem for a river cruise ship. The 95cm has the potential to be a bit tricky on a shallow docking site, but is normally not a problem for any sailing (tiny details only known to captains along the way excepted). Which brings me to Kaub in the Rhine Gorge where the bottleneck is infamously located. This is a marinetraffic.com screenshot: You can follow your ship along, see where it is at any given time, but here is the caveat: the Rhine Gorge has sketchy terrestrial signals due to the hills, so the ships' signals are lost. You cannot get real time data with the free version of this website. Between Ingelheim and Boppard little data comes through. notamermaid

Welcome to CC. I am a sure you will enjoy your river cruise and Budapest immensely. But it is good to be prepared. So here are the graphs for Hungary, the Danube and tributaries: https://www.hydroinfo.hu/en/hidelo/hidelo_graf_duna.html Just click on Budapest where the towns are listed. It is not plenty but high enough for cruising right now from what I have observed over the years. Please note though that I cannot give details of what happens in Hungary at a level that is significantly lower than this, I am not familiar with calculating this. I can only do Germany. notamermaid

Oh yes. The river is very cold and it is much harder to get to dry land on the wide approach to the lock, so the crew were very lucky. And the impact to the environment could be kept to a minimum. It is going well as regards time, i.e. the press release and regional newspaper give me confidence that they will manage to get this sorted by the time the locks are scheduled to reopen. Yes, it would affect river cruises going to or from Regensburg, which includes the Grand European of course. Have a great time on the AmaMagna. notamermaid

Although self-evident to me - and many other people I am sure - the CLIA chair Mr. Bouldin felt the need to say this: https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/tour-operators/clia-chair-urges-river-cruise-operators-to-broaden-narrow-websites Perhaps there are too few young people in photos being very active on a river cruise on the company's websites... We all know the power of good photos and being employed in tourism marketing myself I am familiar with what photos can do - I prefer to leave all that instagram fiddling to my younger colleagues though. I agree that there is a good river cruise out there that will fit (almost) everyone, apart from paragliding perhaps. You just need to know how to guide your customer to the product - be it a relaxing trip gliding along a river or canal or a family adventure trip on a custom-built river cruise ship for those active youngsters. notamermaid

Surprise news from the Expo, the Riverside Mozart was given a proper ceremony for her re-naming, complete with godmother: https://www.travelweekly.com/River-Cruising/Riverside-christens-Mozart-surprise-ceremony?ct=river notamermaid

Hello and welcome to CruiseCritic. You have chosen a very popular route for first time cruisers and I dare say a good date. Historically, flooding from Spring is through by then and low water not there yet. For the Rhine I am more confident than for the Danube to be able to stick to this for this year as well. We are starting on a bit of a low for this year but as we saw last week, the Rhine is able to get to a good level with just 24 hours of constant rain. This becomes a bit more difficult when the temperatures go up, i.e. needs a bit more rain. We cannot say what the weather will be in Summer but the real problems in the Rhine gorge tend to start in September. Last year saw an early start to problems at the end of July. Also consider this: what is your company and ship? Viking with a 135m ship? Amawaterways with a 135m ship? Avalonwaterways with an older 110m ship? Or a different company entirely? Also consider this: what will happen most likely when the water is too low? A ship swap? A cancellation? Do you know what your company's policy is? Also consider this: where are you coming from, i.e. how do you need to travel to get to your cruise and what would a disruption do to your enjoyment? All in all, companies do well, ship swaps are smooth on the Rhine - remember that they do not happen every year and I have not read of one being necessary during the time period you are travelling. Past cruisers please step forward if you have done a ship swap in the first half of July. What would you change to that could be similar to a river cruise in the area? A river cruise is a unique experience. A land tour can give you a great different insight into life along the Rhine of course. Question is really, how much are you willing to accept a disruption to your river cruise? Again, overall it is unlikely to happen - by that I mean on a probability scale for a calendar year - and when it does, depending on ship and company, it is likely to be mild but will require being flexible with excursions and coach travel. notamermaid

It is 18 March and the 175th anniversary of the Märzrevolution in Germany. You do not hear that much about this phase in German history on a standard river cruise I reckon. It was quite a decisive event and while the big things happened in Berlin of course, Frankfurt had been chosen as the place for the assembly, more precisely the Paulskirche. If you would like to learn a bit about this aspect of history in this anniversary year, you can book a tour: https://www.frankfurt-tourismus.de/en/frankfurt/offer/detail/Anniversary-tour-Update-Democracy.-Following-up-on-the-1848-Revolution-English-Adult-NDS00020140423164728?globalReset=1&lang=en Or you can just read about it: https://paulskirche.de/en/pages/the-history-of-paulskirche notamermaid

