DTWgypsy

We were cruising on Avalon Oct. 7th Nuremberg to Budapest & received notice today of changes. The accomodations now are we would be embarking from Vilshofen & receive a free concert in Vienna (an optional tour) They have also offered a full refund. It's an unknown now what the levels are near Budapest. We opted for the full refund & plan on rebooking our river cruise in the spring. Now we know more about water levels & will pick a river cruise that's hopefully okay! Thankfully Avalon has been very helpful throughout! Best wishes to all & may your water levels be perfect!

Thanks Notamermaid, we're hoping the rain from Bavaria & the Alps helps the Danube! We are leaving the end of this week for Nuremberg on an Avalon Danube cruise.

Was your trip on the Avalon Passion July, 2017 last year cancelled? What ship were you on this year that was switched about four weeks? We're leaving the 2nd week in October & hoping for lots of rain!

Here is the Danube thread about water levels you can go to for information-

Danube water levels 2018 and similar topics - plus tips and info

We've been on four Ama cruises & love them. Next month we'll be cruising on the Danube with Avalon for the first time. I'm already looking forward to what tomorrow brings for you!

People have been asking "Have you heard from Avalon?" Well, we heard from Avalon this afternoon, and the news (at least for us) isn't good. We're booked on WAB 80921 from Amsterdam to Budapest, scheduled to leave this Friday on Avalon Expression. Well, Expression hasn't been west of Passau in six weeks, but we assumed we'd leave AMS on another ship and do a ship swap somewhere in Bavaria. NOT SO!

 

This afternoon (less than 24 hours before we're scheduled to fly to AMS), I received an email from Avalon telling me that, because Expression will be "stuck in Passau," the first six days of the cruise will be by bus. We will first check into a hotel in AMS (not yet identified) for two nights, then bus for several days, with hotel stops in Bonn, Frankfurt, and Nuremburg (two nights) before finally joining Expression in Passau on 9/27. This means missing a couple of scheduled stops along the Main River, so they're adding a couple of stops (Linz and Grein) in Austria. We'll do the Rhine gorge for a few hours out of St. Goar, presumably on a day-cruiser. No mention of any disruption at the eastern end of the cruise (Bratislava, Budapest), but that shoe could still drop.

 

Avalon offers the option of cancelling before the cruise starts, with full refund or rebooking on a future cruise but no assistance on "outside airline change fees or price changes for new vacations." OR, if we go on the trip with the new itinerary, we "will be refunded 6 days accommodated in hotel at 100% per day of the cruise only price including cabin upgrades." I'm quoting the Avalon email here, exactly as it was written, i.e., with no punctuation, and I have no idea what it means. I guess we'll find out eventually.

 

 

 

Obviously the water levels aren't Avalon's fault. But I suspect they have found themselves with no ship available to carry us from AMS to, say Nuremberg or Regensburg, where a ship swap might be possible, and that is their fault, at least in terms of poor planning. And whoever's "fault" it is, it certainly isn't what we thought we were buying when we booked this cruise. But that said, we and the friends with whom we're traveling have decided to go ahead with the revised plan. We'll still be seeing interesting new places that we haven't seen before, and we'll still get an 8-day cruise, rather than the original 14 days, if there are no problems below Vienna. In short, we've been handed a few lemons, but we're hopeful that the lemonade may still be reasonably tasty and refreshing.

 

 

I provide this information for the benefit of others who are also ticketed on Avalon, to give you a hint of what you may expect (including the relatively short notice)

Thanks for the information on your Avalon cruise! It helps to have an idea what may be in store for us come October 7th on Avalon. Any more updates would be greatly appreciated. I hope your lemonade is wonderful!

I contacted Avalon & they said 1-2 weeks out they will know more about our cruise. I've seen they are also offering credits or refunds. I haven't contacted our agent yet. I'm using cruisemapper to see the ships on the Danube. Good to hear you saw an Avalon ship! Thanks!

We are booked on Uniworld SS Beatrice from Budapest to Bucharest, embarks October 4th. I realize that’s still 18 days away, but is Danube passable headed from Budapest to Bucharest??

We're in the same situation, leaving October 7th on Avalon from Munich to Budapest. I see the 10 day weather forecast for that region is dry warm weather. It sure isn't promising for water levels. :(

I'm not seeing an AMA ship in Linz right now. Hopefully it's moving now. Check out Cruisemapper, that's what I've been using. https://www.cruisemapper.com/