notamermaid

Welcome to the world of river cruising. I am sure you will be happy with any of the three companies you mention. One note on Uniworld. They have as regards ship decor a wider range of options than the other two I would say. There is the River Queen, a classic ship, and then the other ones, but also the new ones in the fleet which are the ex-Crystal ships, those are the SS Victoria (from this year) and the SS Elizabeth (from next year). To your question 1. - the Seine To your question 3. - avoid Nuremberg if you do not want an industrial harbour, it is on the Main Danube Canal. Over to others. Have fun planning. notamermaid

Ah, right. Good explanation. I agree that it looks as if they have forgotten to put the bit in there on the left. Aesthetically not pleasing. Just looked up how many people will fit into the stadium tonight, the Allianz Arena was designed for 66,000 people, but after extensions it now has room for 70,000 for an international game. https://allianz-arena.com/en notamermaid 🍻 Fußbaall!

My pleasure. The Viking Hild is signalling in Koblenz: notamermaid

If I see this correctly in the photo this is a highly planned layout with all straight roads and streets. So how come the only thing askew is the stadium? Was it the beer or intentional by the architect? Been shopping and a pub had a nice fin plastic beer bottle decoration attached to the wall with the football logo printed on. Quite like those gimmicks. The Scots are making quite the racket in Munich. As is usual when testosterone and beer mix, it was not all peaceful in the last 24 hours. I am getting a little excited but I will not watch much of the game, got too much to do. notamermaid

Regional news confirms an incident at Bad Abbach lock. An excursion boat hit a wall I think. Report says Thursday at 2pm. notamermaid

There had been an issue at a different lock a few days ago. There has been debris and gravel deposits of course due to the fast current. For the lock you mention I could find a problem with depth so there may have been an issue with a barge and the authorities have reacted with limiting the draft of the ships passing: notamermaid

Welcome to Cruisecritic. Yes. This will take a bit of time and not happen within the next two weeks. Generally-speaking yes, as Lake Constance acts as a natural reservoir and is well filled at this time, but how things will go when the Lake has returned to normal we cannot know. So for a while the Lake will drain and keep the level high for longer than in a standard year. It looks to take well into July. notamermaid

The BBC said today that there are lots of Scots in Munich and the footage from the main square showed a few kilts wandering about. And the beer consumption in the city has gone up. Reporter said the vibe is good. I am willing to believe it as we have no real rivalry with the Scottish. Will see how long this lasts... I think in the city centre the Germans were outnumbered today, definitely out-chanted. Skysport footage: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8KCIRtNVrI/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D Need to work on Saturday, so unfortunately an early night for me tomorrow. notamermaid

The month of May on the Rhine. Part 2. By the time the river gets to the Middle Rhine valley, here meaning the Rhine Gorge with Kaub gauge, it has received water from two major tributaries, these are the Neckar and the Main. Flooding of either or both of them can make the situation worse at Kaub. In May we had the interesting constellation that the Neckar was flooding as it drains the hills that were at the West end of the circulating rain cloud weather front that brought so much trouble to the areas of the Upper Danube. The Main saw little of that weather mostly only bringing high volumes of water from right up its navigable course. These weather phenomenon almost completely broke off North of Mainz, bringing very little rain to the Middle Rhine valley itself. The Lower Rhine "only" needed to cope with what was brought to it from the Upper reaches with no higher volume of itself or its tributaries North of Koblenz. By the time the high volume of water came from Maxau, all the flooding had already drained from the Moselle. An incredibly lucky situation for Koblenz. So this is what Kaub gauge looked like: Just like at Maxau we see the reaction to the rain around the 16th and 17th of May. The graph then makes the jump like we see it at Maxau just after the end of the month, but exacerbated by the flooding of the Neckar. It lead to the short river traffic ban at the beginning of this month. notamermaid

Before we get to a look back at May, let us check quickly on the Danube in Hungary. Here for reference is the situation at Mohács now, the last but second gauge on the river's journey out of Hungary: I cannot relate this to what is actually happening on the river but compared to Germany and Austria this looks less severe for sure. notamermaid

The month of May on the Rhine. Part 1. Note that I have made screenshots of May a bit late so that the first days are missing. As the graph shows 31 days this has then brought the days of heavy rain and rise from 31 May to 4 June into view. Let us start for a change with Lake Constance: May started normally and there was a gradual rise which happens due to snow melt if I have understood it correctly. Snow melt is still happening now to a small extent in the Alps, i.e. the Alpine Rhine is getting the water that then feeds the Lake. At the end of May we see that fast rise due to the rain that hit the South of Germany. Most of the water went to the Danube catchment area as we know, but the two catchment areas are so close together not far from Lake Constance that some clouds made it to the tributaries Northeast of the Lake and to the Lake itself. Subsequently that volume of water had to drain into the High Rhine and past Basel to Maxau where by then more water had been supplied to the Rhine via the forest tributaries from the East. This is the reaction at Maxau gauge: It had been on a relatively high level due to a wet winter but April had brought the level back to almost the long-term mean. So May started well. Then there were a few rainy days. Most of the second half of the month the river was on navigational flood mark I. Then the rain came from the East/Northeast. With the river already being high, the fast rise brought it to mark II and the river traffic ban just after the end of the month. Continued in part 2. notamermaid

