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

[pully8]

Sorry to read that abelov.

We have friends booked on 2 Scenic European river cruises next yea,r they are from Queensland, and like us have done several of river cruises.

We will notify them of these issues to alert them in case they are unaware. No MSM so far, are documenting these events and how passengers are being impacted at very short notice or not receiving notification until arriving in Europe.

Will scenic allow cancellation at this late stage?

We have read when APT cancelled at short notice some passengers including a couple from Queensland were in Europe and learnt about the cancellation there, a gold coast TA was able to book them on an ocean cruise.

 

Good luck with whatever happens.  

[iwannacruz]

19 hours ago, RDC1 said:

Actually most ocean cruise change the routes and ports, not cancel the cruise.  About the only time they actually cancel is when it is not safe for the ship to make it into port.  For example have seen eastern Caribbean cruises turn into western Caribbean during hurricane season.  You get very very few out right cancellations.

There's a big difference. On an ocean cruise you are still getting a cruise, just different ports. On the river cruise you are no longer getting a cruise, you are getting a bus tour. I am not looking forward to our cruise that leaves Dec 14. Very disappointed that Viking will not offer a full refund. They have know about low levels for a long time. I doubt if I will sail with them again. Hope they suffer the consequences of their actions. Thought they were such a great company.

[Lggva]

22 hours ago, Lggva said:

 

I’m looking forward to your report of the trip. Since we leave on the Alta on 12/2. I did this same cruise in 2012 and Viking does a great job. I hope you can enjoy your trip. Safe travels. 

 

Well we got the dreaded email today from Viking. No plans to allow this to ruin my vacation.  My friends and I decided to get snacks and wine before we board, so if we get bussed we will make our own party.  It’s a bit disappointing, but try as I might I can’t control the weather. So we will have a good time and roll with whatever happens. 

[madda]

Very impressed with APT on how they are handling the current water level situation. We are supposed to be on the AmaVenita departing Budapest on 24/11/2018 however the boat cannot get to Budapest. We have been given three options: Option 1. A modified 11-day cruise staying in a hotel in Budapest the first night, bus to Vienna for two nights then flying to Amsterdam where we will board the AmaVenita and cruise through The Netherlands and Belgium as well as 20% credit on the value of our cruise. Option 2: Defer our cruise until 2019 and do another European tour. Option 3: Full refund. Just have to make a decision between Options 1 and 3 as we already have two holidays planned for next year. Have to decide quickly as we leave Adelaide on Monday for Prague.

[G.M.T.]

The Danube levels have dropped slightly, a couple of cm.

 

It's a beautiful sunny day, cold but beautiful Bavarian sky (blue with small white clouds).

 

There is a high pressure zone over Germany, that will keep this sunny dry weather until at least next Tuesday, after which it will turn a lot colder with snow coming in from the east.

 

As a saying German goes " Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt ".

[djh1959]

So sorry to hear of your situation abelov.  You are quite right, it is not the way to lead in to a much anticipated holiday.

 

We are booked with Scenic, but luckily not until October next year.  I am already stressing after reading these boards.

 

I very much doubt they will let you cancel, unless you simply forfeit all your money, which is hardly what you will want.  Someone recently posted the link to the solicitor who handled the last class action against Scenic.  They are currently preparing another one for this year's issues, as it seems Scenic are about the worst in the way they are treating people.

 

I do hope things work out for your and please keep posting so we know how you get on.

[pully8]

madda agree those options sound fair.

Did APT also book your flights or did you do that independently?

Would the full refund be for the cruise component alone?

 

at least now you have some answers and can make plans.

[notamermaid]

3 hours ago, G.M.T. said:

The Danube levels have dropped slightly, a couple of cm.

 

It's a beautiful sunny day, cold but beautiful Bavarian sky (blue with small white clouds).

 

There is a high pressure zone over Germany, that will keep this sunny dry weather until at least next Tuesday, after which it will turn a lot colder with snow coming in from the east.

 

As a saying German goes " Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt ".

The Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde has just published its 19th update on the low water situation in Germany. We certainly will not see any change for the better in the next few days. Their forecast for Hofkirchen gauge is not too good. Stagnation to slight fall of the level. Further into the future (up to seven days) the weather pattern will persist so while hope indeed dies last, I do not have much of it for a positive change to happen next week.

