notamermaid

I am sorry to say that this is a typical reaction of Viking (and potentially a couple of other lines) and while I understand it (the FCC) - but not agree with it - in cases of low water or similar things, I do not understand it here. Unacceptable. Media - going for bad media, publicly wide range - may be the only, but brutal way forward for you. Newspaper, online sites beyond the circle of river cruisers... Viking have not been very successful in their approach and planning of the Mississippi cruises, to put it mildly. Negative press is not what they want right now. "Mishaps" may now have a bigger impact than they would in normal circumstances. Go into battle, but prepare well. So, Viking could not get all state rooms ready in five months: https://www.travelweekly.com/River-Cruising/Viking-Mississippi-float-out https://www.travelweek.ca/news/viking-celebrates-25th-anniversary-with-new-video-and-special-savings/ New ships are built on the back of the FCC's receivers, the one year in advance full payers, the payments of very happy sail againers and with money the banks that pump into this and the confidence of the investors behind Viking. It is a very successful business and great product, but for me not the company to sail with, ever. I do not approve of their business practices. It would be very interesting to hear what happened to other state rooms. Hope you can sort this out to your satisfaction. notamermaid

Riviera UK went for the names of writers. The ships are mostly Scylla ships, Riviera UK charters them long term and they are built in cooperation. Viva Cruises is the brainchild and river cruise operating company of Scylla. We actually call this mother (company/association) and daughter (company/association), in English you say that Scylla is the parent company of Viva Cruises. Perhaps you could leave a short message in our thread on Riviera to say how it went? Would be nice to read. Have a great cruise. notamermaid

Low bridges can be a problem in flooding, that is when the water is very high, just before the authorities ban river traffic. River traffic is halted in flooding but not in low water. Low water is almost no issue on the Moselle, i.e. you can basically forget about it. The Rhine - you know low water... Flooding can occur as well of course. Again, a river traffic ban is then possible. Low bridges are not an issue as far as I know, certainly not in low water. Mean water or flooding - I know of no problems, but this does not mean they do not exist, they are few and may occur in areas of the Rhine that I am not familiar with. I remember reading about a bridge in Basel that a ship could not pass under. For that I refer you to the experienced river cruisers in the Upper Rhine valley. I have never heard of the sun deck being closed for any length of time. Again, this may be something that is rare and happens only in the Upper Rhine valley. Not sure. notamermaid

Quick update to what is happening on the Lower Rhine. Cologne gauge has risen to 154cm and appears to be levelling off. Emmerich gauge is rising nicely and is now at 20cm. This means the Netherlands can now finally benefit from the rain in Switzerland and the Upper Rhine valley. The wave has reached Lobith just beyond the border. notamermaid

Viva Cruises is bilingual, I have no worries about our lone English speaker having problems. Okay, port talks may be awkward, but I am sure the cruise director is always on hand to help. I also got a bit confused, do you mean they may not be able to find a guide who can throw in an English explanation, or have they not been able to get enough guides to cover the whole passengers? I gather you booked the excursions on top of the basic product, as this is standard with the company I believe? Then hopefully there will be no problem to reimburse you. I think Viva Cruises will be fair on that, they better be if they want a repeat customer... Nice. Good to read you feel comfortable in the cabin. Hope the bedding will give you better sleep than you are anticipating. This I must admit I thought may turn out to be the biggest worry on your cruise, rather than language or anything else (apart from the low water which for now we may assume has resolved itself), as past Budapest infrastructure can be not as developped as you may need. It may not affect the ship, but I think you may want to get some work in early on in the river cruise - or talk to the cruise director again to see what they think. Thank you for planning to take us along on your journey and be possibly the first North-American to report on Viva Cruises, definitely a highly unusual constellation of language set-up, company, ship and itinerary. Have a great cruise. notamermaid

My memory is failing me at the moment - are you leaving on Saturday for your river cruise? The link to the youtube channel is blocked, i.e. I cannot even get a starting page from which I could subscribe to it. The instagram looks really nice, will you cover your trip on your account? notamermaid

Yeaahhhh, hmm, something went - unusually - very wrong with the forecast. Where is the 140cm at Kaub? Not there, as the level peaked at 128cm and has gone down to 124cm. Which results in a highly adjusted forecast that says the level is very likely to fall to 110cm on Thursday. Rain is forecast for Saturday. notamermaid

