EllieBellieFloats

The Viking Tialfi is currently docked in Mannheim after leaving Strasbourg last night. We received the good news right before Monday night’s dinner that Sunday’s rain raised the river 15 cm adding enough depth for us to proceed through to Amsterdam. Upon boarding in Basel, we were informed we may have to complete a ship swap with our sister ship, the Alruna. So the rain was very welcome and we are happy to be continuing with our cruise as originally planned. Here’s hoping all other cruisers have the same luck.

Ellie's ... We are on the same ship as you.. Leaving Basel on sept 22 and received the email also. Our concern was if any damage to tialfi ... Hopefully not. We flew out last week before the storm and are spending 10 days in Italy. Arriving in Basel Thursday sept. 20 .... Been following news on the storm and it is awful. We are from Texas and were flooded last year during Harvey ....can relate 1st hand ... It's heartbreaking. Praying for the storm to end.

Travel safe and

Will see y'all on board next sat....

RussandCheryl,

How wonderful that you're spending 10 days in Italy! Well deserved after enduring Harvey last year. So far no flight changes or cancellation notifications. We will see you on board soon. Stateroom #333.

Hello All -- I've been lurking here for several weeks learning invaluable information, especially from notamermaid. Thank you for taking the time to post, keeping everyone up to date. It has been a great help to this first time cruiser. I now have some (hopefully) useful information to add to the discussion.

We are scheduled to depart Basel on Sep 22 on the Viking Alruna, however, we just received an email from Viking stating the following:

"As this summer has been unusually dry, many European rivers have reached historically low levels. Due to recent rains, water levels have now stabilized; however, previous conditions required Viking Alruna to swap schedules with Viking Tialfi. As a result, you will instead embark identical sister ship Viking Tialfi in Basel on Day 1 of your cruise."

I was not completely surprised as AztecDuo had reported they were notified of a reassignment to our original ship Alruna to depart Basel on Sep 15. So I figured it would be in Amsterdam rather than Basel on Sep 22. Since notamermaid reported the Tialfi ran aground a few days back, I am assuming there was no lasting damage. This seems to indicate that if the water levels are not further disrupted, these two ships have switched places and all who were scheduled to be on them this fall will be sailing on the opposite ship from that originally assigned. Does this sound accruate?

Viking stated in their email that they did not anticipate any further changes to the itinerary and that our ship director would inform us during the cruise if additional changes needed to be made. I have no preference between either ship (unless the Tialifi has a proclivity for grounding-ha), but my fingers are crossed that water levels rise. From the sound of notamermaid's reports, we are not out of danger of ship swaps and bus touring yet.

We are also watching the effects of Hurricane Florence as we leave Tue, Sep 18 from the Midwest to connect to a Lufthansa flight through Dulles. We are hoping the storm picks up pace a little so it moves on through, but it doesn't look as if that will happen. Since there have been thousands of flights cancelled, there will be planes and crews out of place, meaning it could take days before all are on schedule again. The good news is we are scheduled to arrive several days prior to the cruise departure date, so we will make the cruise even if our flight departure is delayed, however we would miss some of the activities we planned for Basel and Lucerne. But that inconvenience is nothing compare to people enduring the monster storm. My heart goes out to all the cruisers who are in the storm path and have to make the difficult decision whether or not to go ahead and cruise or stay home and tend to their homes and families. Stay safe, everyone!