5 Star Patria boat/barge tour reviews — 1 to 28 of 28

I and my husband, loved this trip. We cycled through castelo and vineyards! Beautiful place, lovely people and excellent Crew!
And the best assistance!

This was my first bike and barge trip. The most memorable part of the trip was the constant attention and effort of the staff, from the captain down, to make the trip special. Entertainment (they have abundant talent), tours of the engine room, attending to the passenger's needs - were all beyond my expectations. For example, while sitting on the deck on a chilly night after everyone else had gone in, a crew member brought us blankets. I am definitely looking forward to our upcoming trip!

I have completed 7 bike and barge trips with Tripsite and every one of these trips has been a wonderful and memorable experience. The latest one was a trip from Koblenz to Saarburg and even though we had already done this trip on the Patria on the reverse we wanted to enjoy the Mosel River once again as it truly is the most picturesque and enchanting route in Germany. The MS Patria and her crew are dedicated in making the trip a success by providing us with clean and comfortable even though small cabins, an outstanding menu on each and every night by a chef who for a very good reason has been on this ship for a very long time and a bike maintenance crew second to none. The bikes are ready when you get there and every night they are cleaned, inspected and ready for the next days adventure. That has made me and Clara to take 3 trips on the Patria and have enjoyed every one of them and have become a family with some of the crew members. Every route has its own beauties to show and every trip provides a very different taste of Europe. The Danube is fantastic, the Rhine is a water highway and the Neckar and Mosel are simply beautiful. Budapest is a great city of the east, Passau a small gem, Koblenz dazzling, Heidelberg an absolute delight and Bordeaux has it all. We have made life long friends and we enjoyed every day we have been on board one of the ships from Amsterdam, to Bruges, to Dusseldorf, to Manheim and beyond. Highly recommend to every one who enjoys cycling and the beauty of traveling through small and wonderful towns and cities to take advantage of these comparatively low cost river cruising and get to have fun and exercise. Thank you to all the crews and to all the staff at Tripsite but an especially HUGE hug to the crew on the MS Patria.

Relaxing, easy route coupled with comfortable boat made for a memorable trip.

Most Memorable Part? Scenic bike rides along with meeting a lot of nice people.

Best part: The scenery along the way. But I really enjoyed the staff on the Patria for a trip up the Mosel River in Germany. It was very laid back can of trip but the staff and food were great.

My Moselle River Bike and Barge tour (October 2018) exceeded my expectations in every way. Barge was comfortable, food excellent and cycling experience was wonderful. I cannot wait to do something similar in the near future. I would recommend this style of travel to anyone who enjoys cycling and wants to experience great scenery and lovely towns.

On day 4 my wife's front tire went off the bike trail into a 18 inch drop due to road construction . She dislocated her shoulder and broke her arm . We had to fly home in California for surgery . Two surgeries later she is almost back to normal and we hope to return to Germany next year to repeat the Mosel river trip and also a Croatia bike trip. We enjoyed the short time we had. We didn't have insurance so lost our money and then some. We are saving for another thru Tripsite because everything else wonderful.

Once again the "Patria" gave us a wonderful trip with an excellent crew from top to bottom. The rooms are small but comfortable and spotlessly cleaned on a daily basis. The food on this ship never ceases to amaze. Breakfast and dinner for such a lot of guests it is always served with smiles, tirelessly by outstanding servers and the chef is a master in producing meals of top restaurant quality. Bravo. The guide Carsten was "spot on" with his PowerPoint presentations, never shy of answering any and all questions and always riding the course. The handouts were excellent. Not to be missed is the wine tour in Nierstein, a fun outing without the pretentious tasting and showy put-ons. Must make sure you arrive 2-3 days early at Koblenz as it is a great place to explore on your own on a rental bike. Also after Bad Wimpfen take a short train ride and stay a couple of days in Heidelberg to see and enjoy the many historical venues. Yes, it is a touristy place, but worth it. Castles and more castles the first 2 days, vineyards and fields the next 2 and rolling hills the last 2 days gives you a trip that showcases everything that is so much fun in the "Bike and Barge" style of vacationing. Enough bike riding every day to enable you to have the extra glass of wine or cold beer at dinner. This trip is a 10 out of 10 hands down, particularly if it is sunny and dry as it was for us this September of 2017. Our 6th trip with Tripsite and we looking forward to the next one in 2018. Thank you all.

