moonriver54

We FULLY AGREE with your river cruising philosophy. On our first river cruise we did both the morning and afternoon excursions each of the seven days. Although we truly enjoyed the excursions, we were exhausted by the end of our week aboard. On our second cruise we took a much more relaxed approach, and only went on the excursions that truly interested us. A few mornings we just wandered around on our own and loved that! We remained aboard the ship one morning when most guests took an excursion while the ship re-positioned downriver in their absence. We remained aboard and loved it. It was like having our own 445' yacht, complete with crew! LOL!! On our first two cruises we immediately signed up for excursions as they became available at the 90-day-to-go point. On our upcoming cruise this May we're going to just go with the flow each day predicated upon what the cruise director suggests each evening during his/her briefing for the following day's events. If there are still seats/availability...fine. If not, fine as well. We can always take the ship's very nice bicycles out for a pleasant ride!

We've taken two cruises recently with Avalon and loved every minute of our time aboard. They do a truly wonderful job. The food is excellent, the service exquisite and the atmosphere is SO PLEASANT. We made many good friends. We're signed-up for a third cruise with Avalon in May on the Moselle.

LOL...yes...mooring camels were neither graceful or pretty. In fact most were quite banged-up!

Mooring Dolphin...not to be confused with a mooring Camel...which we used with much larger ships such as an aircraft carrier...and submarines.

Thanks so much for posting all of the above. Very fascinating stuff!!

Looking at Google Maps, it appears the "wave" of serious floodwater between Duisburg and Wesel is about 20 miles (32 km) in length as it flows north towards the Netherlands. I wonder if they're seriously concerned about this...or is it considered "manageable" floodwater??

Wow. We docked with Avalon last October in Cologne at the location shown at 1:20 in the video above. It was a long walk DOWN to the ship from the promenade along the river that's now flooding.

Early last October our Avalon river cruise ship was docked at the location adjacent to the railroad bridge shown at the beginning of the video. It looked nothing like that! That's very impressive.

We watched prices this time last year and Avalon began publishing deep discounts for the 2023 season during January. So far from what I've observed only Ama Waterways has been deeply discounting their 2024 season trips...and only for late winter...February/March. Hopefully we'll see some April/May 2024 discounts published over the next few weeks. That said, European travel is supposed to be up about 20% this season...France is hosting the Summer Olympics from 26 July to 11 August...so perhaps we won't see as many good deals. Fingers crossed!

My wife and I have been watching river cruise line offerings for late winter. I notice Ama Waterways has several (deeply discounted) river cruises scheduled for the month of February.

After a little research I think I just got an answer to my question. Current northern Alps snowfall levels are 225% above normal. Wow. https://www.onthesnow.co.uk/northern-alps/skireport#

@notamermaid -- Perhaps a bit off-topic....however if you don't mind...as best I recall, last winter was extremely dry in Central Europe, with many locations in the Alps having almost no snow. Although I understand it's been unseasonably warm this winter, has all this moisture since the end of October brought larger quantities of snow to the Alps? If so, is it accumulating or melting because of the warmer temperatures?

Great photos! Thanks for posting. What a stunning difference from what we saw during early October when we were concerned about LOW water levels on the Rhine! Glad it all worked out for you and your fellow travelers! Happy New Year to everybody.

Perfect!! Thank you very much!

Is there an online map which shows the location of kilometer marking signs at various locations along the Rhine?

Any idea how far you're ahead of your average annual rainfall at this juncture??? Sure seems like it's been a wet fall and first day of winter! Happy Winter Solstice!

Thanks very much! Have a safe trip home!

Thank you! If you're about to embark on cruise #6 with Ama that's a very strong recommendation. Greatly appreciated!

Well...you almost made it all the way! I apologize and realize this is off-topic, however my wife and I are considering a river cruise aboard Ama Waterways next spring. Do you recommend Ama? We've cruised twice aboard Avalon and loved them, however we wanted to experiment with a different river cruise line. Any thoughts/comments would be sincerely appreciated! Thank you.

Having spent several years aboard ships in the US Navy...I view river cruises much the same as I did deployments in Navy. They're an adventure. An itinerary is merely the place where you begin the adventure. The itinerary invariably changes, adding to the adventure. Go with the flow and enjoy it! One way or the other, your cruise ship company is going to ensure you get to your original destination. And you'll have many wonderful stories to share regarding how that evolution occurred!!

My wife and I were fascinated by the amount of shipping traffic on the Rhine during our river cruise in early October. It was like night and day compared to the Danube during our river cruise last May. We were told the war in Ukraine had essentially shut down most shipping on the Danube because nobody wanted to risk passing through the Black Sea that the Danube flows in to. So almost all the traffic we saw on the Danube was other river cruise ships! The video below was taken during our "Rhine Gorge" day heading north towards Amsterdam. IMG_8395.MOV

Looking at the tug and barge in the video...the current looks quite stiff.

The snowy weather in Munich is really making the news. Looks like the Munich airport is having trouble.

It'll be interesting to watch his progress on the construction. Looks kind of chilly over there in Europe!

A home on the water can be a good thing! But expensive!!