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River Boat Cruising
Although not on the Danube, my recent "Rhine & Moselle" riverboat cruise (11-23 Oct 2018) on the Rhine ended 3 days early due to the low water levels on the Rhine. That said we did manage to squeak out 9 of the 12 days before the trip ended early. We were able to see most of the items on the itinerary of the tour with a fantastic cruise and tour directors working under trying circumstances. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Germany gets some rain soon. Mother Nature rules! :-)
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39 Tauck tours!! Wow, you must do several a year. And you must have great perspective on several of the tours. Would you mind letting me know if you have done any of the following and which ones you liked best (and why) - Botswana, Ultimate Alps, Patagonia, Iceland, Antarctica.
I was on the same trip Rhine and Moselle Southbound trip as Tom and I would wholeheartedly agree that the Tauck Cruise / Tour Directors and crew did their best to recover from what as a flawed business decision to begin with to go ahead with the cruise. I felt that there was a lack of transparency from Tauck with regard to historically low water levels on the Rhine and the potential for disruption to the cruise,regretfully, both before and during the cruise. Tauck was not able to deliver on the experience that was contracted for and expected. We are looking forward hearing from them soon.
I will be posting more on this later.
I’m not sure what you mean about lack of transparency, it’s been known for months about the low water levels and Tauck has had the warning on their website for months. If you had the insurance you could have easily cancelled. I suspect most people would chance going rather than have no vacation. It’s very annoying I agree, but I have heard that Tauck does a much better job of handling this problem than its rival companies. It’s not exactly unusual for the water levels to be low, but these river cruises get more and more popular.
Please let the forum know how things go with Tauck, but their tours do say subject to change, and it is not exactly in their control about the weather. I trust Tom as a frequent customer with Tauck that he would say if things are not sorted as he would expect.
All the river cruise companies are affected by low/high water issues - it's not like they can control it. What differs is how they handle it. Over and over, reading here and on other forums, Tauck does the best job dealing with unexpected problems. Not perfect, but better than most.
I did the Christmas Markets on the Rhine in 2015 and even three years ago, there was concern that the river might be too low because of the drought. We lucked out, but I am now booked for the Danube Christmas Markets cruise starting Dec. 16 this year and I, too, am crossing my fingers that Europe in general gets some rain.
Of course I live in San Francisco and it was 81 degrees here November 1, so there's no way to tell what the heck the weather is going to do anywhere now.
My trip this December is only my 12th Tauck tour, but the Rhine Christmas Markets was one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it.