Up early today lovely sunrise :
The original Schedule for today was to cruise up the Rhine to Arnhem and have lunch there then an afternoon cruise to Cologne were we would stay overnight. However, due to the problem with the oil leak we were being bussed to Keukenhof then to Arnhem where we have free time or go on the excursion to the Airborne Museum thence to Nijmegen to meet the boat all being well. If you have read my previous blog on The Bulbfield cruise you will realise we (Susan and myself) had already visited Keukenhof as part of that holiday. This is where the cruise turned into a Coach Holiday – and as a result was not what we expected or what was offered. We spent two hours at Keukenhof, then a 2 hour drive to Arnhem. Now this was to be a nice stop over for lunch with plenty of time for exploring or excursion – instead it became a mad rush. Not wanting to be dumped in the middle of the town we took the excursion to the Airborne Museum at Osterbeek outside Arnhem. I knew from a previous visit that at least half a day is needed to absorb the details and follow the time line of the battle for the”Bridge Too Far”, instead we had a rushed tour (1 hour) when we had to make our way back to Arnhem to pick up the rest of our party. We did get 20 minutes to pay our respects to the memory of those who lost their lives – civilians and service when we stopped at the Commonwealth Cemetery.
So ended our leisurely tour of Arnhem, we collected the remainder of the group and headed to the ship where more bad news was to come. We boarded the ship at Nijmegen and were updated as to the status of the ship, it was not good news – the dockyard did not have the facilities to get the ship out of water and this meant that the repairs could not be carried out – a specialist dockyard was needed and that meant an overnight cruise to Duisburg where we would disembark complete with luggage to the coaches and make our way to Cologne (Koln) then to a hotel (guest house) in the village of Uckerarth which would be our base fro the next 4 days – the cruise element had come to an end.
Updated 27/06/2012 Remaining blogs deleted – this turned intoa coach tour and suffice to say it was not enjoyable. We did take another trip with this boat and crew which did remain a river cruise. In January 2012 Pheonix Holidays ceased trading in part due to this and other failed cruises. It was with trepidation my partner and I booked a cruise with another compnay to travel down the Danube in May this year -what a difference and supberd customer services. The company was Viking River Cruises
