Most of my clients sail the rivers of Europe and many are wondering how to think about their upcoming cruise, or are perhaps thinking about doing something different.
Since I have been on almost every river cruise line at various times of the year, I thought it might be helpful for you to know what some companies have done in low or high water situations. I’ll give you a couple of examples from our recent trips.
In a high water situation last spring on Riverside Cruises (my absolute favorite river-cruise line, btw), where river ships can’t get under the bridges, our captain stayed ahead of the water and altered our itinerary slightly so he could “outrun” the wave, as it were. We missed one port and got to all the rest earlier. No reimbursement for the missed port, but no one objected. We got to Bucharest and after that, other ships were unable to pass and got stuck.
On Tauck last year, during a low water situation in early fall, the captain changed ports completely and we were offered new and different excursions. No cancellations, no refunds. We just had longer bus rides to see the new ports with the new excursions they arranged. Each day we went back to the ship to sleep. I thought this was a great solution and all the clients were happy. When I told our cruise director on Tauck how much I appreciated the change in ports and excursions, he said to me “clients don’t go on Tauck to have days cancelled and be reimbursed. They sail with us because they know we will find a great alternative.” This was not hard for them as buses “follow along” with the ships on most of their routes…
One summer a few years ago, I was on Avalon during low water season. They simply stopped at the last port they could safely reach and canceled the rest of the cruise. We were all asked to pack up everything and we were driven on a bus to Frankfurt where the company put us up for two nights at a hotel at no extra charge. Then, they reimbursed us for the two lost days of the cruise..Not my favorite as we missed a couple of great stops. They did not ask us, btw, what we would have preferred.
Right now there is low water and several lines have canceled cruises, or altered the itineraries, moved clients to other ships in the fleet, hired buses, or done something else. There is a lot of variability in how these things are handled and it probably changes all the time.
So, as you can probably tell, each line does something a little bit different. Hopefully my examples will help you understand what kinds of things are possible. When I sailed Ama, Viking, Scenic/Emerald and UniWorld we had no difficulties with water either way and our itineraries were unchanged.