Let us assess the situation as it is right now and then have a look back at May. Lake Constance gauge is indeed going down now, very slowly. The High Rhine is partly still on flood alert and so is the river around Maxau gauge simply because it is high. This is flood vigilance but the gauge at Maxau is showing favourable figures going forward, meaning the situation will further ease but the river will stay high simply because Lake Constance and Switzerland are still draining at a high volume. Downstream roughly from Mannheim there is no flood vigilance. All good. With some gauges being above navigational flood mark I there will be adjusted sailing but there should not be much impact on itineraries. River cruise companies are still likely to make adjustments to itineraries to get the ones coming up back on track, i.e.ships in their correct ports. notamermaid

Ah right, so it is too tight time wise or under the railway bridge. That is a standard deviation procedure with river cruise companies and should go without any problems. Have a good trip. notamermaid

It is good that things are going back to normal as we certainly do not want flooding to interfere with the European Football Cup. Germany is the host this year and will play the first match tomorrow in Munich. If you happen to be in the city tomorrow or fly into Munich airport (or away) you may meet some rather merry people. https://www.uefa.com/euro2024/match/2036161--germany-vs-scotland/ notamermaid

Fußbaaallll! Only 24 hours to go till the start of the European Football Cup. First match will be Germany versus Scotland. If you are interested in the teams competing for the Cup: https://www.uefa.com/euro2024/ notamermaid

This has made the regional news along the Rhine. An accident at Boppard. Yesterday morning a river cruise ship tried to sail away from the dock which was a tight manoeuvre seeing that another ship was docked close by. It did not quite work and resulted in heavy damage. I do not know which ship it was as I cannot find a photo or footage that confirms the vessel. Here is a video of the local internet channel of Boppard, excursion boat landing stage destroyed, embankment wall damaged: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huJGLvsQC58 One online news article suggests it was a "very new" ship. No one was injured. notamermaid

It has been a nice afternoon, a bit on the cool side for June but good for photos with clouds in the sky for backdrop of the castles I think. Hope you have had a splendid day. notamermaid

That sounds really good. As you were there on Monday I have had a look at the webcam to see how low the water is now and I would say it all looks pretty clean, back to normal, busses running along the embankment and you can hardly tell now that the water level is still high if you have nothing to compare it to: https://www.feratel.com/webcams/deutschland/passau.html For those who would like to see what it was like, you can go to Archiv in the menu and choose a date to look at. marinetraffic.com signal confirms the ship in the photo above is the Viking Var. Good to see it all. I have been to Passau three times now, okay twice within eight days as it was the embarkation port of my river cruise as a Passau return trip. I really enjoyed the place and would like to go back. notamermaid

Ship sailing under bridge!! Okay, about to. By complete chance I have just been able to take a screenshot of the feratel webcam that shows a Viking river cruise ship about to sail under the infamous suspension bridge at Passau. notamermaid

There is still one problem on the German Danube - headroom. The two infamous bridges may still keep river cruise ships from getting through today, but that is of course something I can only mention not specify as per individual ship. Let us have a look at Passau gauge: That looks really promising, if not good enough already. 678cm is a bit high as the authorities speak of "difficult passage" from 630cm upwards but that is a guideline, not a rule. It is literally getting better by the hour. notamermaid

I am happy to add to the good news with what should be the massive headline: SHIPS ARE RUNNING BETWEEN STRAUBING AND PASSAU. 😊😊 check on marinetraffic.com Not sure if any river cruise ships are among them, but barges are sailing. notamermaid

Hofkirchen gauge at 483cm, 3cm to go. notamermaid

I am sure that is correct if they say that. And we have seen in the last two days a vast improvement to the situation. Very likely. But the details of what may need to be changed still, you will probably only learn on board, as the people actually on the ground know much better what is happening on a daily or even hourly basis than the office people. I am sure you will have a ship in Regensburg and it will likely be the one you were scheduled to go on. Have you had a look at the info on the website, the special pages for the actual cruisers? Something with "myvikingjourney" I think. Welcome to Cruisecritic. Have a great cruise. notamermaid

That was my thought but I did not want to say it... I think the artist is more of an ocean cruiser. With that ship they may loot Bordeaux but not a Rhine river village far inland. notamermaid

Announcement of name change for new Amawaterways ship: https://www.travelweekly.com/River-Cruising/AmaWaterways-chooses-new-name-Asia-ship notamermaid