notamermaid

Thanks. Must have a look at that. I have read the book on the Monuments Men. What a story. notamermaid

It would be interesting to find the T&C regarding low water levels for both Viking US and Viking GB. Try and find them folks and compare! Australia appears to be even stronger on consumer rights regarding travel than Germany/EU. And the UK is at least close to the EU (not sure if the gap has widened after Brexit, not necessarily quality but interpretation and decision differences). The US is different, possibly differences among states but you will be better able to judge what your state law and federal law do differently from each other. Canada, no clue, do check the fine print anywhere you live anyway. 🙂 Pfelling gauge: 223cm. Back on track to a new historical low... Fascinating. An "independent" blogger should report, shouldn't they? 😉 notamermaid

That is right about September and October. And is the reason for people being worried. If we have such low levels in August what will it be like in September and October? The weather could change but statistically it is unlikely to. Relying on Lake Constance and rainfall with all the tributaries also low on water, the Rhine is "always" on the low side in Autumn compared to Summer. I have my doubts about the Grand European itinerary in Autumn. But I will gather my thoughts on that for posting them another day. Interesting how much Bloomberg is "consulted" for river levels here. While they obviously see all this from a business perspective, the graphs they compile with data from the German authorities are practical to read and I find usually even helpful, also for me to comment on. Quick look at Kaub: 44cm, forecast Saturday stable, Sunday probably dropping just below 40cm. Long term forecast: return to GlW 78cm unlikely before 21 August, there should be reaction to rain that is forecast for just before that date, return to 100cm highly unlikely any time soon. Here is a very interesting article (coming from the dpa news agency) in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that has a different tone to Bloomberg. You could run this through a translation program. For commercial shipping this is the interesting bit. quote "Die Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde (BfG) hatte kürzlich erklärt, bis zu einem Wasserstand von etwa 30 bis 35 Zentimetern am Pegel Kaub könnten flachgehende Binnenschiffe die Mittelrheinstrecke noch passieren." end quote So the authorities had recently stated that flat-bottomed inland waterway ships can navigate through the Middle Rhine valley (the tricky passage that is) when the level at Kaub is 30cm to 35cm. Large companies that rely heavily on the Rhine have invested in such ships after the drought of 2018 and are also using those from the older existing fleet. It is a busy river, busier than in normal times even! No word on river cruise ships, "Flusskreuzfahrtschiffe" or " Hotelschiffe" in the article? Well it does actually say "Personenschiffe", which probably means both excursion and cruise. Remember river cruising is normally only mentioned in the "zweite Nebensatz", i.e. relegated to the second subordinate clause. It is just not commercially that important. But in the last two weeks I have for a change seen a couple of articles and interviews that address river cruising problems. The growth in river cruising over the last ten years has made a slight difference to reporting I would say. In 2018 regional television SWR did a short interview with stranded American river cruisers. I have not seen anything like that this year yet. notamermaid

The revised booklet is online: http://resc.deskline.net/documents/1/RPT/53feace2-f71c-46d2-8484-d32aa211649e/file.pdf notamermaid

I cannot believe we missed International Beer Day! Here is some info on German beer: https://www.dw.com/en/its-international-beer-day/g-19195372 For me, the quintessential beer river cruise river is the Main, although it is full of vineyards, but others would say it is the Danube. Well, anyway, recently I have had the opportunity to try Bamberg Rauchbier. It is smoked and tastes - smoked! I do not know how they do it but is like smoked bacon without the bacon, or smoked trout without the trout. It is interesting but I do not need to have it again. I will stick to my standard brands of the Rhine, Main and Isar. notamermaid

Hmm, my immediate thought is, "oh no, do not choose the Danube". Sorry about the trip, the S.S. Antoinette is an elegant ship and sails a very interesting itinerary (superior to Viking and similar Basel - Amsterdam ones IMO). Not sure what to do in your case. Would you want to come to Europe anyway if your sailing is cancelled? Have a land trip? Find a last minute sailing on a 110m ship? I hope your river cruise is on but it really is now in doubt. notamermaid

