River Levels
We are sailing August 21 Budapest to Amsterdam and wondering what you are now hearing and experiencing from Tauck riverboats about river levels. Does Tauck have daily updates on the river levels? At what point does Tauck communicate to customers that are on upcoming sailings regarding cancellations and/or what to expect?
0
Comments
When we did a Tauck river cruise in 2018 on a section of the Danube we didn't hear until we were in the midst of the tour that we were going to have to bus around a portion of the river due to low water levels. They bused us to the sights that we would have seen if the water levels weren't too low for the boat and then bused us to where we could pick up the boat with adequate water levels.
For me, this was not an issue and felt that Tauck handled the situation appropriately. They provided some compensation, post tour, for the section of the river that we had to bypass on the boat.
I was looking for current information like what I found Viking is providing. https://www.vikingrivercruises.com/my-trip/current-sailings/
Tauck swaps you to a different ship, the same as Viking. River levels can vary from day to day, so telling you what the rivers are like today is just today. I doubt Tauck will cancel unless things get very severe. Tip, for River cruises, it’s best to book them for early summer when low water levels are far less likely. The river levels have been low on and off for years, but it’s usually in August onwards.
In 2018, we ran into an issue where an errant barge became stuck in the Danube and blocked all traffic, some 90 vessels. We were not transferred to another ship as there wasn’t one of the same size to accommodate all the passengers. We were bussed from north of Passau to Budapest, spending a night in a hotel in Bratislava and 2 nights in Budapest…after being docked in Straubing for two days. We missed a bit, e.g., only had a half a day in Vienna, but still had a great trip. And we were compensated handsomely with a credit towards a future trip. All in all, Tauck treated us very well. I hope after our issue they made sure they had riverboats of the same size available to move the passengers like Viking is able to do.
Tauck does not publish river conditions. In another thread I posted a link to a CruiseCritic blog with that info. If you read that, you will see why it is almost useless to rely on river level info now even just a little over two weeks - levels can change very quickly. There are just a few centimeters of water level difference between the ability to navigate the river and not.
For the most recent discussion of river levels, check out this thread https://forums.tauck.com/discussion/comment/78527#Comment_78527 to a short discussion here and follow the link in it to the original thread (which has the link to the original CruiseCritic blog )
We are on 8/28 trip on Danube.Trying to follow the No on cruise critic and still remain optimistic!Looks like there is some rain in different parts but how the river conditions change for the better or worse is a futile guessing ame.
Read guessing game!
sudhamali- if you click on the little gear in the upper right of your post window you can "edit" your post to fix tie pose typos
Thanks AlanS.
You will love that cruise. We did it in 2018--had a fabulous time! Enjoy