The boat and crew were all fantastic and the cycling was fun and easy through beautiful scenery.

The trip was very good throughout so it's hard to pick one thing as the highlight. Exploring the Roman remains in Trier was something we won't forget, and so was singing sea shanties on deck with the crew!

Great trip and a lot of fun. The staff was excellent and Carsten made sure we got to where we were supposed to go.

Great trip but had some problems with bikes. I've had better bikes on other trips.

The best part was the setting with the river and the villages that we visited.

I just liked the laid back atmosphere of this trip and boat. The boat was simple and the crew were very friendly. It is not high end and I like that for its simplicity. It makes it very easy to relax on this trip.

The boat staff were outstanding! The boat dinners were outstanding! The boat breakfasts and lunches were just okay.

The biggest downside to the trip were the totally inadequate route guides. They were not written for new-to-the-route riders. On one hand, they assumed the user was familiar with the route and knew where they were going. On the other hand, they seemed to have been written by someone who had never ridden the route, who just looked at a paper (or electronic) map to write the guide.

Finally, the on-boat guides were of minimal help. While they seem to have ridden the route, they did not explain the complexities a new rider would encounter along the way. They did, however, explain the highlights to look for on each route.

With those two exceptions, the trip was wonderful! As for the most memorable, being dog people, we really liked having the captain's dogs on board.

Bicycle and boat are the best vacations ever! Can't wait for my next tour! Hope to make this an annual thing. :)

Overall we enjoyed the Bike and Barge along the Mosel River. However it seemed to be too much effort for the guide to interact with the English speaking clients.
Maybe he's been doing it too long.
Thank You

All of your staff at the office are fantastic! We love talking to you and we truly appreciate your efforts and quick response to our questions and requests. Looking forward to Bordeaux next September.

We had an absolute blast on this trip and made great friends with the other English-speakers. The route was beautiful and full of things to discover, and the biking was very manageable, even for my 75 year old mother. The downside was that our boat included a very large group that had booked together, so we felt slightly apart from the majority of the passengers and the separate language orientation sessions intensified this. I know you don't run these tours, but I wonder if having the sessions together and providing English language translation in writing on the Power Point would be another option? Encouraging switching up the seating at meals might also help. One last comment is that it would be helpful for the maps to include information on the location of public toilets along the route. We are not comfortable using the riverbank as our toilet as our guide recommended.

We had a wonderful trip. Some routes could had better directions since in several occasions we got lost, yes we made the best out of the experience. The staff was excellent, at critical times during the trip the staff pull together and made the trip as comfortable and pleasant. They are champions, no doubt about it!!!

Trip was excellent. the boat is really bare bones but that was okay. Wifi was spotty and difficult at times.

Wonderful trip through the vineyards on the wine wagon!

It was a great way to see the countryside.

The bikes were new and serviced and washed daily to keep them in excellent condition. The boat staff were wonderful and very hard-working. Much time and skill went into meal preparation, and the meals were delicious and attractively presented, both breakfasts and dinners. There was plenty of food to package into lunches to take on the trail. Each day's ride along the Mosel was on flat hard-surfaced trails with beautiful scenery and easy to follow directions that took us through pretty little towns. We thoroughly enjoyed this trip and would definitely use Tripsite again.

We had the most wonderful time on our bike/barge trip; the beautiful weather that week added to it. That was my first trip with Tripsite. The Mosel River was nothing short of spectacular. I have told anyone who would listen about this trip & have passed Tripsite's name & number along to many other people. Can't wait to do another trip!

I absolutely loved my Tripsite tours last year and this year. Bicycle and boat is my favorite way to travel! Can't wait for next years tour! (which I plan to book very soon)

It was everything we expected and more! Beautiful scenery, made great new friends, attentive staff, fantastic meals and wonderful weather. Our first experience, fantastic! We shall return!