You will need a jacket. Expect any temperature between 4 Celsius early morning and 22 Celsius on a sunny afternoon. Alfresco dining is unlikely as April can be rainy and quite windy. Early April is unsettled weather. notamermaid

For me the ultimate (apart from the Monuments Men of WWII) story is the thriller around the Bayeux Tapestry. On a Seine itinerary all I would want to see is the castle of Richard the Lionheart and the Tapestry. No Paris, no bunkers... although I could be persuaded to a brief visit to the Musee d' Orsay to revisit the Impressionists. notamermaid

Would love to see the Madrid museums. Been to Barcelona and did an art project on Gaudi complete with standing in front of the Sacrada Familia talking over the car traffic. My teacher was pleased with my efforts . Montserrat monastery was amazing. But that would be for an ocean cruise. Staying on the Peninsula, Portugal and the Douro must be great. One thing that is unattractive is the heat. Again, it may be a bit much in August. Others can tell you about that. They say most of the big sites are away from the river and in the hills, part from the coastal towns, so - me inviting others to comment - I would say consider this in your decision-making process. What makes the Rhine and Danube so attractive as rivers in Europe is that on both rivers you have two or more languages (depending on itinerary) and even if you only travel from Passau to Vienna you have two distinct types of German with cultural differences. I would say they are also easy places to manage as regards weather and culture and topography. A good combination. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 236cm. notamermaid

@2inSETexas It looks like a stranded castle ship. The design was partly deliberate I think, but what looks like the bow of a ship is also the ice breaker, i.e. a quite pointy wall. "Strand" by the way is the German word for beach. We say "gestrandet" for a ship, the image is of a ship running onto the beach. Interesting that the English "stranded" is basically the same idea, but the word "strand" these days is mostly associated with place names or river banks and embankments that are streets or promenades. Just needed to let the language nerd in me out briefly. Too busy to take photos myself this week, the heat is seriously slowing me down. Here goes, taken from a weather forecast site. The reporter is standing at Emmerich gauge, dated 3 August, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yLboaE4UCg and then sails with a boat of the authorities. See the buoys that the boat carries and replaces if necessary. The boss of the regional waterways management says that (at the time of filming) the gauge reads 40cm, unusually low for this time of year, which corresponds to a navigation channel depth of still 236cm. The width of the navigation channel is 150m, but when the river is much higher ships can use a zone outside of those 150m as well. The large barges and tankers cannot sail at full load. This means that in effect the same amount of goods needs to be transported, but more ships are needed to carry that load. This has the effect that there are more ships on the Rhine but there is less space for them. The shipwreck featured in the video is the "De Hoop", a Dutch sailing barge that had an accident there in 1895. It is regularly exposed at low water levels. Clear message: do not swim in the Rhine even though the river is low. The current is still too strong. Notice the footage of Cologne railway bridge and Cathedral. At 1:57 a dredger, or rather a ship with crane for dredging, may be placed at the bridge, I am not certain. So what does the gauge at Emmerich say now? 16cm! notamermaid

Haven't looked into that. Not sure where to find that to check it. At Pfelling: The lowest ever recorded (NNW) from 2018 has been beaten (as of now unofficial), NW is low water in the given time period. RNW - Regulierungswasserstand - is the relevant marker corresponding to GlW. At Pfelling it happens to be the also the figure that tells us that large river cruise ships start to struggle. Thank you for taking the time to help with explaining all this to folks. notamermaid

It has been announced that the illuminated ships cannot sail on Saturday to Koblenz during the Rhine in Flames event. The river level is too low for safe passage of all the ships. In the evening hours the procession of ships normally sails from Spay to Koblenz and the passengers watch the Bengal fires and fireworks on the hills. The fire risk in drought is still being assessed so not sure if those fireworks will take place. All organized events on land will go ahead. English page has not been updated, so here is the German one: https://www.rhein-in-flammen.com/spay-koblenz/spay-koblenz.html notamermaid