 

notamermaid

 

[suspaul]

1 hour ago, notamermaid said:

The Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde has just published its 19th update on the low water situation in Germany. We certainly will not see any change for the better in the next few days. Their forecast for Hofkirchen gauge is not too good. Stagnation to slight fall of the level. Further into the future (up to seven days) the weather pattern will persist so while hope indeed dies last, I do not have much of it for a positive change to happen next week.

 

notamermaid

 

 

Thanks notamermaid for following the weather for us.  While it’s not encouraging, your daily reports at least let us know what’s happening day by day which is more than we can say for our travel companies.  Still doing the rain dance but it seems there’s no need for umbrellas 😞

[bubbulz]

8 minutes ago, suspaul said:

 

Thanks notamermaid for following the weather for us.  While it’s not encouraging, your daily reports at least let us know what’s happening day by day which is more than we can say for our travel companies.  Still doing the rain dance but it seems there’s no need for umbrellas 😞

I'd like to add my thanks as well. Although it is not good news for the chances of starting our cruise in Budapest in 2 weeks, I'd rather be prepared with an idea of what's to come. At this point, it's not even looking like Uniworld has a boat in Budapest to temporarily swap us to. 

[Crowefamily4]

2 hours ago, notamermaid said:

The Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde has just published its 19th update on the low water situation in Germany. We certainly will not see any change for the better in the next few days. Their forecast for Hofkirchen gauge is not too good. Stagnation to slight fall of the level. Further into the future (up to seven days) the weather pattern will persist so while hope indeed dies last, I do not have much of it for a positive change to happen next week.

 

notamermaid

 

So what will it take to bring the Danube back to comfortable sailing levels?  We are booked on the Viking Romantic Danube in April, 2019.  What are the chances that the river levels will be back up to good sailing levels for this coming spring?  Bad - not good - pretty good - good - very good?  With of course the understanding that long range forecasts are a crapshoot.  Thank-you....

[notamermaid]

6 minutes ago, Crowefamily4 said:

So what will it take to bring the Danube back to comfortable sailing levels?  We are booked on the Viking Romantic Danube in April, 2019.  What are the chances that the river levels will be back up to good sailing levels for this coming spring?  Bad - not good - pretty good - good - very good?  With of course the understanding that long range forecasts are a crapshoot.  Thank-you....

Hmm, eehh, hmm. I would like to say pretty good, but at this point in time I feel that any answer will result in somebody telling me off for it. In late winter things will look better, but snow melt and rain who knows when they will come to the Danube. Sort of low water in April or flooding blocking the river for a week? Hmmm.

 

Over to G.M.T. who is better at reading the coffee grains in the Passau cafés...

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Crowefamily4]

38 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

Hmm, eehh, hmm. I would like to say pretty good, but at this point in time I feel that any answer will result in somebody telling me off for it. In late winter things will look better, but snow melt and rain who knows when they will come to the Danube. Sort of low water in April or flooding blocking the river for a week? Hmmm.

 

Over to G.M.T. who is better at reading the coffee grains in the Passau cafés...

 

notamermaid

 

 

LOL,  yeah that’s what I thought, too far out to be sure, but appreciate the response.  Our first river cruise, so doing the first timer panic nail biting having read the busing stories from this past summer and current sailings.  Trying to decide if to just cancel the cruise and follow the city route, Budapest to Nuremberg, on our own via train.  Hmmmm

[kellyirwin610]

10 hours ago, madda said:

Very impressed with APT on how they are handling the current water level situation. We are supposed to be on the AmaVenita departing Budapest on 24/11/2018 however the boat cannot get to Budapest. We have been given three options: Option 1. A modified 11-day cruise staying in a hotel in Budapest the first night, bus to Vienna for two nights then flying to Amsterdam where we will board the AmaVenita and cruise through The Netherlands and Belgium as well as 20% credit on the value of our cruise. Option 2: Defer our cruise until 2019 and do another European tour. Option 3: Full refund. Just have to make a decision between Options 1 and 3 as we already have two holidays planned for next year. Have to decide quickly as we leave Adelaide on Monday for Prague.

That's amazing! Viking waited until one week before starting to send us messages and no offer of any kind for the 3 boat changes, two bus rides we will now have to go through on our 11/18 Romantic Danube. IF we ever do this again, will have to thoroughly research the cruise line. Thankful for this site, otherwise I would have had no clue! See rain forecast for next week in Budapest (may be a little too late for us though).

