Europe Tour Reviews — 1291 to 1320 of 6870

Beautiful - not able to bike because of recovering from surgery but everything was pleasing to the eyes. Only downsides was almost all Croatians smoke so the back of the boat that had the best covered seating wasn’t good on the lungs. We had to ask the cook to use less salt.

Cycling through the Wachau area was incredible! The quaint villages were beautiful. The Danube was unfortunately in flood so we missed out on parts, but the staff did what they could to allow us to cycle and see various sites.

Our Two tour guides Mario & Paulo especially Paulo since he really tried to make our trip informative and comfortable for each of us and that definitely added to our trip!

We had a great time! As a bike guide in the US myself, I know how these things work. You cannot foresee every situation. And as a guide, we know to be flexible. And because of that we thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

Here are some thoughts for improvements for your next guests. These by no means took away from our enjoyment and are meant for future trips.
-- The hotels in general were nice. A few issues here and there (mostly normal stuff).
-- In Hainburg - Altes Kloster - there was no individually controlled AC. It was fine for us because the night was cool.
-- The breakfasts at all the hotels were excellent
-- In Esztergom, the Portobello Hotel was not so great. The hotel room actually smelled bad. My wife says it smelled like old shrimp. They sent someone up with a spray can which they left for us. That "hid" the smell for a while, and you got used to it. But when you stepped back in the room from outside you could clearly smell the mustiness. Also there was no coffee maker in the room (which is always a nice thing to have). We did OK there, but I'd recommend a different hotel for future guests.
-- Traveling by train from Gyor to Komarom was interesting. No elevators and no escalators. We had to carry bikes up and over (or down and under) the tracks to get to the platform. This is the kind of thing it would have been nice to know ahead of time.
-- There was no ferry service from Szentendre to Budapest. We ended up taking the train. While the docs say you might have to take the train, I think it would have been nice to have been told ahead of time that there would not be a boat.
-- Perhaps too, a little more heads up about possible river flooding and the need for detours (honestly, the guy we met with the bikes may have mentioned this. I'm just bring it up as a "nice to know" tip for future guests.

Again, none of these took away from *our* trip (except maybe the Portobello Hotel). As a bike guide these are the kinds of thing we like to look for and inform our guests about ahead of time.

And yes... we will see you on another adventure soon! We had a blast!

Thanks
-Philip & Caroline

Hard to list one thing - many museums in Copenhagen and the canal boat ride; maritime museum in Helsingor, Viking ship village in Roskilde, riding along the sea, fine breakfasts, friendly and helpful Danish people. It was a bit hillier than I expected on a couple of days. Printed and phone app instructions were excellent.

The Steamboat ride from Mariefred to Stockholm was quite entertaining. We made the mistake of renting Ebikes....not a good idea. Cycling was very scenic..........hotels in Trosa and Mariefred were excellent......guides at castles were highlights of the trip. Take at least an hour tour in Gripsholms. Cycle paths were gravely and a bit difficult for many of us with Ebikes.....except for the few folks who had very new light weight models. Bottom line, I want to rate trip 'excellent' but we made it less so by choosing ebikes even though Tripsite tried to steer us away from this decision!!

Going through the smaller places of Portugal at a more leisurely pace.

The hotels were wonderful, we navigated better with ride with gps app. We had an amazing experience

The crew was great and the food was excellent. The bikes were good.

The route, due to detours had its challenges

Loved the Merlijn boat , Coen & Cristina were wonderful hosts , Cristina was a fabulous cook & hostess, so accomodating. Coen very knowledgeable & helpful.
Might be helpful to have 2 cycling guides as we found the pace very slow at times , even though we were on the hybrid bikes. Francine did let us go ahead at times. Bedrooms were very comfortable, heated towel rails great for drying biking shorts overnight.
We would consider going again but probably a week trip.

tripsite was always a little confused and there were mistakes made, we got our info the day we arrived for the first day of our tour. The hotel did not know a thing about our packets, and again I had to make a call on vacation. The person that showed up was clueless about bikes did not know how to put on pedals or adjust the seat. He did not have our train tickets as someone forgot to put them in the packet. one of the bikes was missing a fender and a bag. The hotels were hit or miss. The Stockl hotel was dirty and smelly, we both got a rash that was scaly and itchy. I had to call Euro bikes to get our train tickets again. As they forgot to digitally send them. ,( second time). The directions were hit or miss. Gps was better. I have done many bike tours and I loved the Danube tour just need a more organized company. Electric bikes worked great!!
castles were great!

