Brendainoh

Use caution when booking your cabin. We were with a travel group and did not get to select our cabin. We were given Cabin #234, which was in a higher price category and the last room on the floor. The cabin was located against the engine room. The sound was deafening and the vibration was immense. We traveled upstream from Amsterdam to Basil and the boat was at full throttle many nights. My husband and I could barely hear each other talk and we could never hear the captain's announcements, even when the boat was at normal speed. The room vibrated so badly that items fell off the counters and the bed shook badly throughout the night. We were sleepless each night and stressed to the point of becoming ill. We managed to sleep from exhaustion when the ship arrived at the docks, thus missing breakfasts and many excursions. The ship was full, with no alternative rooms to move to. One day, we returned to the ship to find that our room was full of the smell of fuel oil. We were dismayed to be told by the captain, hotel manager, housekeeper and bartender that they knew there were problems with this room! Why book it??? Especially at this higher category price?? The bartender told us that they moved people from that room every trip. This was very unacceptable and greatly affected our trip.

TPAYT

What a way to ruin a vacation. I know how much planning goes into such a trip plus the anticipation of having a good time not to mention the cost.
Were you compensated by the cruise line and/or tour group in any way?

nytraveler

Well this sounds truly awful - and there is no way I would have continued to try to sleep in a cabin like this. If the captain refused to move you to another cabin I would have insisted on a solution on the spot:

Full refund and get off the ship and organize your own trip

Passage on another of their ships at the same time

Sleep on sofas in the public area for a night until they could get this sorted out

Why couldn't the captain switch cabins with you?

I hope you had this resolved on the spot - at least fiancially

bilboburgler

Horrible, it needs a serious meeting asap with the crew management, written agreement about what is going to be done. If no space then full refund. BUT, you have to do it there and then.

TPAYT

nytraveler----"sleep on sofas in the public area"---that's exactly what MDH would have done. One time he went down to the hotel desk as 3am in his bathrobe because of a noisy room. When the clerk said the manager wasn't in until 8am to change us MDH sat down and said "I'll wait." Guess what they found us a better room within 10 minutes. I think you came up with some good alternatives. Too late to help them now, but I do hope they received adequate compensation.

annhig

i'm sure that we all appreciate your coming here to tell us about this Brendan, but may I ask what you did about it at the time? you say that you were with a group, what action did the group organiser take? did you get a refund?

HappyTrvlr

We have changed rooms twice inthe middle of the night on river cruises due to noise. You didn't have that option bit the crew coild have done something. I hope your trip is being refunded. I would also think that yhe "travel group" should be somewhat responsivle as well.

annhig

the normal pattern is that someone posts a complaint like this, and when reasonable questions are asked, they disappear.

i really don't know why they bother.

Dukey1

Or why WE do

annhig

equally good point, Dukey.

sandralist

I am very glad they "bothered". I would never have known such a situation would exist on a barge cruise. There may be other people who come to travel boards or do Google searches specifically looking for information about this particular cruise or company, and such a post could spare someone else a ruined trip. I don't think sleeping on the floor of the public areas is much of a solution.

What is hard for me to understand is why the extremely small group of people who post here 24/7, presenting themselves as well-traveled people, have never encountered in their many travels other travelers who don't spend time on a public message forum. Less than 12 hours had elapsed before the first accusation that the OP was some kind "problem" for the regular posters on this message board, or was somehow failing to live up to some unspoken rule that they needed to report back to answer your questions or else they would be insulted and have their entire message dismissed.

It is possible the OP has returned to look at this thread and decided not to participate further. A more reasonable behavior in my estimation than the accusations they "disappeared" in the face of "reasonable" responses. Several of the responses look to me to be quite stupid.
But