[worldtraveller99]

We travel to Vienna on 24/11 and onto the Amadeus ship (assuming it ever moves from Linz!) on 28/11. Half the weather forecasts are for snow showers - and half are just for very cloudy. What do you think - re the likelihood of snow, and will this enable us to reach Regensburg then Nuremberg after Monday 3rd December?

[jeb_bud]

9 hours ago, djh1959 said:

So sorry to hear of your situation abelov.  You are quite right, it is not the way to lead in to a much anticipated holiday.

 

We are booked with Scenic, but luckily not until October next year.  I am already stressing after reading these boards.

 

I very much doubt they will let you cancel, unless you simply forfeit all your money, which is hardly what you will want.  Someone recently posted the link to the solicitor who handled the last class action against Scenic.  They are currently preparing another one for this year's issues, as it seems Scenic are about the worst in the way they are treating people.

 

I do hope things work out for your and please keep posting so we know how you get on.

 

We are also booked on a Scenic cruise next October, Amsterdam to Basel via the Moselle. Hoping for a normally rainy summer, or at least ships on both sides of the Rhine Gorge. 

 

Abelov, on the bright side it appears they Scenic has ships in positions that could allow ship swaps to keep you cruising from Vienna to Amsterdam. Considering that Scenic hasn’t had a ship in Budapest for many weeks I hope they have developed a good way to get you to Vienna without too much pain. 

 

Assuming you don’t cancel I hope you report on your experience. 

[ckcruise]

Abalov

We were on Scenic from Amsterdam to Budapest October 10 to 24. Our cruise was listed on Scenic's website as having a possible disruption at least 2 weeks before we left home. We received an email 2 days prior to boarding that we would board the Amber and not the Opal as scheduled. We had 3 nights on the Amber and then had to do a ship swap to the Opal as there wasn't enough water to cruise the Rhine gorge.  Scenic did put us on a tourist boat through the beautiful Rhine gorge. We were fed lunch with drinks onboard. While not quite the same as cruising on the river boat, we enjoyed the experience.  Sailing went smoothly till  Regensburg. We were told we could not cruise any further and offered 2 options. 1 - continue with the itinerary by bus or 2 - choose to depart for home. We were given monetary reimbursement relative to our choice and our cabin category.  Only one couple chose to leave and it was because they were both sick.  The next day we were bused to Salzburg from Regensburg...a long day...some chose to spend the day in Regensburg.  The following  day, we left the Opal and were bused to Vienna with a stop in the Wachau Valley, we spent 2 nights in Vienna then were bused to Budapest where we spent 2 more nights.  Scenic booked us into 5 star hotels (Sofitels) and all our meals were included with drinks (at meal times) as well. We were able to do all excursions with the exception of the bike ride from from Melk to Durnstein and the bike ride in Vienna.  We did visit the beautiful Melk Abbey. Our Scenic, cruise director, Beata, handled everything very well and I think generally the vast majority of fellow passengers were happy with the experience and the compensation- in the end, we were paid for 6 days disruption. I don't think river levels have changed significantly since our trip, so I suspect your will experience something similar. We went with the mind set to go with the flow and have a good time anyway which we did. I realize everyone is different so only you can decide if you would be happy with this scenario. I will say, we were happy to be given cash reimbursement instead of a future voucher. I hope this helps. I was a lurker on this forum for a month or 2 before our departure and I know there are not very many Scenic cruisers that post here.  

[Jcat2010]

LGGVA:   we're on the cruise after yours.   What did Viking's email state regarding your cruise?  How many busses, how many ship swaps, any specifics would help, as we're likely to see something similar.   Viking won't tell us much at this time, so I'm planning on calling them again next week.

[madda]

12 hours ago, pully8 said:

madda agree those options sound fair.

Did APT also book your flights or did you do that independently?

Would the full refund be for the cruise component alone?

 

at least now you have some answers and can make plans.

APT also booked our flights, Business Class from Adelaide return to Adelaide, also our pre-cruise four day stay in Prague and post-cruise six day stay in London. The refund would be for the full amount. We have decided to do Option 1 and cruise through The Netherlands and Belgium where there will be plenty of Christmas Markets.