First of all, the bikes were outstanding. My wife has used many e bikes and she loved this one. The mountain bike I was given was also excellent. The three Paradors, (Santiago, Baiona and Pontevedra) were each outstanding. The path was extremely varied. Everything from smooth pavement to loose gravel. Some walking is likely. The shore-side or through wooded paths or through small villages sites were great.

What a fun filled, adventurous week! Our guide, was wonderful-I would highly recommend doing this trip with a guide-having someone to explain the history and the customs of the area was invaluable.

The loveliness and peacefulness of biking by the canal. The GPS tracks were spot on as was the support from Robert. The bikes were outstanding and the accommodations were perfect!

The food was incredible. The guides were friendly and helpful!

Nice countryside.
The regular Trek bike was good. Those who needed an e bike had a lot of challenges.

I very much enjoyed my self-guided Prague-Krakow bicycle tour. I traveled solo and chose upgraded accomodations and extra nights in Prague, Auschwitz and Krakow, which I would recommend. Unfortunately due to a canceled United Airlines flight, I was only able to spend 1 night in Prague. All of the personnel were quite helpful. The itinerary was clear and managable. W the exception of my last day in Krakow, my bags always arrived before I did (usually between 12-1). Two hotels charged me an additional city tax (Hotels Clement and Trinity). Be aware that there is a significant amount of off road gravel, dirt and rough riding, which for me added to the adventurous quality of the trip. I also chose an upgraded gravel bike, which I highly recommend. I don't know if I would upgrade the hotels again, in that there were at least 2 nights I was in 3 star hotels when 4 star options were listed on the itinerary. The Ride w GPS ap was at times confusing. For example, multiple times it indicated I was off course, when I doubled back to look for a missed turn, it then indicated that in fact I was going the correct way. The ap guided to the city center and not to the final hotel destination. Therefore, it is essential to get a sim card and have internet access to map to your individual hotel. Definitely bring a back up phone battery and a method for attaching it to your phone on the handlebar. I was also informed that the contract w the luggage carrier was to deliver the bag by 5 pm. Therefore, you may want to carry a change of clothes in your pannier. As mentioned, that only occurred one time (Krakow) where I had to wait a couple of hours to change out of my sweaty bike clothes. I especially enjoyed Olomouc and Krakow (go to the Schlinder museum). Overall, I would recommend Tripsite and I'm already looking for my next self guided bicycle adventure.

The scenery was spectacular and the barge crew was excellent

The tour was very well organized. Pieter was waiting for us at the Abcoude train station when we arrived and he took the time to thoroughly explain everything about the bikes, the equipment, safety rules and tips, hotels, etc. Most of the pedalling is through the country side and small and quaint villages. The scenery was beautiful and relaxing. All hotels were excellent, with well appointed rooms although a few were on the smaller side. Nevertheless, all hotels had their own unique charm and all breakfasts were excellent.

Before starting, we thought we could average around 18 km/h but in reality, we were closer to the 15-16 km/ average pretty much every day. Main reasons for that were :
1. Head winds (sometimes quite strong) more than half of the time which slow you down
2. Stopping/starting to take pictures, admire the scenery. Every time you stop, you have to get back up to speed.
3. Cycling through towns and villages, you can't go very fast as there are pedestrians and you are cycling on (sometimes very) uneven coblestones.
4. Getting lost. The GPS worked quite well in the country side but not as well once in larger cities. Not all wrong detours were the GPS fault though!

