Low River Water Hell: Travel Advisors Navigate the Shallows of Europe River Cruise Season

With fully half of the record-breaking $10 million her agency has on the books right now tied up in river cruising, Beth Schulberg is in “low river water hell,” she says. 

Just like after COVID, the phone never stops ringing at her agency, Cruise and Travel Specialists, with customers calling to ask for advice on whether to go or to cancel. Each cancellation will cost her the commission she was planning on, but the wrong advice may well cost her a customer.

While low water has been an issue in past years, it has never affected her business quite like this. The record lows, the overwhelming heat, and the constant messaging on social media have her clients more on edge than ever. Her viral Real Travel Experts videos on YouTube have added hundreds of new customers (her Tauck sales, for example, have soared from zero to $2.5 million in just two years), and most of them have called.

An old hand at running a travel business, Schulberg thought she had her bases covered. All her sales are with top suppliers she considers good partners: AmaWaterways, Scenic, Uniworld, and Tauck. She never sells river cruises in midsummer, and thanks to her background in the insurance industry, most of her clients have trip insurance. But that only covers trips that are 100 percent cancelled, with not one day on the river, she says.

With her first trips scheduled to depart in mid-September, she really has no answers.

“It’s like a mini COVID,” she says. “Clients are getting so much information — and the spectrum of what they accept runs from 0 to 100. A lot of people are in a panic mode. Some say they paid, they’re going. One Tauck client cancelled, one switched to an ocean cruise, and one that is ticketed through Istanbul opted to just stay there for the whole two weeks. Tauck gave them their money back — but of course I will lose my commission.”

Taking Note of Suppliers’ Responses

All the travel advisors with whom we spoke said they are noting which suppliers are doing what — from their cancellation policies and the consistency with which they apply them, to the speed of their communication with customers and travel advisors — and will file that information under advisement as customers approach final payment time for next year’s river cruise season.

“Long term, it’s not low water that damages trust in river cruising but poor handling. Guests who were rebooked and communicated with well book again. Guests who found out at the pier tend not to,” Schulberg says.

Like many travel advisors, Eileen Wolejsza found her own routes to information for her clients on AmaWaterways’ Basel to Amsterdam sailing; she got the revised itinerary from fellow travel advisors who sailed the week before. But the slow information flow has affected their relationship.

“The revised itinerary was super helpful, so I could prep my clients for the changes and it wasn’t sprung on them last-minute. But I’m disappointed that AmaWaterways isn’t allowing cancellations like some other cruise lines, and that AmaWaterways seems to be deciding things on a day-by-day basis and has been inconsistent. 

“Some are being told they get no future cruise credit (FCC), some are told the FCC is non-transferable, and some are told the FCC is transferable. From what I’m reading, Avalon seems to be the shining star by offering cancellations with full refunds. A lot of us advisors are taking note of which suppliers are best handling this unfortunate situation and will remember who we want to partner with in the future.”

Keeping the Relationship with Clients

While her clients on a Rhine cruise had just three sailing days, one ship change, and slept on a docked ship the other nights, “they were still glad they went even though it wasn’t the itinerary they were expecting,” says Meredith Schnepp at Sunkissed Bliss Travel. 

“What’s important is that I set expectations when they booked that there were risks to sailing Europe’s rivers this late in the season. When conditions started to deteriorate several weeks prior to travel, they weren’t surprised. And AmaWaterways handled this exceptionally well: seamless logistics, onboard credits, and future cruise credits. My clients are two weeks post-travel and already asking how they can apply that future cruise credit.”

At Jennifer Hand Travel Pro, Hand is still concerned about the overall perception of river cruising after a problem-plagued July sailing. 

“I don’t think the river cruise line did themselves any favours with a very delayed embarkation change, poor communication, and refusing to allow guests to cancel or change to another sailing in the future. I recognize the effort that was made to add some special moments, but no one got the river cruise experience they were expecting — and as we all know, negative perceptions spread fast.” 

Hand added: “One of my biggest sales growth tools is rave reviews from travellers that LOVED their experience. The lines would have been better off cancelling sailings and offering refunds or full credits to use on another sailing rather than providing a lower value experience.”

Jasmin Six of Cary Travel Express is already writing off one couple who sailed the Rhine. “Overall, they were happy with the service because Viking went above and beyond,” she says. “However, they were not happy that it seemed everyone was offered different levels of compensation for canceling or mishaps while en route. They felt wronged about their options to cancel.”

Amber Betts at Esteem Journeys LLC is so worried about the future of river cruising that she is shifting away from what has been her primary niche. “I’m trying to pivot to luxury small-ship ocean cruising, and I have a new project focusing on authentic, off-season trips for families,” she says. “I just feel like specializing in river cruising is not going to be sustainable.”

And Julie Bartz at First Class Travel is just “hoping no one hates me after this is over.”

Lesson Learned

With 200 clients ready to sail, Schulberg is having a COVID flashback moment. She’s working harder than ever — and watching the commissions she had expected evaporate with the waters of the Rhine.

That $300 trip-planning fee she instituted for new customers who come in through the YouTube channel is helping, she says. “But I was feeling really good about my sales. And now I’m remembering that adage: Never spend commission money until it’s in your pocket. Because anything can happen and you have to be ready for it.”