France Tour Reviews — 871 to 900 of 989

Barge/cycling trips are a fantastic way to explore the countryside and towns - you see so much more when you are cycling. One vivid memory of a cycling trip through northern France was stopping to look at poppies growing along the side of the road. I love the fact that you do not have to pack up each day - it is a very relaxing experience. The diversity of people who do these trips also adds to the experience. The trips that I have done in the last three years had fantastic staff who were very friendly and knowledgeable. I have done two barge/bike trips and look forward to doing more in the future.

Some hotels definitely better than others. Also some of the road directions were not translated well. Overall, however, generally satisfied with the trip but the service could use some improvements.

The crew and barge were just terrific. The food was excellent and plentiful. The French towns and scenery were a delight.

The staff was very friendly and they made our trip outstanding!

Issues related to the boat: bad smell, cabin room was cozier than we would choose in the future. Laundry facilities were inadequate. We really enjoyed the trip, the guide and the experience!

I would recommend the trip only if the biking instructions we changed. Alsace is a wonderful area and the people, food, and accommodations were great! But the instructions for the bike routes were too confusing and unclear and not in English. They were in Dutch - not even French or German!

This is the second barge and bike trip we took with Tripsite and I would have to say we liked the scenery more on the Taste of Burgundy than we did with Provence. Riding the in the Camargue got a little boring. Other than that we enjoyed the overall trip.

My main concern about this particular trip is that we did not know ahead of time that staying on the barge and not biking was not an option unless one was sick. The winds were pretty bad (25-50 miles per hour) so that some of us did not feel up to the rides. On the particularly difficult day, it would have been nice to just remain with the boat.

The Soleo was a disappointment in all respects.

It was a great trip. There were only 3 of us on the tour so they gave us each our own private cabin which was very much appreciated. Marco, the captain was one of the best boat captains. He shared a lot of information with us and really made the trip fun and interesting. Our guide was great too, and tailored each day to our needs because our group was so small. The food was good too, and a good variety. I only rated the food as "satisfied" because I toured the year before on the Zwaan, the Mosel and Saar tour, and the chef was soooooo good, that he spoiled me for future tours! If you have any questions on my experience on any tours, please let me know. And I hope to book one of your tours again ~~

More time in certain areas would have been nice. There were instances where it felt like we were being pushed along, and I appreciate that we had 22 people of varying age, skill experience and physical ability, and that we have to get back to the boat. Our guide was very good, but you needed to try and understand his manner, which could be short at times. He was knowledgeable, insightful and caring, but his manner did not necessarily reflect that. Meals were good but thought it would reflect more French cuisine of the Provence area, not a complaint, just an observation.
Staff was excellent and I continue to recommend this bike trip and company to friends."

The IBIS HOTEL we stayed at in AVIGNON did not meet our expectations. The maps were well laid out except there were too many descriptions that told us where NOT to go, poor directions in SAZE, got lost.. Eliminate that.
The bikes were great for the trip. We will use you again.

Everything about the company and the trip was first class. I would not hesitate to use Tripsite again.

I became very ill on my last day and could not complete the trip. It was dehydration. Our leader (Alex?) had to drive me into London. At no point along the way were we reminded to drink lots of water. In fact Alex did not recognize that I might have been dehydrated. Please make sure and remind people to drink, drink, drink (H2O).
thank you.

We have enjoyed every trip we have taken and look forward to more in the future!

The trip exceeded my expectations. My wife and I especially enjoyed the company of the other travelers, and we all got along very well.

A great trip overall and a good value. I would've preferred an upcharge option for better hotels. The downside was the directions book, though well made and attractive, it was not helpful or practical. I found it was much easier to follow the road signs and ignore the book. Also, the book needs to point out attractions and diversions and points of interest. People are coming from all over the world to see this one particular area, it is so important to know what there is to explore in the countryside rather than just following the route.