Starry Night is in New York? Did not know that. But then some of my favourite paintings by British painters are scattered around the world. Places I will never go to. But I have been fortunate in that I have been able to see some of those in compiled exhibitions in cities in Europe. Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Groningen spring to mind. Went to the mummies in the British Museum on my first visit. I have moved up in the centuries, last visit was the Enlightenment. I appreciate the Impressionists and the German weirdos of the early 20th century, but I struggle with Mr Van Gogh. Apparently the largest collection of Van Gogh paintings is in Amsterdam but the second largest is here: https://krollermuller.nl/en notamermaid

@Canal archive Good footage, thanks. notamermaid

Yes, a Fehltiefe is a navigational or hydrology term meaning "not the depth it should be", i.e. a shallows. Could be sand, gravel, rock. Official "Fehltiefe" spots are marked in the constantly updated info for captains (available online also), like the one at Deutz for example. They are regularly monitored. There is something called a "Peilboot", I think the official term is also "Vermessungsschiff", on the Rhine two or three of those maintenance boats equipped with sonar check the river bed. In the Danube thread I posted a short video of a Peilboot checking the depth of the river at Pfelling every day in this drought. Here is the "Hildegard von Bingen" on the Rhine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbufqVUMvB0 Kaub gauge at 47cm this morning. Adjusted forecast says dropping below 40cm tomorrow afternoon. Outlook into the weekend: very slow decline in the figures. Inching closer to a new low? Or keeping steady in the 40's after a bit of rain next week? Who knows. Right, got to go shopping before it gets hot. notamermaid

Above I posted the probability chart so I would like to be a bit more precise and say what the forecast shows. Current figure at Kaub is 46cm. Forecast for tomorrow is for lower figures, 42cm by the evening. Friday it may drop below 40cm. Record low in 2018 was 25cm on 22 October (!). Makes you understand why people here are a little worried. It is only August. Cologne has a navigation channel depth, i.e. the shipping industry can rely on the authorities maintaining the depth, of 250cm under the GlW figure. That figure in Cologne is set at gauge reading 139cm. So now with the current depth on the gauge reading 93cm, we can tell the river is low but there is still enough water for sailing of river cruise ships. It is getting tighter tough. The navigation channel is also wider than upstream in the Rhine Gorge. All good, except that docking locations may change as getting out of the deep navigation channel can be tricky and damage the hull. Here is the catch at Cologne, not necessarily a problem this year but generally speaking a hazard: the "Deutzer Platte". This is a shallows, a gravel bank in this case, that stretches for 700m at Rhine kilometre 687. Deutz is a suburb of Cologne on the right bank. I said the navigation channel is wider, in Cologne generally 150m but at the shallows the river widens to 380m as there are two entrances to harbour areas. This slows the current and the propellers during ship manoeuvres whirl up and redistribute the gravel. This puts more and more deposits at the spot. Therefore the area needs be dredged regularly. I think it was done not so long ago. Ships have run aground here in the past, even a river cruise ship. On 20 August 2018 the "Douce France" wanted to dock nearby and ran aground. No extensive damage. No injuries. Past Cologne the situation gets better again, with the navigation channel from around Duisburg being even deeper towards the border with the Netherlands. So, you could still get a varied itinerary together in Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany. The ports beyond Cologne are Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Xanten, Wesel and Emmerich. What does the landscape look like down there at the Lower Rhine of Germany? Basically wide open fields and flat land. Several large towns. Some industry of course (main area is Duisburg). Okay, no mountains, no Gorge, so not a substitute. But so much history, with moated castles and palaces (where are there none in Germany? ) We could have a quick look at the river at Emmerich in an interesting recent video. But that is for another day as I would like to provide some explanations and translation of what is said in the German video. notamermaid

Aaah, yes. That is not ignorance, that is a complicated calculation which I explained a few pages back. It is impossible to know without graphs and some explanatory notes. May I for lack of time refer you back to there? Basically it is this: the gauge which is like a ruler fixed to the side of the embankment reads 55cm. This is calculated into the navigation channel depth. The actual river depth is let us say all over the place, could be anything between 0.5m (unused old channel or side arm) and around 20m (Lorelei rock). Do not nail me down on exact figures. Even deeper in a ravine in Switzerland. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2827571-rhine-water-levels-2022-and-similar-topics/page/18/ post #441 and thereabouts. notamermaid