[Flamencacha]

6 hours ago, Crowefamily4 said:

LOL,  yeah that’s what I thought, too far out to be sure, but appreciate the response.  Our first river cruise, so doing the first timer panic nail biting having read the busing stories from this past summer and current sailings.  Trying to decide if to just cancel the cruise and follow the city route, Budapest to Nuremberg, on our own via train.  Hmmmm

I feel your pain, just did my first River cruise. Stressed for two months, and in the end sailed the whole way through.  

 

Tough choice!  It’s nice not to have to pack and unpack.  

[Rappersmom]

1 hour ago, Jcat2010 said:

LGGVA:   we're on the cruise after yours.   What did Viking's email state regarding your cruise?  How many busses, how many ship swaps, any specifics would help, as we're likely to see something similar.   Viking won't tell us much at this time, so I'm planning on calling them again next week.

 

Jcat2010: It looks like my husband and I are on the same cruise as you--Dec. 9 Viking Atla in Budapest. We haven't heard anything from Viking either, although the cruise status info on their web site has become decidedly more pessimistic. It pretty much says there will be adjustments for a while. We are reconciled to bus rides but would at least like to know how that will affect the beginning of our trip, since we are going in early and have hired a private guide for Budapest. Our travel agent told us it was no big deal and then disappeared for 2 weeks. I guess we will all find out together in another week.

[JAG64]

13 hours ago, pully8 said:

madda agree those options sound fair.

Did APT also book your flights or did you do that independently?

Would the full refund be for the cruise component alone?

 

at least now you have some answers and can make plans.

Yes, we have been notified by APT, but when you do the sums the 20% credit only just covers the increased price of the cruise for next year especially if you took the business class flight option like we did. Also, the cruise they are offering is nowhere near the calibre of Magnificent Europe so there is also a loss there. It is so hard to decide what to do especially when we have six weeks of travel in Europe after the cruise.

Edited November 15, 2018 by JAG64
spelling error

[JAG64]

57 minutes ago, madda said:

APT also booked our flights, Business Class from Adelaide return to Adelaide, also our pre-cruise four day stay in Prague and post-cruise six day stay in London. The refund would be for the full amount. We have decided to do Option 1 and cruise through The Netherlands and Belgium where there will be plenty of Christmas Markets.

Hi madda, it's a really tough decision and our party of four on the same cruise as you wish they were giving a cash refund instead of 20% voucher, as I believe APT do not think many will use it and so they win. Therefore, they are not giving us Magnificent Europe that we booked 21 months in advance but a smaller cruise without all the bells and whistles we were looking forward to. We too booked business class and if we book the same cruise next year, there is absolutely no advantage with the 20% voucher because the business class fares are now double the price. We are just weighing up all the options with our TA and APT at the moment. 

Edited November 15, 2018 by JAG64
spelling error

[LizzieBliss]

4 hours ago, ckcruise said:

Abalov

We were on Scenic from Amsterdam to Budapest October 10 to 24. ... I think generally the vast majority of fellow passengers were happy with the experience and the compensation- in the end, we were paid for 6 days disruption. 

ckccruise, it sounds like you had a great attitude and I'm glad you had a good time. We are scheduled to sail with Scenic from Nuremberg to Budapest in early December.  We have cancel for any reason insurance that will refund us 75% of our fare which we are considering.  Eeks, I hate to pay $10,000 for a bus trip.  Could you give me an idea of what kind of cash compensation Scenic gave passengers per day?  In talking to Scenic, they won't give me even a ballpark figure. Thank you for your post.

[pully8]

madda Thanks for your reply.

A full refund of cruise/land/business air sounds very good.

Can understand taking the alternative itinerary offered too, especially if people have other arrangements in Europe.

We are not keen on herding and bus trips but can tolerate in small doses.

The 20% off next cruise offer would suit people who can travel next year to Europe, not all would be free to do so or already have plans.

Curious if it was applicable to other products in the APT/APG like Botanica?

We have enjoyed their garden trips and found them extremely well done, albeit not cheap. We hopefully will get some definitive offers closer to our date. We are communicating with our TA and APT, but still getting we will contact you type emails, so far.

Nevertheless pleased you have something organised now to look forward too.

That's all we all want when booking and paying for a premium travel trip.