Welcome to CruiseCritic and thank you for saying hello here. Perhaps you have actually looked at this already but it is kind of customary for us here on CC to recommend the pinned threads at the the top of this page to new members. Great info compiled by our host. Amsterdam to Budapest is one of the longest standard journeys along the magnificent rivers of Europe. And you also get to see that feat of engineering which is the Main Danube Canal. That canal we cover as a topic in the thread on the Danube. If you fancy reading a bit about the Main this is the thread: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2670259-the-river-main-infos-and-river-cruising-experiences/ Things are quiet along the Rhine now, water levels are okay, and we have a bit of early Spring in the air, meaning the weather has calmed down. It is quite warm during the day. Before I forget, I had mentioned we would look at the river at Maxau again to see what may happen on 24th to 26th March. Right now the most likely scenario is for the river level to be around 505cm on the 25th of March with the computer modelling giving a wide range of figures after that but looking favourable for the level to stay in a good range nevertheless, i.e. no extremes either way. This means Kaub looks good for the rest of the month. notamermaid

Update from Geisling lock 880 tons of the 1100 tons of iron ore have been unloaded from the barge. Although the original plan was to get all the load, it was decided after this press release: https://www.wsa-donau-mdk.wsv.de/Webs/WSA/Donau-MDK/DE/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/PM3_Havarie_SchlGeisling2023.html to abandon the rest. I cannot link the updated info from a local newspaper. The water level will now be reduced to 2 metres for a part of the chamber, i.e. a chamber within the chamber will be created and the ship further inspected. They are very careful about not spilling Diesel or oil unnecessarily into the environment. Then a decision will be made as how to deal with the ship itself. notamermaid

The Main, different from the Danube and Rhine, is controlled for its entire length as a German federal waterway by locks. River cruisers will never see the uncontrolled Main unless they go on an excursion (or on a tiny boat). Here is the Main in the context of navigable rivers (the map is international and by the institution designed to be in German, English and Russian): The black arrow lines are the locks. You can see the light blue stretches of the free-flowing Rhine and Danube. You can see the young Main going around the word Bamberg as a thin blue line. While the Main is so much narrower in many stretches than the Rhine the fact that it is controlled and as deep - in parts deeper - makes it a more reliable waterway as regards water levels. notamermaid

Oh, yes! Oh, nooo!! No one on mainland Europe would have been safe. They were happy to raid along the Rhine and Moselle already. notamermaid

A trip to Nickenich village in the volcanic Eifel part 2 A churchyard, complete with cemetery or not, and church always need exploring. As one can expect in Germany anywhere in such a setting there was a war memorial for WWI. The archangel Michael slaying the dragon, as far as I can tell made of local stone: The one for WWII was just a few steps away. On the steps this pretty butterfly greeted us in the sunlight, it was an astonishingly warm day for February: I had lost my bearings and was not sure which way to go to find a specific street so I asked the lady at the church door. She was leaving as we were about to go in. Question answered but then she added: “And if you want to see the tumulus, that is up the village on the main road”. A cheerful thank you from me and my brain puzzled: did she mean tumulus as in Romano-Celtic burial hill?? But first the church. As only the chapel was accessible and the main church interior locked with iron bars, I took a photo of the unusual iron spiral staircase: and the hall through the gate's bars. The first floor above us there will likely hold the organ: I had mentioned in my previous post that Monday was an unfortunate choice for a visit. The reason: the bakery was closed! Monday sees very few people in the village and both bakeries are closed in the afternoon, so that Monday only gave us the chance to try out the butchers in Nickenich. I can confirm that the Wiener Würstchen sausages from there are good. While walking the village streets I was able to find out that Nickenich once had a castle (altogether now: nooo surprise, this is Germany), which has long gone as an edifice, but a Burgstrasse still leads to the former spot: The building on the left there is a typical design in the area. This gate is the old entrance to the working quarters of the castle: I would have liked to also check out the farm shop but things were getting a little late. After all, there was that tumulus that we still wanted to see. This is another farm building that apparently offers potatoes as the small sign under the road sign says: Then it was back to the car and up the road to the Tumulus. To be continued… notamermaid

The CroisiEurope's La Belle de Cadix is an interesting vessel that is both allowed to sail the Spanish rivers and the coastal areas: https://www.croisieurope.com/destination/bateaux-guadalquivir-guadiana With 110m by 11.40m she is of the modest size that can sail many rivers and with the standard low draft of river cruise ships she would certainly make it to the Main Danube Canal if she ever came to the colder shores of the North Sea from her home in Spain... notamermaid