Vivienne boat/barge tour reviews — 121 to 121 of 121

This was a fantastic trip! The boat was great and the crew was the best. Meal were great and nicely served - significantly past my expectation for a trip focused on biking. If you are doing this trip, here are some things I wish I had known....

- You will spend more time on the boat than you might think - pack clothes for that and excursion days as well as what you were for biking

- Speaking of clothes, it is hard to get things to dry if you wash them out by hand - there is a clothesline in the shower but bring your own clips

- You won't have much shore time on biking days or excursion days, so don't bother looking up 100 things to do in a city. Think in terms of a few hours not a whole day

- That being said, I would suggest setting something up on your own in Vienna in the evening - especially if you are into Classical Music - that is, after all, the town for it. We went to the ballet and it was wonderful. Our friends went to the Opera - you might want to take nicer clothes for either of those - they still dress up for concerts..

- Don't bother getting Florints (money) in Hungary - everyone we talked to took Euros, but do get train tickets from your tour guide if they are offered - they are hard to find and the machines are not in English and VERY hard to figure out (we finally found some young people who graciously helped us out)

- Don't count on Wifi. Period. We never managed to pull in any

- The app they use sounds really good but we found it completely useless - even our cruise director said not to use it. It doesn't help, and most of the time when we had a question on the route I couldn't pull in cell service

- Speaking of cell service....play around with what service your phone pulls up. Sometimes if I changed carriers I got a much better signal

- Try to find a group to ride with - it really helps with directions and is much more fun

- The Ebikes are VERY heavy - someone said 65lbs - I don't know if that is true, but they are very heavy and hard to manage. They might help when you are riding, but they are hard to handle - not for anyone who isn't pretty strong especially stop and go in small towns - it is a challenge.

- Every day you have to catch the boat before it leaves port. You don't have to be a professional biker, but you do have to ride along at a pretty good clip. That took us by surprise...it was no jaunt through the countryside - but I am older (60) so maybe that is a matter of perspective

- They set out salad stuff for you to take with a sandwich for lunches - I would suggest taking a small tupperware if you think you want salad on the road, but I would also suggest taking baggies just in case you don't want their prepared sandwiches (which were OK, but not real exciting). They put out cold cuts and breads/rolls and several days we made our own (helpful hint - don't put mayo on in the morning - take the packets and put them on when you eat - just to be sure it is fresh). I also made up some trail mix and took rolls (with Nutella packets) for snacks so the baggies were really helpful.  SHOW MORE