Your sports and your vacation plans were only two of the events disrupted by the pandemic.
Even the Olympic games were postponed by a year.
But did you know there was another big event originally scheduled for 2020 that occurs just once every decade? It was re-scheduled for 2022 and will be sold out within the next month or two.
The Passion Play takes place just once every 10 years in the small Bavarian town of Oberammergau in Germany. The play is about the last days of Jesus Christ and was originally performed in 1634 as a vow to God for the town being spared from the Bubonic Plague (and it’s worth keeping in mind that plague was exponentially worse than our 21st century version).
Since the 17th Century, the residents of Oberammergau have performed the Passion Play every 10 years with just a handful of cancellations or off-cycle performances during that time.
It is still performed by the local people, and the 2010 production involved over 2000 Oberammergau residents. Unlike other plays you may have seen, this one has a 3-hour intermission between the opening and closing acts, and during that time they feed you dinner.
The river cruise packages attached to this play normally involve 2 to 4 nights on shore in Germany and/or Austria either before or after the river cruise. The ship travels between Bavaria and Budapest on the Danube, OR between Amsterdam and Basel on the Rhine.
Originally, the Passion Play (and the associated river cruises) was scheduled for May through October of this year. The decision was made this past spring to put it off until 2022 as a result of the coronavirus.
Most of the river cruise packages that offered tickets to the Passion Play for 2020 were sold out 2 years in advance, so we’ve been waiting patiently for the various river cruise lines to announce their plans for Oberammergau, because we know it will sell quickly.
We’ve been given the heads up that Viking will begin selling Oberammergau river cruise packages within the next few days. Booking is already open for guests with future cruise vouchers who were originally scheduled on a 2020 Passion Play cruise.
There are four different itineraries being offered, with various dates from May through September of 2022:
- Munich to Budapest (1 night Munich, 1 night Oberammergau, 7 nights shipboard)
- Munich to Amsterdam (1 night Munich, 1 night Oberammergau, 2 nights Innsbruck, 7-nights shipboard)
- Amsterdam to Oberammergau (7 nights shipboard, 2 nights Innsbruck, 2 nights Oberammergau)
- Oberammergau to Budapest (2 nights Oberammergau, 2 nights Salzburg, 7 nights shipboard).
Viking has not released pricing yet, but it will be in the same price range of other Viking cruises with 4-night land extensions. This would lead me to believe that pricing will start at about $5500 per person.
If this is something you’re considering, you’d be well advised to book it sooner rather than later. While we can always find you a river cruise in Europe, the number of tickets to the Passion Play is definitely limited, as we learned in the run-up to 2020.
We are assembling a “stand-by” list for Oberammergau reservations. If you’d like to be on this list, please contact us as soon as possible with your preferred itinerary and travel dates. We will collect your information ahead of time, and as soon as the Oberammergau cruises are open for booking, we will put a courtesy hold on a cabin for you.
Perhaps these cruises won’t sell out as quickly as I’m anticipating, but it sure would be disappointing to miss out and have to wait until 2030 to experience this event!
If there’s one thing we’ve all learned from the pandemic, it’s that you really must do the things you really want to do, when you have the opportunity to do them.
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I look forward to hearing from you.
Sue Bradley
Sue Bradley
