4 Star Europe Tour Reviews — 1171 to 1189 of 1189

Great way to do an active vacation. Will definitely book again!!

The boat itself is nothing remarkable, but quite comfortable and clean. The staff was amazingly friendly. Route descriptions were sparse in some sections so there was some guessing involved. The maps themselves didn't have any road names on them if you did get lost they were of no use. We honestly didn't rely on the maps/route descriptions as much as the info from our daily meetings with the tour guide. There were good and bad days as far as scenery on the rides, a few days were pretty boring with not a lot to look at, while others were quite beautiful. We docked within walking distance to town on all days except one (where you had the option of one lonely restaurant). On board you are provided with maps and flyers for each overnight town. The bikes were super heavy and cumbersome (not bikes I am used to) but this is the norm in Europe. The food on board was excellent. I would recommend this trip as I know the routes are being reviewed and descriptions/maps updated.

They need to provide better maps or route sheets. Manager of the boat (Peter) was very unfriendly and sometimes rude.

I found the conditions of the bikes quite poor. They were obviously wearing out after a season of use. The food was adequate but not spectacular. The information about how to get clean towels was given 5 days into the trip.
The routes were well described but I would have liked further information about the towns we were passing through and where we were staying the night. Our group happened upon a cemetery with Canadian war dead but it was just luck. That type of information should be included I the route description of the day. Despite the things mentioned I did enjoy the trip and would recommend it to others.

I had a lot of trouble with the bike seat. That created pain/discomfort for the whole week. We saw other barges participants en route with much better bikes than we had. Ours were quite old and clunky but they worked OK when you got used to them. The bike mechanics were great. The seven gears were adequate for the terrain.

We should each have our own maps and route descriptions, not just one per cabin. You don't necessarily cycle with your cabin mate and sometimes people get separated from cycling partners during the day.

Our guide Marcel appeared to have a very arrogant attitude towards guests, particularly those who asked for clarification of various things. He was rude to me when I asked a question about the availability of public washrooms along the way - and what was customary in Holland. He snapped "So you think Dutch people don't go to the toilet?" He seemed to make a lot more effort as the week went on and was quite knowledgeable about a variety of things. He got off to a bad start with quite a few people however.

Re Food: The food was good and varied. We had a lot of salads/vegetables (generally overcooked) which I appreciated. Tea, coffee and water should be available for free all the time, not just till 4. A euro for hot water and a tea bag is chintzy.

I enjoyed the trip and the route. The route was quite varied in a lot of ways and very beautiful. Luckily the weather was reasonably cooperative and our group had a great time. The barge is a fun experience, and I would recommend it and consider another trip for myself as well.

There seemed to be tension between the owners of the barge and guy doing the cooking, cleaning and maintenance. The guy was trying to do the job of more than 2 people by himself. One day when he needed help with a cranky generator the captain was in a bar. We did not get clean towels half way through as promised. I have been on 2 bike and barge trips and this had the worst staff. The guide was good but left slower riders at several critical junctures. It did not happen often. Seems the system works best when the owner is captain. Means he is present and accountable.

Food was only average. Breakfast buffet was good, but the dinners were mixed. If you could find a way to upgrade the dinners, that would be great and worth more money. For biking trips, given it is a healthy, active crowd, even more healthy meal preparations would likely be welcomed. We did appreciate the vegetarian options though Vegan would also be nice. Overall a wonderful trip though, we enjoyed it very much.

This was our first tour in hotels, others have been on barges. I would recommend staying with the barges. There is no contact with a person regarding the tour or the bikes except hotel staff so issues with the bikes were difficult. Bikes were in bad shape we had 4 flats and a broken gear casing so we spent a lot of time in bike shops getting repairs done. Thank goodness ther are lots of bike shops in Holland. GPS was good but one day took us to the wrong hotel some 10 km off course and missed a town we had to back track the next day to see, so that was very annoying. After that we made sure it had the right destination on the GPS. Some hotels were lovely but a couple were very small. We had purchased the meal plan and that was good, though Tripsite said we would have a choice of meals there were 3 places it was just one meal offered to bike tour participants. Holland is beautiful and enjoyable to bike though we had lots of rain and wind so dress appropriately.

