2017 Xmas Cruise

Over this part of the trip we experienced many interruptions to the planned itinerary. They were due to several unforeseen complications. First of which was high water levels due to the large volume of snow melt waters. This meant there was a very high danger that the ship could strike one of the bridges immediately in front of us, so our captain elected to doc for the night. During that night another ship past us and subsequently struck the bridge. They said that the water rises very quickly here and Falls again just as quickly. When we began sailing again we didn’t go far and again had to dock because a barge in front of us lost his propeller and so drove the nose of the barge into the bank then the current swept the stern into the opposite bank. ALL traffic stopped until a big service barge came to move the blockage.
Because we lost a night steaming and the blockage we were behind schedule. We had been due to dock in Würtzburg that morning. However,by morning we were now 8 hours sailing away. There was a side trip @ €60 available to visit Rothenburg so the tour director, Sue, said “ I’m putting you all onto coaches here, (8 hours steaming away) and sending you all on to Würtzberg for the morning. The coaches will get you there in an hour. Then this afternoon you all go to Rothenburg for free. Then she announced that as everyone was out for lunch she was giving every passenger €25 for lunch. Women were permitted to buy their husbands a bag of crisps for lunch and spend the rest on a nice pair of shoes
The boat then steamed on to Würtzburg. Collected all the passengers and we were on schedule again.
Our next stop was to be Cologne but Sue said it wasn’t as interesting as the Roman Fort at Frankfurt so she made an executive decision that that was the new plan. Skip Cologne the go on to the Rhine Valley of your the castles. Unfortunately that meant we arrived at nightfall so Sue wouldn’t let the captain continue because we would miss all the beautiful Rhine Valley CastlesRead more