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Elbe River


acruisinprincess
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Things are certainly looking better on the Elbe. The river level at Dresden peaked at 100cm yesterday and is now at 94cm. Will it hold? Will all cruises be able to sail in July? I am certainly more hopeful than I was four days ago. But it is not really anything to shout hooray about. For the time being things are ok it seems and Viking has this notice on their website. Quoting:

"ELBE RIVER

 

Water levels on the Elbe remain low, but our cruises on the river this week are expected to sail the majority of the itinerary.

Please note, conditions may change on short notice. Guests will be contacted individually if deviations from the standard itinerary become necessary."

 

notamermaid

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The Viking Astrild has just completed her sailing from Decin into Wittenberg scheduled 15th to 21st of July according to the timetable. With water levels of the Elbe low, but currently stable and some rainfall in Saxony and Bohemia predicted tomorrow and friday there is also some optimism allowed that she can complete the next cruise upriver starting on Friday, 21st in Wittenberg (overall tour starting today in Berlin).

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Viking Astrild had left Wittenberg for her upstream sailing on Friday 21st of July with a small change of the itinerary. The ship moved in the morning from Wittenberg to Elster without the passengers, who in the meantime had their Wittenberg city tour. After the tour the passengers were bussed to Elster, a 30 min busride to join the ship there and start the actual cruising.

 

The standard itinerary is that the ship takes the passengers in Wittenberg after their city tour and starts sailing then. As a result, passengers are missing some 20 miles of cruising, but that is it. Reason behind it is, that the ship can maneuvre some shallow parts of the river between Wittenberg and Elster (but also upriver) a bit slower and thus also a bit more carefully.

 

With more rainfall in Saxony and Bohemia predicted (and actually pouring down) this weekend and river level low, but stable, I dare to say that things are looking good for the remaining sailings this month.

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We did the Elbe in September 2016. Although it was a bad year for the Elbe, we were blessed and impacted minimally. We were notified at least 5 days ahead that our cruise would be impacted. Given a choice to cancel or get $1000 for future cruise.

We only lost 2 half day sailing, one at beginning of trip and other at the end.

Booked the trip for itinerary and was aware of low water problems when I booked. That is the chance you take when river cruising.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I cruised the Elbe with Viking in March.. Everything was as described, no extra busing. At the last minute I was able to shift our air to 1 day earlier to avoid a NY snowstorm. We had an extra day in Berlin as a consequence, there were no extra charges for the hotel.

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Hello sitraveler,

 

good to hear things went well for you on your cruise and I hope you had a great time.

 

Things are not looking so good now. This is quoted from the Viking website:

"ELBE RIVER

 

Water levels on the Elbe remain low, but our cruises on the river this week are expected to sail the majority of the itinerary.

Please note, conditions may change on short notice. Guests will be contacted individually if deviations from the standard itinerary become necessary.

The following sailings may be affected:

 

  • August 12th Elegant Elbe on board Viking Astrild
  • August 12th Elegant Elbe on board Viking Beyla
  • August 12th Poland, Prague & the Elegant Elbe on board Viking Beyla"

 

notamermaid

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  • 2 weeks later...

Reviving this thread because we were just informed that our 27 Aug sailing from Decin to Wittenberg may be impacted by low water on the Elbe. Viking is providing a very broad menu of what may be required but it looks like a similar scenario to what others experienced earlier this year. They are not talking about outright cancellation but reserving the right to convert the entire cruise into a bus tour. This is our first river cruise and suffice to say we are horrified finding this out just three days before we get on the airplane. We also have add-on days in both Prague and Berlin and so will probably not know whether we will cruise the Elbe at all until we are in Prague. I don't know exactly what we should have expected in terms of forewarning, but this was certainly not it.

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I don't know exactly what we should have expected in terms of forewarning, but this was certainly not it.

 

Predicting the Elbe water levels with any degree of accuracy more than a day or two ahead is close to impossible unfortunately.

 

At times, even a few hours ahead is a guess at best.

 

It sounds like what you are being told is as good as it gets and all it takes is some rain or the lack of it over the next few days to change everything.

 

I hope you get the rain you need.