Thanks for reporting. If you have a minute, could you explain please what the Narrows boat tour is and where? I am just curious. notamermaid

I have quite a bit of patience with people, but I need to say this: shall I send the office guys and girls in the US photos of the Rhine per e-mail?? They do not seem to read the news or talk to their captains. ((deep breath)) Okay, nice Rhine river girl is back. So I just say this: I hope it will go the best way it can and that you will have a lovely time in Europe. notamermaid

I understand the problem. Viking has the policy of not cancelling and replacing the cruise with a hotel or ship swap thereby having fulfilled what they set out to do: give you a river cruise from x to z. I advise reading this: Now I cannot know what happens at the end of August. Normally I would not post this modelling as it is vague and probability computer modelling but it may make the decision easier - or not: The next 14 days at Kaub. Basically the level is most likely to go up after a decline. Purple is the most probable outcome. You can see that the level is most likely to be in the upper 50's to lower 60's range. If we assume that your ship can sail at 65cm you could assume that you will be okay without a ship swap. But it is all up to the captain and there is no guarantee that Kaub will not go down again. Basically I call it highly uncertain still at this point. We may reasonably assume that your ship will sail at 78cm. Edit: the captains of the two sister ships on opposite sides of the Rhine Gorge may nevertheless decide to go for the swap instead. End edit. The probability of the level reaching that figure is not as high as we would like, but it is definitely possible that we will see that. In the end it depends on what you are comfortable with. No coach, 30 minutes on a coach, one hour on a coach, no ship swap or ship swap. A gamble, but perhaps this gets you closer to making a comfortable decision. notamermaid

Thanks for the cm explanation. Centimetres indeed, not everyone uses it, forgot that, and it may have been something special but it is completely normal 100th of a metre. Folks, please tell me if something else remains unclear. The low water extends upstream of course, Rüdesheim to Worms will be better than Kaub but also require careful, slower, navigation. If the level drops further I can see ships not making it to Mainz, right now Viking appears to be not even going to Rüdesheim, that could be the shallows or just logistics, not sure. It will again depend on company and ship what happens. Upstream from Worms tends to be even better but is low also. Not sure how bad the problem may be. No problem is Iffezheim to Basel as that stretch is controlled by locks. In 2018 Cologne to Mannheim was affected and brought major problems for 135m ships to get a half decent itinerary on the Rhine together. The solutions were cancellations or diversion onto the Moselle or flights in the case of the Grand European or navigating the Rhine, Waal and canals (effectively a tulips cruise without tulips) or ship swaps with hotel "till the bitter end". Several companies managed to get passengers onto excursion boats to see the Rhine Gorge. notamermaid

The Cities of Light is a very nice itinerary and I prefer that offer of Viking to the Basel to Amsterdam itinerary by them (from an armchair perspective). Unfortunately, while the Moselle and Main are the comfortable rivers to sail, you need to get through the bottleneck that is the Rhine Gorge. So whether you go Amsterdam to Budapest or Amsterdam to Basel or Trier to Bamberg you all need to get past the Lorelei rock. No idea if Viking operates that itinerary with ship swaps. notamermaid

Hmm, August on the Rhone may be a bit warm for some people. I went in Spring so cannot judge but if it is any hotter than here in Germany I would not go. I absolutely love Pont du Gard. But then there is hardly a bridge or viaduct I do not like. The Seine is more "all encompassing" as regards history perhaps. The WWII stuff must be incredible to see (never been, but seen similar WWII stuff elsewhere). Then I would choose a company that docks in Honfleur. It gets you closer and for me the experience of the Seine would feel more complete. notamermaid

Pfelling gauge at 240cm. That sounds alright. Bus Komárno to Budapest seems to be a regular alternative in low water to sailing. Hope the drive was pleasant and you have enjoyed (or are still doing so) Budapest. notamermaid