The Moselle is fed by the Vosges mountains, the Meurthe and the Saar mainly. The whole navigable stretch for large ships is controlled by locks and the navigation channel is maintained at a depth that makes the Moselle of no concern. So far I have only heard of a minor problem at Koblenz in 2018. As a side note: on a large river cruise ship an itinerary going from Amsterdam onto the Moselle is a good choice for reducing the likelihood of interruptions due to low water, you divert away from the Rhine Gorge that way. A wise choice of ship helps further. notamermaid

see my post #434 Pfelling gauge has fallen, but not as fast as one may fear. Now at 377cm. That means it is just below the mean water level. Still looking pleasant, as expected and noted in a post of mine above, a rapid decline to extreme lows does not happen. The forecast is looking spot on today as regards how the river is reacting, so I reckon the estimate further into Wednesday should come close as well. A fall to 330cm we can expect, but looking (and guessing) at Thursday we may see 320cm. That is still good but makes us wonder how well the level can be sustained going into the weekend and next week. No rain of note anywhere in the German Danube basin, weather forecast says rain in Passau today, i.e. coming from the East, which is good for Austria and the Danube downstream, but is useless for Pfelling gauge. Significant rain to sustain the level and hopefully make the river in Germany rise is forecast for Saturday. notamermaid

Spotted the autocorrect quickly, question was, what does it stand for? I think the photo explains it, "we had an early start at Würzburg"! 🙂 Thank you for the video and photos. What a lovely thing to happen, meeting that Canadian family. Your question has been answered of course, but just to expand: there are so many low bridges on the Main and Main Danube Canal, that the sun deck may be closed for days as the crew do not want to, cannot or are not allowed to spend so much time putting down and up the railings often. You can read a little more here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2670259-the-river-main-infos-and-river-cruising-experiences/ Post #4 and a few following that one. notamermaid

My comment: "Modelling puts the level firmly under 400cm by latest Friday and may mean that the level drops to official mean low water again on Saturday. If that happens as a consequence we will see a drop at Kaub that we may need to watch again as regards river cruising" And the quote referencing that: I think the timeline may not be so clear. The level at Maxau dropping below 400cm and further on Saturday means that the level at Kaub will drop more or less accordingly (unless we get tons of water from the Main) a good day or so later but this does not lead to low water at Kaub on Saturday yet. The by then slower decline will happen into next week at Kaub. The question - I agree - is indeed how low, something we cannot know but the modelling exists and I will just hint at the suggested high probability of the level falling to 80cm on 29 August. It is computer modelling and always to be looked at with caution. I will come back to that in another post. notamermaid

New article on air travel to a river cruise with the company: https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/air/riviera-travel-scraps-charge-for-passengers-flying-from-regional-hubs notamermaid

Bruges, a popular excursion on river cruises and a very popular town as such. Can there be such a thing as off the beaten path in such a place? A contributor on travel weekly tried to find a quieter side of Bruges: https://www.travelweekly.com/Europe-Travel/On-a-quest-to-find-the-quieter-side-of-Bruges notamermaid

Well, I think we can all guess they will drop at least slowly and steadily. A bit of info to feed into the translating machine, from the low water report dated 18 August: "Im Laufe der kommenden Woche sind wieder weniger Niederschläge besonders im Rheineinzugsgebiet vorhergesagt, daher ist keine nachhaltige Entspannung der Nied- rigwassersituation zu erwarten." In short, in my words: keep on expecting low water for weeks to come. Not necessarily a ship not sailing, but be prepared. So what should be expect now that the wave has passed Maxau? Modelling puts the level firmly under 400cm by latest Friday and may mean that the level drops to official mean low water again on Saturday. If that happens as a consequence we will see a drop at Kaub that we may need to watch again as regards river cruising. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it. There may be rain before that happens. And the Main brings a varying volume of water that is no reflected at Maxau as that gauge is too far South. A quick look at the other gauges: Koblenz, so close to Kaub that it has obviously gone up nicely as well, now at 100cm. Cologne, still on official low water, but the wave has reached there, now at 107cm. Emmerich, not profitting yet really, at 5cm. notamermaid

Thank you. So Scenic and Viking are very similar with regards the sun deck being closed. That I something I had not thought of before. Comes naturally with the safety when the sun deck has to be closed, but it just something that does not spring to mind immediately as a consequence. I can understand that this takes some enjoyment of the cruise away. notamermaid

Yes indeed! And: hooray! Good to see them back. A screenshot, one Viking ship docked another big vessel just backing out of Koblenz (as I think I can make out from the wake): So have we got them, the 100cm? Yes, Kaub gauge is at 117cm. Forecast for evening indicates 140cm and above. Right, time to relax, for me - and many, many anxious river cruisers! 😄 I am going shopping. See yah. notamermaid