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The Elbe is notoriously low again this year - there were quite a few disgruntled Viking passengers last year. However, the other cruise companies (including German ones) face these problems too to a varying degree. Unfortunately I cannot report how other companies handle it. Many Europeans will know that they have to accept what is thrown at them (having some experience with rivers and listening to the news reports) and the clauses like "not responsible for low water, etc." are always in the small print. Being so far away from the place, i.e. in the Americas is certainly difficult to follow what is happening in your holiday destination and I fully understand that hearing the news from Viking shortly before you leave is making you nervous. Viking - apart from the basic fact that there can always be problems with low water from July onwards - can do no more than watch the river level on an hourly basis and decide what their policy is. Cry wolf and too many passengers cancel or get nervous for nothing, so informing four days before is reasonable in my opinion. And unfortunately, looking at the weather forecast, it does not look good for the next sailing. Dresden is at 76cm right now, very low. Forecast is for warm to hot temperatures with rain coming Saturday and Sunday. Three days without rain is something the Elbe cannot endure right now without the level falling further of course, but if the rain in the border area of the Czech Republic is substantial at the weekend you could get lucky and be able to sail. The experts of the German authorities only make a prediction for 48 hours ahead. In that light one can understand that Viking does not warn more than a few days ahead of sailing... Again, what might not come across well enough is that the Elbe is a somewhat "unnerving" river for passengers as regards low water levels ...

 

Have you talked to representatives or you travel agent about cancelling or alternative plans, money-back or vouchers? European travel / consumer law is quite different at times from US-law (which I am not familiar with) so I will not go into that topic.

 

I hope you can still look forward to a great experience and wish you rain (lots at night and not too much of it in one go).

 

notamermaid

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Thanks for the replies and good wishes.

 

I can think of any number of ways Viking could be handling this situation better. They know the historical conditions on the Elbe and perhaps should be offering Elbe cruises only in the months when the river conditions are likely to be sufficient. Apparently spring is best on this river. So perhaps they should not offer mid-or-late summer cruises, if they are often interrupted. They could have disclosed in the probabilities of the cruise not proceeding as advertised when we booked, so that we could decide whether we wanted to take the risk with this cruise or book another. No doubt they are perfectly aware of those numbers, they just don't tell their customers. Also, the Elbe has been a problem all summer. So they could have offered us an alternative cruise, perhaps weeks ago, when it was apparent that low water was a continuing issue this year. They could have also have skipped the abrupt email that tells us essentially nothing but that our cruise may be ruined.

 

When this email arrived I called our travel agent. Not a lot she can do but commiserate. We do have cruise insurance that may cover cancellation for any reason, but we are also traveling with another couple, so this is not really a good option even if we were able to take it at this very, very late date. It is also not at all easy for us to find two weeks when we can get away. Just a bad situation altogether made worse I think by Viking not being as upfront or as informative as they might be. They may well believe that giving their customers better information is bad for business but my message to them is this way is even worse for business.

Edited by Dr Millmoss
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Welcome to the joys of river cruising :)

 

There is no perfect solution, absent a genuine working crystal ball.

 

A good TA and plenty of research can help you minimize water level issues, but never eliminate them.

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Welcome to the joys of river cruising :)

 

There is no perfect solution, absent a genuine working crystal ball.

 

A good TA and plenty of research can help you minimize water level issues, but never eliminate them.

 

I don't think we're being unreasonable, having cruised many times before and being aware of the impacts of weather conditions, so a perfect solution isn't what we expect. This one is far from perfect, and in fact it is difficult to think of a single positive in the way Viking has handled it thus far.

 

Our travel agent is very good and responsive, but she hasn't been on this particular cruise herself.

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I don't think we're being unreasonable, having cruised many times before and being aware of the impacts of weather conditions, so a perfect solution isn't what we expect. This one is far from perfect, and in fact it is difficult to think of a single positive in the way Viking has handled it thus far.

 

Our travel agent is very good and responsive, but she hasn't been on this particular cruise herself.

 

I do feel bad about the difficulties on your upcoming cruise but I do have 2 questions

1 In your opinion what should have Viking done to make this acceptable to you

2 If Viking had informed you 2 or 3 weeks earlier - which many here pointed out is TOTALLY impossible as water levels cannot be predicted that far ahead - what would you ACTUALLY do? Not what you could have done theoretically but what would you actually do. Cancel the cruise?

I have this cruise boooked for Sept '18 and will have to face the same potential problems with water levels.

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I do feel bad about the difficulties on your upcoming cruise but I do have 2 questions

1 In your opinion what should have Viking done to make this acceptable to you

2 If Viking had informed you 2 or 3 weeks earlier - which many here pointed out is TOTALLY impossible as water levels cannot be predicted that far ahead - what would you ACTUALLY do? Not what you could have done theoretically but what would you actually do. Cancel the cruise?

I have this cruise boooked for Sept '18 and will have to face the same potential problems with water levels.

 

I believe I already answered both of these questions in previous posts. To make the main point again, water level has been a problem on the Elbe all summer, so this is not something that just happened. If Viking had warned us a few weeks ago of the possibility that the low river levels experienced all summer on the Elbe could continue, and they'd offered us an alternative booking, we very likely would have taken it, probably even at a higher cost.

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If Viking could have offered you "an alternative booking" it would have to be on a different river as Elbe levels couldn't be guaranteed or predicted for any alternative date.

