notamermaid

River traffic issuspended at Mainz and at Bingen. Kaub is on the brink and looks very likely to happen. German report: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rheinland-pfalz/mainz/stadt-ingelheim-warnt-vor-hochwasser-durch-steigende-pegel-am-rhein-100.html notamermaid

I was wondering if this may happen. Thank you for confirming. The Rhine is busy with ships and it looks to be a scramble for a few ships to get where they want to be. Incidentally, if you happen to be on the Main you may not get onto the Rhine, because a) a low bridge on the Main may be in your way and/or b) the Rhine is closed to traffic at Mainz. Both Mainz and Bingen are now also at navigational flood mark II. More info coming in the Rhine thread later. The TUI Isla making it to Frankfurt by Saturday looks less and less likely. While the Main is not flooding right now, the river is nevertheless high and headroom under the low bridges reduced. Could be tight. And the Danube is still bringing much water from the upper reaches. Kelheim is still rising. notamermaid

Time for me to retire after an eventful day. A note though on the Upper Rhine valley. This high water will not pass as fast as we would like as the rivers of Switzerland are still draining much into the Rhine and there are tributaries that have now more or less drained into Lake Constance from the East. Basel gauge has risen again. More on that tomorrow and we will see how things have developed in the Rhine Gorge. notamermaid

The rescue operation for the TUI Isla: https://www.idowa.de/regionen/deggendorf/deggendorf/passagierschiff-auf-der-donau-bei-deggendorf-evakuiert-3773450.html There is a severe weather warning for an area near the Alps, that is more water for the Danube. It will come via the Inn mostly. The Inn is still high but has been falling a bit. Hopefully the rivers in that region will not rise much again as the Inn joins the Danube at Passau. Passau gauge at 906cm and rising: notamermaid

Have a good trip. notamermaid

I went on my river cruise on the Danube in April 2013. Then my ship the Belvedere had an accident in May. Then in June the flooding hit and no ships sailed. Exactly eleven years later the river looks more or less as it did then. And everyone was talking of a hundred year flood then. You saw lovely places in May, nice to read about this. I would like to see the Bavarian Forest again. I was there in 2012. notamermaid

So your brother knows where the ship will be because he was able to talk to a Viking guide on the ground in Germany, but they could not inform you in the US where the ship will be? I do wonder why the communication does not go from ground personnel to office personnel in the US. Besides that, you are already missing part of your cruise by now, i.e. you know you will, and if you had been informed that this massive interruption was going to happen you may have preferred - if it was not for meeting your brother - not to fly to Europe. That is not good communication. I feel sorry for those oblivious to this because they are just not informed by the company. People tend to say here on CC that the crew and staff on Viking ships are great so I am sure they will make up for this. Hope all goes well. notamermaid

So following on from the previous post I would say that they may be right for your cruise. They could do a "fast run" to Basel and make it. But it looks tight to me depending on where the Emerald Dawn meets the crest of the wave. Koblenz is getting flooding but at the moment it looks as if there will be no river traffic ban. If that is the case then things are looking good for gauges after that as the Moselle, as I mentioned before, is not contributing to the situation with a high volume of water. notamermaid

Good question. the wave is coming towards the Emerald Dawn, it is actually already in Koblenz but the crest of the wave will not hit Koblenz yet. Logistically I am not sure that I can get my head round this but this may be a scenario. The Emerald Dawn is in Koblenz in the morning so sails the Rhine Gorge in the afternoon. But the level at Kaub is forecast to rise so much that river traffic may be suspended in the afternoon in the Rhine Gorge. That would keep the Emerald Dawn at Koblenz for at least 6 hours. If she can get through the Gorge tomorrow she may sit out the wave and the high level at Rüdesheim for example. The authorities estimate that river traffic will resume at Maxau on Thursday. I would take this with a pinch of salt as the prediction as of now suggests it could be midnight going into Friday. Continued in next post... notamermaid