That makes sense. Better to wait and see what happens. Although I would say for now it looks promising. A day to day approach is best, I wrote: Yes, it turns out that when I posted it was the peak, the level has gone down to 412cm. A fast fall below 380cm is inevitable as no rain is backing this wave up. We will see the decline into Wednesday, I dare say the level should be okay till lunchtime that day, but as no long term estimate is published on "elwis" by the authorities, anything after that is guess work. Actually not quite as we can look at the Niedrigwasserbericht with some general info, I am referring to It is not saying too much about the Danube this week and they have published no specific graph, but the general message is that all rivers in Germany (and beyond) are suffering from low water and will continue to do so as the overall weather and general river pattern is for low in Autumn. On most rivers, not all, this is exacerbated by low rainfall in Spring. It applies to the Danube and the Rhine. Back to my assessment. While the Rhine is suffering more from drought right now as the recent rain was more plentiful in the Danube basin than in the Rhine basin, the Danube will struggle more to sustain the level needed for river cruise ships after this wave than the Rhine will if it does not rain. Very tight between the rivers, if you want to see it as a kind of competition, but the Rhine at least for a few days, may well have the upper hand by a few centimetres. We will know more how the two rivers react to lack of rain by Wednesday. Please note that the wave on the Rhine is still ongoing in the difficult and low stretches while on the Danube it is now in Austria and further downstream, therefore soon leaving the stretches that we tend to focus on for the sheer volume of river traffic. Benefitting Budapest now and for several days, the wave will leave my "realm of focus" soon and go into my "uncharted territory". I am sure the wave will do nature a lot of good all the way to the Black Sea and, as always, we would love to hear your comments and experiences from the area beyond Budapest. notamermaid

Great. The level at Budapest had started going up nicely during yesterday. notamermaid

Thank you Tim for your post with lovely photos. One question if I may: the wheelhouse looks down and the sun deck railings look down. Difficult to see from the angle. Is the sun deck closed for a long time on the Main? Thank you. notamermaid

Yes, the head gear is the advance stage of "un-Germanness". 😁 But I have seen them donned after a glass of glühwein in recent years... Good examples of winter gear in the photos. Definitely bring gloves etc. for the early excursions even if the weather report suggests pleasant temperatures. You may indeed hit mild afternoons. You could of course buy gloves and other accessories at your destination, may be a nice souvenir, but you may not want to spend precious time shopping for this with - especially with cold hands. notamermaid

Very difficult to know, basically impossible. There is a trend that the hydrologists and meteorologists will know about, they gather tons of information, make computer modelling, etc. What we can reasonably say is that it takes a few days to get back to a low level. It will not be back to 250cm in 48 hours... After the effects of this wave have passed we need more rain to back it up soon. What will be in a month's time is anybody's guess but as September and October are standard low months on the river, it is likely to get low again. How low we will just have to wait and see. I will have a look at the low water report from BAfG (the authorities) to see if they are giving any specific info on the Danube this week. There is an update every week when they deem it necessary, i.e. proper low water, but the focus changes a little from week to week. One thing I am sure about is that I would not book a last minute river cruise on the Danube outside of the ports Passau to Bratislava that leaves any time before 15 October. Too much likelihood of interruptions. notamermaid

I have heard there was an old series in England called "Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men"? I do not recall ever having had such vegetable stuff on German telly. We had animal characters. This drought has obviously caused fish a lot of stress, less water for them and the river is hotter, too. I have not read much about wildlife along the Rhine but in the Oder river many fish have died. Investigation revealed that it was a poisonous type of algae that caused it. notamermaid

May I ask, is there a specific reason some of what is written is in a different colour? Is that Christmas Day? Or are those Christmas market itineraries? notamermaid

Talking of herbs and spices has made me remember: you can see photos online of tomato plants and other slightly more unusual plants than the standard grass and bushes growing on the dried out river banks and exposed river bed. I have also been to the river again in the last few days but have not seen anything other than the usual rubbish, mainly building rubbish and metal it is. Thankfully also nothing that looked suspicious. River levels. Lake Constance now steadily on figures around 332cm. Maxau 459cm, on the downward slope. Likely to fall below 400cm again on 24 August. Most importantly, Kaub gauge: nice steady rise, now at 71cm. Forecast adjusted down, no 148cm anticipated anymore. You can see why I was skeptical on Friday. But it is still looking good, 100cm basically certain for tomorrow, 130cm still looks a convincing estimate, but the highest figure now given is 143cm on Tuesday. My money is on 140cm maximum. So Tuesday is going to be the peak, how fast the level will fall after that is not clear yet. notamermaid

Quick update. This must be one of the fastest rises I have ever seen at Pfelling since I have been looking at this sort of stuff, i.e. since around 2015. I have often wondered how they manage to have flooding in August that has gone into the all time records. Now I understand that it is possible. Not from the level that Pfelling started with of course, but if you started at the mean water level and then got the sort of rain there was for double the time... Anyway, Pfelling gauge is at 481cm: It is not clear yet if that is the peak but the rise has slowed down in the last few hours. As this is "just" a very strong wave, the level will fall again quickly with Monday seeing figures of below 400cm again. But for now things are looking good at Pfelling. And certainly really good between Vilshofen and Bratislava. The wave has reached Hungary so things should be improving there too. notamermaid