Low water levels on the Danube and Rhine Rivers, two of Europe’s most popular for river cruise itineraries, have caused a summer of headache for cruise operators.
Because of the historic low water levels, cruise operators have had to cancel itineraries, issue credits for future cruises, and even hire motorcoaches to shuttle passengers between certain ports—and then rely on hotels for their stays.
Recent rainfall in Europe, including precipitation in Germany, France, and parts of Central Europe has been much needed and helped the situations to an extent, but levels remain low.
The European Drought Observatory notes that that drought conditions “remain critical in most of Europe” as of early August.
According to the Observatory, “Alert conditions persisted in the southeastern U.K., France, south Germany and northern Italy, with some spots also visible in the Iberian Peninsula, Belarus and Poland. Similar alert drought conditions affected areas across the Danube river basin, including Hungary and areas of Czechia, Slovakia, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine.”
Outlets have reported that ship swaps are happening on occasion, such as Emerald swapping out the Emerald Sky for the Emerald Destiny on an upcoming 7-night Danube River cruise set to embark next weekend. And Viking has been using a “ship swap” concept, where passengers start on one vessel, use motorcoaches between sections of the river that are currently unnavigable, and then switch to the other ship on the other portion of the river.
River cruise lines continue to take an expensive hit this summer, shifting things around in order to make sure guests are satisfied.
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