Garrit, our bike tour leader, was a novice on this route as well as a poor communicator to the english speaking clients. The docking area changed at each stop from the printed instructions, and the maps and turn-by-turn instructions were only partly correct! Everyone got lost at some point in the trip!! I had asked for GPS routing for my bike Garmin GPS but was told the route was to new and that it was not available! I think some accurate preparation would have made the trip more pleasant.
Second - the route along the Rhine is not scenic (as on the Danube) with few small towns to stop and look/snack on the way. The most notable sights were gravel pits and cement manufacturing. Of course, that is not the fault of the tour operator, however, they should have provided a detailed description of the small towns on the way (although not on the river) to give us the option of exploring the interesting ones and forgetting about the towns with 3 streets and no interesting sights.

Boat staff need to learn how to be more polite and friendly. The management seems to be in the military service.

Trip maps were difficult to decipher in some cases and needed more explanation. There were too many questions of ""which way do we go?, we must have missed our turn, where's the ferry?

Why couldn't we get a cup of coffee or tea before 7am or 4pm? Why couldn't we get a beer in the lounge right after returning from ride? Why couldn't we drop off our panniers before 4 on Friday when the man in charge was sitting at his desk doing nothing? The crew for the most part was accommodating but the Teutonic influence was in evidence too often, and I am 50% German. My grandfather having served for Germany in the First World War.

We found the map directions confusing at times--i.e. Cross bridge and 3 streets and turn right. Sounds easy enough, but actually it meant 2 major streets and a round about. We usually solved this by using Google maps. But it added stressful tens of minutes to resolve. It pretty much meant that we slightly dreaded arriving at even a little village, due to the almost guaranteed confusion. Having the route available as a google map path would have been much much much better.
It's the service we pay for, not the specific route. It also made it feel like the route had not been retested for a while. Getting a bit lost wasn't all that bad, and we found some nice paths near Arles. The bikes were state of the art and high quality. None of our group liked the automatic transmission on the Bosch drive. It would frequently incorrectly shift in the middle of a climb and caused a bit of needless suffering. All in all it was a fun time. We couldn't have achieved the ride without the e-bikes.

1) In the boat is possible to rent helmet for EU$ 5/week. This renting is good for travelers that spend more time in Europe. I'm not sure if this information is available in the Tripsite's site.

2) I ordered a E-bike for my wife. In the boat I saw that 2 kinds of E-bike are offered to the customers. My wife would love bike in a more comfortable E-bike.

3) According to the staff of the boat, I should speak German. I don't know the source of this information. This information is used to organize the passengers in the restaurant.

The food could be a lot better, and we would even pay more. Other than that the trip was lovely.

Some issues with our room. We booked a room with two twin beds. We got a room with a double bed and bunk beds. The double bed broke the first night. It actually came apart because a brace had fallen off. Our phone charger was broken while trying to fix the bed. Our door lock malfunctioned locking us out of our room for two hours, and was difficult to use the rest of the trip. We asked for the phone charger to be replaced, but never got an answer.

What I didn't like was the fact that the ships organisers would have known that the Water levels in the Danube would not be sufficient for the boat to moor in Budapest long before they told us. I feel that we weren't told as it would have put in jeopardy people attending the trip.

Otherwise everything else exceeded my expectations. The only staff member who could have done better was the guy in charge of the bike courses.

Guide stopped to much for cappuccino, kept us bunched up, which was unsafe, had a sick person that should of been hospitalized. Want more milage not museums.

This is an awesome bike tour, great work.

First of all, let me be clear that we were very satisfied with the Tour. All in all, we would rate it a 9 out of 10. These are the reasons we couldn’t give it a perfect 10.
1. Here is the quote from the tour operator after we asked for the directions in advance: “Tell to clients that they don’t worry, the welcome meeting will be on Saturday p.m. and they will have all the time to study the route before they leave, the day after in the morning.” We did have the welcome meeting but it was a bit rushed and we really didn’t have time to ask questions. We were warned not to be late and arrived on time. They indicated that there was not enough time that evening.
2. We did not get our bikes at the welcome meeting. One Ebike had not yet returned on Saturday afternoon. We were told to return in the morning but not before 9:30 AM. When we arrived, we felt rushed and really didn’t have time to test the bikes. Mine (Ed) was a bit wobbly but I was told that there was nothing wrong. I did get used to it as we went along but my complaint was valid, further verified when I returned home to my own steady bike.
3. All of the bikes had problems with how they shifted and how they meshed with the electric function. Maybe it was our lack of familiarity with the Ebike but we really didn’t have time Sunday morning to ask questions.
4. We never got an explanation on how to engage all of the 27 gears, only could use nine. We were told that they shifted automatically and “don’t worry about it”. The automatic shift stopped working on two bikes after the second day.
5. The directions were very confusing and hard to follow. Last year we had the “E’s” to follow but this year nothing but the somewhat confusing directions.