That, of course, would change your entire trip, including your pre and post cruise stays in Prague and Berlin - in other words an entirely different vacation. Were you really ready for that? Presumably Viking would cover your airline changes?

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If Viking could have offered you "an alternative booking" it would have to be on a different river as Elbe levels couldn't be guaranteed or predicted for any alternative date.

That, of course, would change your entire trip, including your pre and post cruise stays in Prague and Berlin - in other words an entirely different vacation. Were you really ready for that? Presumably Viking would cover your airline changes?

 

We obviously aren't expecting any guarantees. As I've said several times, the Elbe has been a problem for months now, so this is not an issue that just cropped up yesterday, it was only yesterday that Viking opted to inform us. Yes, I would have considered an entirely different trip, had I known and been provided with that option, even at a higher cost. What we were not ready for was what has apparently happened. We booked our flights though Viking, so yes, they could have accommodated us with that as well, again with the understanding that the cost might be higher. Instead they offered us absolutely nothing but the news that our cruise may be ruined, three days before we were set to leave.

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Dr. Millmoss,

 

Thank you for your detailed reply in post #63. You raise an interesting point: "They could have disclosed in the probabilities of the cruise not proceeding as advertised when we booked, so that we could decide whether we wanted to take the risk with this cruise or book another."

 

How did you find out about the cruise and how did you book? I am interested as I - apart from living sort of with high and low water levels close to "my" river - read about the details of possible mishaps on my cruise on the pages at the back of the catalogue before I booked. I just read the terms and conditions and it was clear to me what the company was feeling responsible for and what not. Just to remind you, I booked with a German company. I am only now thinking that many people actually do not book having had a detailed catalogue in their hands. Perhaps I am one of the few who actually turn lots of pages, I love catalogues. :)

 

notamermaid

Edited by notamermaid
got rid of a wrong word
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Dr. Millmoss,

 

Thank you for your detailed reply in post #63. You raise an interesting point: "They could have disclosed in the probabilities of the cruise not proceeding as advertised when we booked, so that we could decide whether we wanted to take the risk with this cruise or book another."

 

How did you find out about the cruise and how did you book? I am interested as I - apart from living sort of with high and low water levels close to "my" river - read about the details of possible mishaps on my cruise on the pages at the back of the catalogue before I booked. I just read the terms and conditions and it was clear to me what the company was feeling responsible for and what not. Just to remind you, I booked with a German company. I am only now thinking that many people actually do not book having had a detailed catalogue in their hands. Perhaps I am one of the few who actually turn lots of pages, I love catalogues. :)

 

notamermaid

 

We got most of our information directly from Viking online. The reservations were made through a local travel agent many months ago. We had originally considered taking a Danube cruise she was leading herself, but it booked up before we could decide. We tend to research climate conditions and the itinerary independently. We liked this itinerary and late August seemed like a good time to travel to this part of the world, after the peak summer travel season. As first time river cruisers it never occurred to us to be concerned about water levels in the river.

All cruise lines list similar caveats in their terms and conditions. Essentially they absolve themselves from any failure to reach a port, and so on. As I said we've been on plenty of big ship cruises and know and understand this well. The thrust of some of the responses to my concerns about how Viking has handled this summer of poor levels on the Elbe (never mind, the way they advertised the cruise) seems to be that not being more experienced with river cruises, we got what we deserved. I don't see you as saying that (danke!) but others are, more or less directly.

 

Sadly, this seems to be Viking's position on the matter, in effect. I suppose they have the right to sell a cruise that might not float a single meter on a river, and make us pay just the same. But then we have the right to never do business with them again.

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We did the Elbe in September 2016. Although it was a bad year for the Elbe, we were blessed and impacted minimally. We were notified at least 5 days ahead that our cruise would be impacted. Given a choice to cancel or get $1000 for future cruise.

We only lost 2 half day sailing, one at beginning of trip and other at the end.

Booked the trip for itinerary and was aware of low water problems when I booked. That is the chance you take when river cruising.

 

I just noticed this post. Viking has made us no offers to cancel or any credit towards a future cruise. Perhaps they have done this in the past, but they are not doing it now.

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Sorry for the multiple posts but I wanted to share these two articles from Travel Weekly. The express the same concerns based on extensive experience with river cruising that I am offering based on just our first experience.

 

http://www.travelweekly.com/Richard-Turen/River-cruisers-need-facts

 

http://www.travelweekly.com/Richard-Turen/Fact-checking-river-cruises

 

Note in the second article the response from Viking.

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There has been some discussion on these boards that Viking has more problems on the Elbe than some of the other lines, because of the size of their ships. However, you are making it sound like every cruise became a bus tour, and I doubt that is true. Sometimes they only have to make minor adjustments, sometimes they are more major. Weather is such an imponderable. Water levels can change in 24 hours or less. It is really quite different from weather issues on an ocean cruise.

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