steamboats

The nickoVision departed Straubing yesterday evening at app. 5:30 pm upriver to Kelheim (todays stopp) on her way to Düsseldorf. This marks the start of river cruising this year... (and the restart of cruising after the lockdown due to Covid-19). The passengers boarded on Monday in Straubing and had a shore tour to Regensburg yesterday. The nickoVision has a capacity of 220 passengers. They started out with only 40. We were crazy enough to drive out there for photos and videos. steamboats

The nickoVision is back in Straubing (upriver of the lock) waiting for the guests to embark tomorrow. steamboats

@notamermaid I saw lots of ships in Linz, South of Linz and Vienna. Vienna is another "hub" for Viking ships. Most of them were Viking. Linz has A-Rosa, AmaWaterways, Amadeus/Lüftner. steamboats

The nickoVision was supposed to start out of Passau on Monday. The ship was still in Straubing and is currently on it´s way back to Regensburg. So it might start in Regensburg on Monday due to the low water situation. steamboats

Usually it´s not a full working crew when in dry dock... A full working crew would include shops, spa, all waiters, cooks, cabin stewards. Depending on what kind of work is done many of them won´t be necessary and wouldn´t have nothing to do onboard. Sure you still need cooks and some more hotel stuff for the remaining crew but not all cooks who usually work in the main galley to prepare the meals for the passengers. Sometimes some parts of the crew stays onboard to do other stuff like empying cabins, tearing out carpets... (so supporting/preparing the work of the shipyard workers). If it´s just a "small" job like working on the propulsion for a couple of days the crew usually stays onboard. Some time ago an AIDA cruise ship went into dry dock in Cadiz for two or three days even with passengers onboard. steamboats

@ela05 here in Germany it was said that the borders are open by June 3rd. The EU borders stay closed til June 15th. We recently opened our borders to Austria, Switzerland and France. Others stay closed. And our general travel warning will be lifted on June 15th for 31 countries (EU and Schengen). So although the borders might be open within the next few days we won´t be able to travel because of the travel warning. steamboats

As the Spanish ports are closed at least til June 7th and as they needed an exemption for the stop in Barcelona I doubt that they were planning to disembark crew there. The exemption was made because they suspected a case of Covid-19 and needed to get tests. The 450 crew is the total of people onboard - this includes the repatriated crew and the still working crew. Wouldn´t make much sense to keep the repatriated crew onboard for a dry dock. steamboats

@notamermaid our numbers are still a little higher... As for Bavaria we had 140 new infections within the last 24 hours and 23 more deaths. Munich has 35 new infections. But the good thing is that the number of those people who have gone through the infection per day is much higher than the number of new infections. steamboats

I assume never anyone ever counted 😉 ... But I´d say I still saw a lot of people dressed up on formal nights on all of the Oasis class ships (and even on Med cruises). steamboats

Interesting enough that they didn´t cancel July for China cruises but say that China and Europe could be the first to start again. June 7th is just the current end date of the state of emergency in Spain. It could be extended. The Spanish premier/president said foreign tourists might return in July... Then you still need to have the ports in France and Italy open up... Costa and MSC are discussing cruises out of Italy for Italians only with all Italian ports (but actually Costa can´t do that because of a cabotage law - even more complicated than the US PVSA). And they need to prepare the ship for those cruises and get the crew back on... cancel folks to limit the number of passengers.... So they will definitely need until August to get the Allure up and running in the Med. steamboats

June 7th is the current date Spain is supposed to begin the end of the lock down measures. Spain already said they might not be able to accept foreign tourists until July. It mainly depends on when EU is opeing up the borders and when the countries open up. steamboats

Royal didn´t say anything like that... It´s the EU which might not open up for non EU countries. And don´t worry, UK still counts as EU country til the end of the year... steamboats

The Norwegian Breakaway is currently leaving the port of Barcelona... So no more bridge view photos. steamboats

Check the weekly round-up here. steamboats who was just reminded that we boarded the Allure today in Barcelona 5 years ago...

No, they are not marketed differently... it´s two separate cruises... And the systems lets you book them both as B2B without a warning... Same for Royal or Celebrity... steamboats