Most of them are quite skilled in dealing with this as it occurs every two years or in this instance every five to ten years. Authorities issue warnings, you can get leaflets informing you of the risk to your part of town or street even and online info. Right now there are regular updates every fifteen minutes for the locals. Still, it is work and nervousness - even anxiety if you are a new owner of a potentially affected property - that comes with living close to the river. And not every insurance is willing to insure your property or with the coverage you would have elsewhere - or it may be very expensive to get that type of contract. That is quite a way out in date still so there is every chance of things returning to normal but I have a feeling that ships may still not be in the place they should be according to their original itinerary. This week is bad, next week could still be shaky as we are expecting a lot of water still, but the week after next looks promising for normal conditions for sailing and completely resuming normal itineraries. Rather than just a short wave, the river may remain on a high so I am a bit cautious about saying that we will get to a normal state soon. notamermaid

That sounds reasonable and good, the sort of reaction which is it appears in accordance with consumer law regulations/rule book, etc. of the EU and Britain. It sounds very much like what I have read over the years of what people have received for mishaps on holidays. I read what steamboats mentioned in the BR article. The idea was that yes you would have been okay on the ship and well looked after but if there had been an emergency of any kind rescue operations would have been dangerous (and precious time lost), seeing that roads were blocked and the standard teams already stretched with looking after the town and the locals. Added to the general idea of not wanting to risk this, there was also mentioned that many older people were on the ship [so this adds to the general risk]. notamermaid

@Yorkieboy1972 Before we loose sight - my pleasure to help. Hope you and @brian1 have more pleasure and less of an adventure on your future travels. Safe journey home everyone. notamermaid PS: a bit short on time right now, so will be back later tonight, folks.

It is getting rather full in Koblenz with river cruise ships and Viking is even docking triple on the Rhine. As far as I know the authorities only allow three deep on the Rhine in emergencies. Like on the Danube one of the challenges right now is docking a passenger ship safely at an accessible dock and trying to keep an itinerary going. I have not seen so many ships at Koblenz for a long time: You can zoom in to read all the names: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:7.604/centery:50.361/zoom:16 For now you can see them all on feratel: https://www.feratel.com/webcams/deutschland/koblenz.html It has been confirmed that river traffic at Worms is suspended. The crest of the wave is now in Speyer, all gauges downstream from there are still rising. notamermaid

And they have made the headlines! "Frankenpost" says that a river cruise ship is being evacuated at Deggendorf: https://www.frankenpost.de/inhalt.unwetter-passagierschiff-auf-der-donau-evakuiert.3ff50bc5-fda1-476b-9a71-40fbb910af9e.html Speaking of money: Depending on how many emergency services are involved (it says boats in the article) this will cost TUI more than a dinner's worth for all the passengers. And one wonders what insurance agencies may make of it. Just saying... Deggendorf is now in a state of emergency, so best to be out of there as soon as possible. Flood warning level 4, gauge at 697cm and rising. From Kelheim to Vilshofen all gauges are on level 4. The Isar at Plattling briefly scraped level 4 yesterday. Passau gauge is on level 3, 834cm and rising. notamermaid

Link is a bit slow to load but it works. The situation is not good along the gauges downstream from Maxau. But first, at Maxau the forecast suggests that the level will fall more slowly now. This could keep the level above navigational flood mark II for a bit longer. It is now at 795cm. Worms crossed the mark this morning and will have flooding that occurs every ten years. Mannheim is also mark II. Mainz looks likely to follow, Kaub is tentative. Koblenz has issued a flood warning for the low-lying areas of the city. This includes the likely flooding of the Moselle embankment where river cruise ships dock. With the Moselle not contributing much water the situation will likely not be as bad below Koblenz. notamermaid

Not sure, I would have to speculate, but it is a long way to Frankfurt in a slow vessel... notamermaid

Take care and honestly, it is better that you be will off the ship and out of the area. People have been urged not to travel to most of Bavaria. Munich has a much reduced train service, etc. notamermaid

There has been an accident on the Main river. A barge hit a wall at the lock at Kleinostheim yesterday and oil leaked into the river. River traffic was suspended for several hours. A slight delay only and thankfully no major pollution. The river is rising but again today has not received much rain. The clouds moved over the southern tributaries mainly. The gauges are all still on green (no official flooding). notamermaid

I remember reading that Straubing built a new embarkation facility for river cruise a few years ago. Then drought showed that Vilshofen is a better place for that as it is beyond the shallow section. Straubing is one of those unfortunate "in-between" places, I have gathered, that do not fit well into itineraries between Regensburg and Passau. I think sailing logistics do not work out well enough. Happen to be proven wrong but as you say river cruise ships do not dock there. I will have a look if I can find the original article. notamermaid

