Insurance for river cruise failure

[lpslps]

It appears that the biggest risk in a river cruise is that the river is too high or too low and the river cruise becomes a bus tour.

 

It appears that you almost never find out about this in advance. True?

 

Is it possible to insure against this?

[DocDave69]

My wife & I were on a Danube cruise with Avalon in May 2013 during the historic floods. Our 'cruise' comprised 2 days on the river and the rest on a bus. We insured the trip (through a Canadian company) but could collect nothing. My understanding is that the cruise co. would have to cancel the cruise or there would have to be a natural disaster that precluded continuing. We finally left the cruise/bus tour 3 days before it was scheduled to end in (flooded) Prague. Avalon refunded everyone $1200.00 and re-imbursed us for the last 3 days. I would suggest reading the fine print of both the insurance contract and the cruise co. documents and ask each 'what if' questions if you have any doubts.

We loved the ship, crew, river for the brief time we actually cruised and now that the disappointment is fading we are actually considering river cruising, probably with Avalon, again.

 

 

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[purduemom1]

Finding out in advance is tricky as the water levels can change quickly if it rains.

[CPT Trips]

Was the refund from the cruise company required by the contract, or was it strictly a matter of good will on their part? The contracts I have seen are really one sided.

[DocDave69]

The refund was a good will gesture from Avalon. They worked very hard to bus us to the locations we were scheduled to visit. My complaint at the time was that Avalon didn't offer an option to leave the trip and pro-rate a refund when it was apparent it was to become a bus trip. However, now it's 'water under the bridge'? (Pun intended ; )

 

 

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[purduemom1]

The refund was a good will gesture from Avalon. They worked very hard to bus us to the locations we were scheduled to visit. My complaint at the time was that Avalon didn't offer an option to leave the trip and pro-rate a refund when it was apparent it was to become a bus trip. However, now it's 'water under the bridge'? (Pun intended ; )

 

 

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Tough call. I'm not sure I would want to leave the cruise early considering the flight costs involved getting to Europe and the cost to fly home early. So while I would be very disappointed that my cruise had turned into a bus trip, as long as I could continue to sightsee and not have to be involved with the details, I hope I could make the best of a bad situation. However, I have not actually been in your shoes so I can't say for sure just how I would feel. I do have one experience and that was with Hurricane Sandy who decided to join our Canada/New England cruise. She forced us to forego Bar Harbor and the post cruise plans we had to visit family in the Northeast. Like your situation, our trip insurance covered none of the additional expenses we had because our original plans had to be changed. Other than refunded port charges, there was no good will offering by RCL and we did not expect any. The Captain kept us safe and we did have a wonderful time in the ports we were able to visit.

[donaldsc]

Tough call. I'm not sure I would want to leave the cruise early considering the flight costs involved getting to Europe and the cost to fly home early. .

 

You do not have to fly home early. You ditch the bus-river cruise, find some nice places to visit on your own, and then get to the disembarkation port and fly home as originally planned.

 

When you travel, you have to be flexible.

 

DON

Edited July 14, 2014 by donaldsc

[KirkNC]

You do not have to fly home early. You ditch the bus-river cruise, find some nice places to visit on your own, and then get to the disembarkation port and fly home as originally planned.

 

When you travel, you have to be flexible.

 

DON

 

No truer words have ever been said.

[sitraveler]

And to answer the OP, no- insurance will not cover this.

[purduemom1]

As I said "tough call".

[NanciEA]

There is a new review for the Avalon Illumination (Bluesky1212) who said they could not board in Nuremberg because of low water and they were bused to Passau. The reviewer stated that despite losing two days of river cruising, Avalon provided no compensation. They did not mention if they were able to still visit Nuremberg and Regensburg or not. We are booked on this cruise in late August, and I fully realize that we could be bused for low (or high) water, but I would hope some sort of tour would still be provided. The review did not say what they did for the two days they were not on the river.

[aquilegia]

I don't think any insurance company would insure you against this, or if they did the cost would be astronomic. Disruption to river cruises in Europe due to high or low water is so common that it wouldn't be a good risk for the insurers.

