The Danube: Closed For Business Today!

[Maracamama]

Live from the AMADolce:With the Danube officially closed now due to the rising water level, AMA Waterways will bus us to Vienna tomorrow, provide tours, concert and accommodations. Following day we will be taken to Budapest. So we get to finish our trip, albeit not on water. The captain and crew have been outstanding. Kudos, AMA!

[SBDriver]

Wow! With the amount of rain we were getting while we were there two weeks ago, I'm not surprised the water level has risen so drastically.

 

Good to hear AMA is handling it well. We were really pleased with our staff on the Amalegro.

 

Which cruise are you on? Is it still raining over there?

[eldercruser]

Wow is right. I know it has been raining most every day in central Europe. The weather is forecast to break this weekend. We are scheduled to depart Budapest a week from Monday. Hopefully the water level will subside some by then.

[stipmom]

Do they also provide meals when this happens?

[biotech]

Does anyone know the current status for the Danube? I will leaving in a week for a trip beginning at Passau and am concerned that my river cruise is about to become a coach tour:-( This is not good news for my arthritis.

[eldercruser]

I am posting a link to the thread that discussed river levels earlier this spring when the river levels were low. My interpretation is that at least in Austria, the Danube level has dropped considerably in the last two days. The weather appears to have changed also. Temperatures have risen and the rain appears to have abated.

 

http://www.doris.bmvit.gv.at/en/water_levels_low_sections/water_levels/

 

Thanks to Steamboats for the original post.

 

Here is the link to the entire thread:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1182082&highlight=river+levels

 

Jerry

 

[biotech]

Thank you eldercruiser and steamboats:-) I will going from Passau right to the Black Sea and while there still appear to be a few problem areas, the page showing a drop in some levels is encouraging. The weather forecast looks fairly dry with some exceptions so I'll hope for the best. Dragging my suitcases along a coach trip is not what I'm after these days! I was aware that the Danube levels could be a problem but was hoping for the best.

[roothy123]

Oh dear! We were bussed quite a bit on our Viking Danube cruise last year! It was disappointing, but at least Viking handled it beautifully.

[onmyway10]

Roothy when was your Danube trip last year? Does anyone know if the Danube is more likely to have level problems than the Rhine?

[steamboats]

The levels at Passau are dropping. Anyway lots of boats are not where they are supposed to be right now. I have a friend who should have boarded in Passau and is now bussed to Budapest (today). Main problems are bridges at Passau and Vienna which are too low with high water.

 

The Rhine river does have less problems. But there you might miss stops due to high water because the landing is flooded.

 

I´ve just returned from Miami but my Mom told me it had rained continuously last week until Thursday. Some areas had up 150 l/sqm. This is quite unusual. We had a extremely dry April and a pretty wet May and so´s the beginning of June. Right now it´s hot and sunny with temps up to mid 80ies (had been in the 50ies last week!!). It will stay hot for the next week but with heavy thunderstorms (yesterday they were even talking about a chance of tornados - not as big as those you know).

 

steamboats

[eldercruser]

We noticed the dramatic change in forecasts for the next several days. We are due to arrive Friday morning in Budapest. The forecast temperature on weather.com for Saturday is 91!

 

Hopefully water levels will fall with the hot weather and normalcy will return by the upcoming weekend.

[Maracamama]

We are now officially separated from AMA and spending a couple of days in Budapest on our own. I am writing from the roof top garden of The Marriot and the Danube below actually looks higher today. The weather itself has been beautiful the past 2 days. AMA has told the arriving passengers they plan to sail tomorrow evening. Not being privy to any info, I can just say it does not look good from here for tomorrow either.

 

Yes, AMA included meals and tours in Budapest and Vienna. Everything was handled beautifully. Our only disappointment is, as the previous poster noted, we are not the fans we were in our younger days of hauling suitcases from place to place, which is why we enjoy cruising so much.

 

My personal opinion is that the majority of clients in our group are seasoned travelers and "go with the flow". In this case, the flow happens to be faster and higher than usual, LOL

 

Good luck to all of you river cruisers in the next week.

 

Despite our first river cruise being a mini-debacle, we plan on booking another.

 

Cheers!

[eldercruser]

Maracamama - thanks for the follow-up information. Sorry the river cruise was cut short, but it sounds as though AMA handled the situation as well as could be expected.

 

There are indeed some red dots on the Danube between Budapest and Bratislavia. Hopefully, things will improve soon. Passau also looks a little iffy which means more water may be on the way.

[janetcbl]

Maracamama - thanks for the follow-up information. Sorry the river cruise was cut short, but it sounds as though AMA handled the situation as well as could be expected.

 

There are indeed some red dots on the Danube between Budapest and Bratislavia. Hopefully, things will improve soon. Passau also looks a little iffy which means more water may be on the way.

Where did you find the information "some red dots on the Danube between Budapest...."? Was it a website? I would like to know where I could find the information. Thanks!

[eldercruser]

Where did you find the information "some red dots on the Danube between Budapest...."? Was it a website? I would like to know where I could find the information. Thanks!

 

Here are some web sites previously posted by steamboats on a previous thread. Note the second link is for Slovakia. there are still two red dots on the Dunaj (Danube) this morning. The Austrian site shows water levels that are receding. The German site is virtually all "green" today.

 

Jerry

 

 

http://www.doris.bmvit.gv.at/en/wate.../water_levels/ Austria

http://www.povodia.sk/dunaj/en/index.htm Slovakia (map)

http://www.hydroinfo.hu/Html/hidinfo/duna.html Hungary (includes whole Danube river, but in Hungarian only)

http://www.elwis.de/gewaesserkunde/W...start.php.html (all of Germany, not only Danube river, German only)

http://www.elwis.de/gewaesserkunde/W...rte/index.html Germany (map version)

[ltansil]

Does someone know what the best time of year to do Danube river cruises is from the standpoint of river levels? I realize that there is no sure fire way to know but just from a "average", is there a best time?

[steamboats]

ltansil,

 

Sorry, there´s no answer to your question unless you´ll find someone who is able to give a correct longterm weather forecast :D.

 

River levels do depend on the weather - too much or too less rain. Usually you should avoid late March/early April because of snow melt and spring floods. We didn´t have one this year. The current flooding is totally unusual for this time of the year. Usually July and August should be dry and therefore low levels. But we had severe flooding in 2002 and 2005 in August.

 

So noone can tell you for sure. That´s part of river cruising!

 

steamboats