Water levels along the Danube, Rhine and Main rivers have now begun to return to normal levels, but the knock-on effects could remain for some time as river cruise lines deal with ships that may not be where they were scheduled to be and damaged infrastructure ashore.
However, the events of the past two weeks are highlighting just how resilient — and innovative — the river cruise industry as a whole is.
AmaWaterways didn’t have to cancel any sailings, instead choosing to take guests as far as possible on one vessel before swapping them to another, if necessary. While it sounds like an inconvenience, this let AmaWaterways operate all of its cruises with only minimal modifications, and at the same time allowed guests to experience several different cruise ships in a single week. It’s not ideal, but is a bit of a neat perk if you’re a ship person.
Avalon Waterways went so far as to offer to pay for air change fees for its affected guests, even those who had booked their airfare independently. Guests on affected sailings will receive full refunds and future cruise discounts. By a combination of hotel stays and bus transfers, many guests on in-progress sailings were able to complete most of their scheduled itineraries.
Scenic Cruises left most of its iconic “SpaceShips” docked last week as flood waters hit. Rather than attempting to navigate the rapidly rising waterways, the company elected to bus guests to most excursions, and to swap ships if necessary.
Uniworld Boutique River Cruises was forced to cancel several in-progress cruises, but allowed guests to remain onboard while the company helped guests arrange their return journey home. Some ship swaps were necessary, but the line expects things to be back to normal by the end of the month.
Viking River Cruises took to Twitter, Facebook, and even CruiseCritic’s message boards to help guests who were curious about the status of their cruises, or those who had already travelled to Europe and were now wondering where they should go. The line was forced to make the most cancellations of any river cruise line, but the fact that Viking has a much larger fleet than most lines should not be overlooked.
In the same breath, we have to applaud the actions of Tauck, which made the gut-wrenching decision to scrap five separate departures. With so much of Tauck’s river cruise itineraries reliant on specially designed events, tours and functions, the company gave guests the opportunity to remain with the line on a modified itinerary — or receive a full refund.
Regardless, there are people on each of the river cruise line’s ships, at the companies’ European operations bases, and at their respective headquarters who have done a tremendous job on little sleep with a situation that remains fluid — and that is always deserving of praise.
Woodee says
Wasn’t that considerate of AMA to provide such an accommodation to their clients? This is the first piece of information regarding the cruise that any of their clients received. As a member of a group of 16 travelers, we did not receive any information regarding these accommodations. I imaging the surprise would have been more exciting for them. Imagine our enjoyment of packing and unpacking several times on news ships during a seven day cruise. AMA’s lack of communication was staggering while their poor public relations was evident with their disdain for their clients. THis was to be our first AMA cruise and the experience will definitely make it our last.
Aaron Saunders says
Hi Woodee,
I think it’s worth noting that this is the worst flooding to affect the region in decades, if not longer. Uniworld stated a few days back that they had never seen anything like this in their existence, and they’ve been around a lot longer than AmaWaterways.
In the case of AmaWaterways, they can either a) cancel voyages outright or b) try to salvage what they can by swapping guests between ships. Under both scenarios, there will be guests who are unhappy.
Is your group on one of the affected sailings?
fed up fred says
No canceled cruises for Scenic Cruise offshoot Evergreen Tours. Those poor guests were forced to commence their non-cruise on June 8 and did not have choice to cancel.
They have spent 7 days on busses! With one day bussing for over 14 hours. Very poor communication from company. Pathetic indifferent attitude to suffering guests that paid over $600 Euro per person per day fir a cruise but got a bus tour instead