River cruises

[kaymar]

Calling all river cruisers.

We are toying with the option of a Danube cruise next April. Ignoring, for now, Covid concerns, would that be a good time of year for the Danube?

[Manoverboard]

The river could be high at that time of the year so do some research and perhaps opt for the older mid size ships cos the likes of Viking do not always get under the bridges.

We went in July and coupled the cruise with days in Salzburg, Budapest would also be a good choice.

Moby's Danube Riverboat cruise report

[kaymar]

That's interesting, Moby. One problem we have heard about river cruises is the lack of water depth, leading to bus transport but too much water had not occurred to us. We are actually thinking of going with Riviera - we did a short trip with them a couple of years ago and were very impressed. Their ships seem to be fairly sleek and low-slung, but that may be just an illusion. I'll ask them if they ever have any problems with bridges in the Spring and if so, how they overcome them.

Thanks for the link to your report, very useful and interesting.

[BrianI]

The river levels could be high in the springtime due to snow melt in the Alps. High water levels stop the boats getting under bridges.
This link might give you some idea.
http://budapestdanube.com/budapest-danu ... er-levels/
Brian

[Meg 50]

we did Amsterdam to Budapest in October - Autumn colours water levels pretty good.

report here


we also did the Rhone Saone in July - could only do half cos the water was too high.

have heard of people having problems because the water was too low!

[kaymar]

Thanks, Brian. I think we can take a degree of comfort from words like infrequent, seldom and extremely rare. Riviera say that there may be occasions when they have to close the Sun deck when they are passing under bridges, presumably so that passengers don't bump their heads! Not a major problem, hopefully.

We're still thinking about it!

Keith.

[crispy99]

Hi, firstly, I would thoroughly recommend doing one. We did Budapest to Amsterdam with Viking in July 2016 and had the best time. As for the river levels, we were very lucky and didn't have any problems. However, some of the bridges are very low so if there is a lot of rain and the levels rise, the boats can't get under them, the crew have to put the side rails down, plus the pilot's cabin had to be lowered too. All very interesting to watch. The opposite can be true too if the weather is very dry. This was our only concern before we went as we had heard on one cruise when there had been a lot of rain, the passengers had to pack everything, board a coach to be taken down river to another boat to get passed the bridges. You really don't know what the weather is going to be like but they are well organised for dealing with it. Whatever you decide, it's wise to do your research. We made some lovely friends who we are still in touch with. The places we went through, in fact the whole trip was amazing. Hope this helps.

[kaymar]

Thanks for the advice, Crispy99, and welcome to the forum.

We had hoped that by now the situation with Covid would have been improving but the opposite seems to be the case and we have decided to stick with our ultra-cautious approach for the time being. This is still something we would very much like to do and we will, one day, but not Spring 2022. We have an Arcadia cruise to the Eastern Med and the Greek islands booked for next Sepember. Fingers crossed.

[Stephen]

Welcome to the forum crispy from me to

[crispy99]

Welcome to the forum crispy from me to

Thank you

[crispy99]

Thanks for the advice, Crispy99, and welcome to the forum.

We had hoped that by now the situation with Covid would have been improving but the opposite seems to be the case and we have decided to stick with our ultra-cautious approach for the time being. This is still something we would very much like to do and we will, one day, but not Spring 2022. We have an Arcadia cruise to the Eastern Med and the Greek islands booked for next Sepember. Fingers crossed.

Thank you.
Understand your caution, we are sticking to UK this year. We have just booked our first cruise on Iona to the Norwegian fjords in April, so cruise ship novices but looking forward to it.