Some tips :
- Leave early if you would like to make some stops along the way (take a coffee, visit a windmill, etc.) and not arrive at your destination at 6 PM. This is especially true if you want to visit something at your end destination for the day as most attractions close around 5 PM.
- Plan your next day's itinerary the night before. Some days there aren't many lunch options along the way so make sure your timing is right. On day 3, we ended up doing a little more than 40 kms before lunch and ate around 2:30 PM because the area where we wanted to stop turned out to be a commercial area with no place to eat.
- Expect to do a few more kms every day because of wrong turns, things to visit, etc.
- Have a data plan. For us, because the GPS didn't always work so well in town, that's what we used to get to the hotels 4 of the 6 days.
- As mentioned in the documentation on how to prepare, make sure you are saddle ready. Based on our experience, the most difficult/painful day was the second one. After that, it got better every day.

Overall, we loved our experience and we highly recommend this tour without hesitation.

The villages we biked through., the people we met & the city tours we did.

The entire crew was exceptional! The only complaint, and it’s a big one, was lack of communication from headquarters when unexpected flooding altered the itinerary. The boat was not able to land where planned and there should have been an email sent out to inform us that they were working on it and to stand by for more information when they knew more. We had friends on the previous cruise and they knew Saturday morning that they were not going to land in Passau. No messages were sent from headquarters to inform us that things were in flux and we had passengers on our cruise that went to an empty dock in Passau and this could have been easily avoided had headquarters been set up for group emails.

We cruised with the crew of the Zwaantjze from Epernay to Paris. The captains (Barry and Eric), the chef (Frank) and first mate, Brendo were friendly and highly competent. The cabins are tiny, but comfortable. The quality of the bikes was excellent to poor. My bike was fine, however, the bike my husband had, which was a large frame, had no rear brakes. Even though there were only 7 guests, there was not another bike available for him larger than a small. The small bike had faulty electric assist, it did not work consistently. He was not happy about that. Our guides were wonderful people, but we do not understand the decision your company made to assign three people who were not familiar with the route or the history of the area. On two previous tours we have taken with your company, the guides offered extraordinary insights about the history and architecture of all the towns we visited. That info was not offered on this tour. We suggest you prepare a short video to be shown each night describing the towns and the types of roads that will be ridden on the following day. That would greatly enhance the experience.

This boat and bike trip was really an ideal combination accessible cycling for all in our party (with a mix of e-bikes and gravel bikes), fantastic gourmet food onboard the Andela Lora and great way to experience getting to know Isteria. The boat was well-appointed and comfortable for the 34 guests and we all felt very well looked-after!

The director and crew were very friendly and helpful. We enjoyed the ride through the scenic landscape and quaint towns. The tours were very good too!

We had a wonderful experience on the tour. The boat exceeded our expectations in terms of accommodation and the food was delicious. Our tour guides were knowledgeable and very organized - clear about bike directions and safety conscious. Biking was a mix of roads and gravel trails. E bike recommended unless you are a strong cyclist.

The tour was great. The staff were very attentive. The guides were helpful.
The breakfast was basic but the lunch and dinners were excellent. The beds are comfortable but the AC could be better esp if traveling when warm. Toiletries are not included so one should bring or buy when you arrive. The bikes are comfortable and really ding thru the countryside was beautiful

We had an amazing time on our Istrian bike/barge trip in May/June 2024. We loved the guides and the crew and the food was amazing! The scenery and bike routes were spectacular and we really enjoyed the extras (Croatian language lesson, Croatian history/geography lecture and city guides) ! Would recommend and hope to do again.

A note and not a review. Some colleagues returned to the Fluvius a few minutes after midnight and the sliding glass doors on either side of the main deck were locked. These doors were locked with a key on both the outside and the inside. My concern is that if there were an emergency and crew were not available, passengers could not open the sliding glass doors from the inside. I think this is a safety issue and those doors should have an emergency inside lock that can be opened by any passenger or crew without a key or without specific training.

Overall, a great trip. Excellent meals - thanks to Mirka and her staff. Carla and Laura were great tour guides and I hope Carla recovers from her accident soon.

Another suggestion - review mirrors on the bikes would make keeping groups together a bit easier.

Great group, amazing food!!, beautiful surroundings, well chosen routes, catered to a variety of capability and fitness levels. We all could do it. The e-bikes were reliable and made the trip doable for all.
The ship was clean and comfortable and the crew super congenial. We were grateful to have an above deck cabin.

The excellent food, for me, was the most memorable. The biking and the guides were great but the quality of the food stood out for me