Welcome to Cruisecritic. That is an interesting sail date for the time line of the flooding. I explain. If your ship is at Basel ready and waiting for you on Saturday you may be able to sail without problem. You are starting after the wave has gone and the flooding subsided enough and as you are having port stops in between are never able to "catch up with" the flooding. But that is the theory, your ship could be a different one or in another port, perhaps struggling to make it through the Rhine Gorge. Your cruise company will of course inform you of what will be happening and knows what restrictions may still be in place. And what the logistics are best to get the ships back on their proper itineraries. Basel and the Upper Rhine valley are recovering. Here are the two graphs to show that: Hopefully the rain will subside and therefore Maxau return to a high but navigable level and not rise again. Have a great cruise. notamermaid

Okay, the terrible flooding of 2013 has been mentioned and certainly springs to mind. The gauges map now: And in 2013, same date, same hour: notamermaid

That is bad. They cleared out the famous sausage kitchen at the river I have read. The water is very close. In 2013 the building was partly submerged. Straubing-Bogen area is in a state of emergency, so is Kehlheim. Kehlheim gauge for context (it is just before the navigable river starts): Of course, all that water goes to Passau. Korneuburg in Austria is on mild flooding and rain is forecast for the Vienna area. notamermaid

Right. Maxau gauge has peaked at 829cm and is now down to 820cm. Current forecast says it is likely to stay above 750cm well into Wednesday. Just seen a report on Ludwigshafen, they expect serious flooding in the low lying areas close to the river, putting defenses up and strengthening dams. The city and Mannheim on the other bank get the Neckar river floods as the confluence is right there. Mannheim is still rising and is on navigational flood mark I. It is forecast to rise to navigational flood mark II during the night which (on paper) means a river traffic ban. If I read the confirmation in the online newspapers I will report it. Worms is still rising and is on navigational flood mark I. Worms is forecast to hit its navigational flood mark II, too. Mainz is also now fully seeing the wave and is on navigational flood mark I. Likewise Kaub. Koblenz will follow suite during the night. So will Andernach. Oberwinter will follow in the morning. Cologne will likely follow tomorrow evening. The Main river is also now carrying a higher volume of water but much of the rain has narrowly avoided the river itself and the Northern tributaries so this will not add that much water to this wave and the river does not go to official flooding from what it looks like now. Quick geography again, green normal, yellow elevated levels and so on: Heilbronn and Heidelberg is Neckar river, Worms and Mainz Rhine river, Aschaffenburg and Frankfurt Main river. It really has been a weird weather pattern. Today I have had frequent looks at the radar imaging and been out and about. Almost all the rain stayed below the line Büdingen - Hanau -Worms on this map. We have mainly had a mix of grey skies and a bit of blue in Rhineland- Palatinate. It is an eerily repeat of what happened eleven years ago almost to the day. The Rhine was very high, the Danube was terribly high creating a 100 year flood. On the Rhine this now is flooding that occurs every two to ten years (depending on gauge station). On the Danube it looks to be worse as regards the statistics. notamermaid

Thank you for finding us here. To keep it short at the moment - we have absolutely no clue as to what the river's levels will be in September. Even if it stops raining and we get a dry June (after tomorrow), July has good prospects now that we have flooding, but September is too far out. I am afraid to say that there has been low water in September and generally autumn is statistically the time for it. The difference between high and low water is that high water normally starts in the Upper Rhine valley (for our purposes here I say Basel to Karlsruhe/Maxau gauge) and can extend far downstream - like it is doing now - but low water always starts in the Rhine Gorge, meaning that is where ships struggle first with too little water under the keel. That is why I quote Kaub gauge, it marks low water best. Most cruises sail without problems but unfortunately we can never give a guarantee far into the future. Conditions can stay fine for months on end but we have had a wet winter so for the second time this year the river is high, in May we got away with it so to speak but this weather pattern this past week has been disastrous for parts of Southern Germany. notamermaid

That is some seriously nifty planning. That way you have overtaken the wave that is currently from Plittersdorf to Mainz (i.e. gauges at or rising to critical levels) and are in the clear. notamermaid