[waytocruise7]

You do not have to fly home early. You ditch the bus-river cruise, find some nice places to visit on your own, and then get to the disembarkation port and fly home as originally planned.

 

When you travel, you have to be flexible.

 

DON

 

We would like to be flexible in our travels but being totally unfamiliar with the towns along our cruise, we are not even sure what are the ‘nice places to visit on our own’, let alone organise it last minute. We will be doing Avalon’s Rhine and Moselle (from Basel to Amsterdam) in Sept 2015 and would really appreciate if some experienced cruises could give us suggestions on nice places to visit on our own / stay and even means of transport etc should our river cruise be cancelled at the last minute. We are coming from Australia and are planning to arrive at Zurich at least two days before the cruise. We even thought of a Plan B of joining an ocean cruise to the Norwegian Fjords but not many cruises do that in Sept. So, if anyone has suggestions on Plan B, would really appreciate hearing from you, just in case we have to be flexible.

[Hoyaheel]

Will you have a "device" with you - tablet, laptop etc? If so, there's free wifi on most boats and in other places in Europe, as needed you can always Google:D. EG "trains Basel Zurich" or "tourist office koblenz" etc.

 

Personally, what I do to help ensure travel flexibility is plan in advance. Oxymoron, right?:p I have a document where I keep all my info, as well as a bookmark set up for each trip in my google account for websites I find interesting. I'll look up every port/stop/city I'll be visiting, I'll look at local public transportation options, (my husband loves to look at metro maps:D). I'll make sure I know what tourism options are in the area, as well as areas of a town that look the most fun to just go explore (which is my favorite mode of tourism anyway!) To make recommendations - we need to know what you would like to do on your trip! For instance, when I was last in Paris, I went to the Sewer museum and had a picnic at Versailles in the rain (it was November). Would the majority of people on Cruise Critic want to do the same thing? I'd guess not ;-) But we had a blast!

 

I also look at expected weather and make my packing list accordingly (with one or two outliers, just in case), have a few phrases in the local language, make sure I look at exchange rates etc.

 

I find that planning in advance makes it MUCH easier for me to be flexible when I'm actually out there traveling....

 

(my next trip will be Shanghai for business and pleasure - I've never been - and it's a little intimidating - but I *know* it will be awesome!)

Edited July 15, 2014 by Hoyaheel

[waytocruise7]

Thanks, Hoyaheel for your suggestions. Yes, we will have an i-pad with us. And, we will goggle the tourist offices for the towns along our Rhine & Moselle cruise. Prior to this, I had only looked for information for Basel & Amsterdam, for our pre-cruise & post-cruise. Didn’t think of goggling all the other ports, for contingency planning. Because we are so unfamiliar with the Rhine area, when we booked this river cruise (our first), it was more the attraction of sightseeing while cruising, plus the included shore excursions. This cruise is very different from our previous ocean cruises where we had specific historical and cultural sites that we wanted to do (e.g. when we did Mediterranean and the Greek islands). Thanks again for your suggestions and I will start ‘researching’ the different ports.

[Hoyaheel]

There's also a River Cruise Ports forum here (links at the top of this forum, I think) so if you have questions, put them there! There is so much information on Cruise Critic - everyone loves to share their trip info, reviews & recommendations!

 

I find it's easier to do a little background research on my own to even figure out what sorts of questions I want to ask, though:p

 

(and of course, there are people who don't care to or want to do this sort of research and while my personality doesn't understand that at all :o, it's perfectly fine to just get on a boat and learn as you go, from your tour guides etc!)

[rudeman]

There are a lot of "if's" in river cruising. High and low water are two oft-mentioned. But other issues lurk there, too, as mentioned by our captain on our recent Avalon cruise. Locks breaking down, striking lock operators, accidents (one near Loriley shut down the Rhine for a lengthy period a few year back), etc., can all factor in. We thoroughly enjoyed our cruise and were blessed (lucky?) to have a successful run from Budapest all the way to Amsterdam, but we now realize what a risky business it is. That being said, we will definitely cruise again in the future.

Edited July 18, 2014 by rudeman