Has anyone experienced “adjustments”to their river cruise with Tauck due to river levels?

dolciani

If so, I’d be interested to know what adjustments were made and whether any compensation to price was offered. We sail next week down the Danube, which currently has very limited water levels. I have read that some other cruise lines have outright canceled their trips while others are bussing their guests from port to port and housing them on the stuck riverboats in port. While I do understand that there may be a need to adjust based on weather and river levels, we have paid a very pricey fee to take a relaxing cruise down the river, with no necessity to pack and unpack on a daily basis. I would almost rather cancel than settle for bus trips on a daily basis to stay in a new room every night. My concern is that we may not receive enough notice to cancel if this is the case.
I am very interested in any and all experiences that anyone might have had with Tauck and their “adjustments” in such a case.

Sealord

We were Westbound a couple years ago and had to board a bit down stream from Budapest. There are a bunch of disclaimers in the paperwork cuz this happens fairly frequently. Sometimes the river is too high, sometimes too low. Many folks simply don’t study the trip details very well. They adjust for changing river conditions as best they can, but ‘itinerary’ changes are covered in the paper work.

British

As Sealord says, it’s all there in the paperwork. Before you travel next week there could be rainfall that might change things dramatically. One tip about river cruises, try to avoid August, it’s much more likely to have low water levels if you think logically, the temperatures are higher so evaporation will also increase lack of rainfall causing the rivers to be low. If you have to use buses and hotels you are certainly worse off than those who take the land tours, they stay at least a couple of nights in one place and you get to see more. We have resisted taking river cruises but we have one booked for next year in mid July, maybe the rivers will be too high then, it’s an extra risk for this kind of vacation, but demand is very high so the tour companies come up with the tours.

tomh

I have been on three riverboat cruises with Tauck (one of which was a "Christmas Markets" riverboat cruise on the Danube last year) as well as another riverboat cruise with a different travel company. I thoroughly enjoyed every one of them and I have three more planned later this year as well. Luckily, I am in a position to pick and choose when I want to travel, so I have not run into any problems. However, as British noted that river cruising no matter which company one uses is in very high demand (Christmas Markets being probably the most in demand each year) as many folks want to do so these days. I suspect that demand will continue for this type of travel for many years to come.

Phantom

Although due not to low river levels but to major Amsterdam harbor congestion on our recent Tauck Rhine River boat cruise, Tauck was unexpectedly forced to dock and disembark us in Dordrecht, a nearby small city, from which Tauck daily bussed us to-and-from Amsterdam for several days. To my knowledge, no passenger requests or mention were ever made about reimbursements for our “troubles” (which my wife and I considered only minor at most.)

At home several weeks later, we received a totally unsolicited and unexpected surprise – an apology letter from Tauck for our Amsterdam “inconveniences” which included a VERY generous check PLUS a very generous credit to our Tauck account useable toward our next Tauck tour. In my opinion, Tauck definitely went above and beyond the call of duty (and contract fine print disclaimers) on this one!

joycesw

Yes., we did have water level issues on our one and only riverboat cruise. In 2010, late May/early June we took a Bucharest to Prague river cruise. When we arrived in Budapest, 2/3 of the group left, 2/3 new folks boarded and 1/3 of us continued on. We went about 6 hours, docked at some odd place in Hungary and never moved. It seemed there were heavy rains up river (maybe in Germany) and the river was flooded leaving the boats unable to get under bridges, and dock at closed ports upriver. Interestingly, the river has storm surges, much like we read about ocean levels in hurricane weather. Tauck bused us to Bratislava and bused us back to the boat. Then they bused us to Vienna and put us up for two nights at the Hotel Imperial (very nice), provided lovely activities in addition to the scheduled ones, and then bused us back. There was great discussion back at the "Mother-ship" in Connecticut, and late in the afternoon the trip was cancelled. Recent boarders were given priority to discuss with staff what their wishes were. There were some who were going on to Oberammergau, and special arrangements had to be made for them. The plan was to bus most of us to Venice and then depart from the airport there. We chose to continue on to Prague where we were already spending a few extra days. This gave us more time there and the opportunity to explore outer areas. Others opted to return to the States, etc. . I do not know what compensation was made for those who only got 6 hours on a moving riverboat. In our case, we stayed at a different hotel, about $180 a night cheaper than the original hotel (Kempinski vs. Marriott), and that made our longer stay even more palatable. There were no airline changes for us, and as I recall we were compensated for the few days of the tour we missed. We were also given a generous stipend in a "Dream Account" to be used for a future trip. River levels are ever-changing, and I really feel that Tauck does the best it can to make their guests experiences the best they can be under circumstances beyond their control.

tomh

I agree with Phantom and joycesw re Tauck going above and beyond what is required. Although I have been fortunate in my many trips with Tauck not to run into any of those problems, Tauck's history in this regard is outstanding. I remember what Tauck's response was after the 9/11 attack. Tauck treated both its clients and its tour directors in an outstanding manner, unlike many other travel companies at that time. Just saying.

PF606590

We are presently on the westbound Blue Danube tour. The only "problem" was that the boat could not get to Budapest, so we were bussed to Vienna. The next day, we were bussed to Bratislava, we did not miss anything on the tour except for a few hours on the boat.

The Tauck staff handled this perfectly and explained everything to us; totally professionally. The trip is great and we see a lot.

PS It rained a bit today!

LuisBeau

Our Danube cruise from Budapest to Prague, scheduled to begin 8/23 with our arrival in Budapest 8/22, was CANCELED the evening of 8/20, less than 24 hours after Tauck emailed to confirm our 8/22 pick-up from the airport. We had been traveling in Europe for three weeks with an itinerary built around the cruise. The next day (8/21) we literally had 14 hours of touring ancestral homes in Belarus, so that night we only had time to rearrange flights etc. so we could just fly to London Aug 22 and home Aug 23 instead-- absolutely no time to make alternative plans. We're trying to figure out how much this ended up costing us, in addition to a lot of trouble and lack of sleep due to time spent rearranging flights from Minsk to Warsaw, hotel in Warsaw, and then London, then home (It's not easy to get into or out of Belarus!) What mystifies us is why they gave us so little notice, and what changed in a few hours from confirmation to cancellation. Even letting us know there was a possibility of cancellation would have been thoughtful -- actually, I would have expected it. Once we get some rest, we'll try to figure out what to do. We don't consider a refund and payment for flight change fees and hotel to be adequate compensation with so little notice.

LuisBeau

PF606590 wrote:

We are presently on the westbound Blue Danube tour. The only "problem" was that the boat could not get to Budapest, so we were bussed to Vienna. The next day, we were bussed to Bratislava, we did not miss anything on the tour except for a few hours on the boat.

What day did your cruise leave?