A question about water levels

As someone who has not yet done a river cruise, I am concerned that it seems at certain times the boats are not able to do a full cruise on a river as there are problems with water levels/locks etc.

Can anyone say at what time of the year this is likely to occur, on the Rhine or Danube?

Thanks in advance.

I was on the Rhine and Rhone early May 2013 and we could not continue to Basel on Rhine and had to stop in Lyon enroute to Paris on Rhone due to high water levels. Disappointing, but it is Mother Nature and a risk when you take a river cruise.

Weather charts online show March- July as the months with the most rain in the Rhine area with May and June having the most precipitation. Rain then show to drop off with Oct.- Dec. being the driest months other than Feb., however, in the end you are simply playing the odds and it is just mother nature and a roll of the dice. Be flexible and if something happens just sit back and enjoy the bus ride.

In the "Good Ol' Days", you could be asured that the rivers would flood in Spring when the snows melted and in August the rivers would be plagued by low water levels.

These days no one can say how the river levels will go (except down stream) other than 7 - 10 days in advance.

Don't worry, go with an opened mind and enjoy your cruise.

There are not usually problems with locks. There was an issue with a broken lock on the Danube this year but that was very unusual. The water levels are a problem if they are either too low (insufficient depth) or too high (insufficent room to get under bridges). But as others have said, it is impossible to predict if/when this is going to occur. It is a chance you just have to take if you want to do a river cruise.

The one thing you can do is take a boat with a shallow draft and low superstructure. AMA boats were specifically designed for this, as were some others, and they have been able to keep sailing in low- and high-water situations longer than most others. One highly touted new design is too big and those boats have to stop sailing before everybody else.

Both High and low water can be issues, also broken locks and bridges damaged by other boats ( this closed river for 12 hrs in August this year)

The other issue is draft and height of some company boats. The other major issues is how good or bad some companies are if any of the about issues occur.

During our cruise in July /August we passed at least a dozen Viking boats rafted upto 3 deep just waiting there for 2 or 3 days for water levels to drop. (glad we were not on them, spoke to some passengers in the towns, they were not happy)

Suggest you also research those companies that failed badly last year during flooding ( 2 marketed heavily in Australia, one has class action pending)

Avalon and AMA are 2 that were very good in all situations noted above. We will always us Avalon due to them being very good in the above situations, are very proactive in finding solutions and very quick to refund for any failures.

Our approach with river cruising is you just deal with the events as they happen, that why we pick the good companies

Many thanks for the advice everyone, especially about using the boats with a shallow draft; makes complete sense.

There are not usually problems with locks. There was an issue with a broken lock on the Danube this year but that was very unusual.

 

Our cruise was disrupted along with many ithers by the Lock workers strike in Bavaria during the Summer of 2013. The lock closings were rolling and sporadic and our cruise on the Danube fell up to 11 hours behind schedule. This was in late July 2013 that we cruised. Thanks to our Captain and the logistical team of Avalon they did the best the could to hsndle this problem. Adjustments had to be made to the schedule and the optional River gorge excursion was cancelked. We did not dock in Regensburg, but we had to be bussed there instead.

I was on the Vantage Holiday Markets on the Rhine 2 or 3 yrs ago and the river levels were really low. In fact, at one point we docked at a little town in the Rhine Gorge and were bussed to Koblenz and Rudesheim because they had found an undetenated WWII bomb in the river that they had to get rid of! Our captain kept us apprised of the situations and the water levels and we were able to continue on our cruise. While in Koblenz though there were at least 6-7 ships that were docked because of the low level and those cruisers were cancelled or were on bus tours. Our captain told us that Vantage has a shallower draft and that's why our cruise was completed without incident.