Outstanding cuisine, wonderful smiles and life long memories. We have already recommended our trip to many people. Fantastic Elodie!

Overall a great experience. The E bike introduction and explanation of use was rescheduled, then rushed so our group was at a disadvantage throughout the hill climbs. Some road sections were highways and quite honestly dangerous for short segments. This was our second trip and directions at one point or another usually are unclear periodically throughout the trip.

The trip was one of the best I have taken.

superb all round -organisation, food, scenery , amusing but booking proceedure not very efficient

Our second bike and barge trip with Tripsite. What a lovely way to spend a vacation!

Somewhat inadequate initial bike instruction due to bike shop rescheduling at their convenience. Bike maintenance was only average causing the bikes to not operate as described.

One of my discoveries for this trip was that I think I prefer a self-guided tour to a guided one. The group was larger than what I was really comfortable with, as I like to stop for photos and wasn't comfortable doing that with the large group. (My spouse and I had just finished a 6 day self-guided tour thru Holland). The bikes were fine, but one of our group had constant problems with hers. The food was fine, but I prefer more options, and would have liked eating away from the lunch basket-type of fare we fixed ourselves from barge foods. I loved that the guides gave us interesting evening walking tours.

The price was very reasonable - much below others we considered.

Food was great, would have liked more flexibility on cycling.

The trip was organised very well. The international crew made the trip more interesting. We were glad that Peter had some flexibility in what we experienced. He was an excellent guide. We would have liked to stop at a few more wineries. Also we always seemed to be pulling into villages as they closed for lunch.

Great accommodations and the food was excellent. Quality and condition of bikes could have been better.

We were not able to bike because I broke my arm 2 weeks before our trip but nevertheless had a wonderful time. The accommodations were first rate, as well as the food, matched by the friendliness of the inn keepers. We found plenty of things to do other then biking; hiking along the bike path as well as hikes in the countryside, museums and train trips to interesting towns.

The boat was great and we all got the cabins we were hoping for – the food was really good. The girls commented that they weren’t expecting the food to be as good as it was.
• The biking was as easy as we expected, I didn’t like the bikes as much as the bikes we had on the Danube the year before but the bikes were exactly what they said on the web-site. Pretty well all the trails were paved – makes it hard to come back to PEI trails!
• Apparently we weren’t on as pretty a section of the Rhine as we could have been but we saw some great scenery and little villages were so clean, friendly and relatively easy to get around. The crew said they didn’t like this route because it wasn’t as scenic and not as many places to stop. Apparently, they are not going to do the same route next year.
• I don’t think the tour itself was quite as well run as the one on MV Story on Danube IN 2014. I didn’t think the tour guide this year gave nearly as good instructions as the previous year and often it was difficult to figure out exactly which trail to take. The book with maps had a number of errors but guy said that would be fixed. I think they were some translations errors as well.. Last year, the tour guide always biked the route (he would wait until boat left so was always behind us and we knew he’d catch up). This guy said he was always behind us but we only saw him once and very briefly. He didn’t give suggestions of places to eat etc like they did last year. We always found good spots so that was not an issue but not because he provided suggestions. In 2014 the directions were very very clear and the company put arrows on the sign posts to show the directions. That was very helpful but non of that happened this year 2015. Maybe if they had continued the tour they would have done that as well.
• The directions we got for where the boat was docked in Basel were wrong – the directions said to go to West side and that was where the boat was always docked!! Well, it wasn’t there it was on the east side. Thankfully when it wasn’t where it was expected to be, the cab driver knew where it “probably” was. We did NOT feel the cabby took advantage of us as a few other couples has same issue and one of them had taken a bus to the dock!!. Tripsite was very responsive when we explained this and you were very generous in reimbursing us for cab fares (should have been 21 E per cab but was 54E per cab). I saw the meter and he only charged us what the meter said, plus he turned meter off a couple of times. We did give him tip. We took 2 cabs for the 6 of us and they followed each other so we all had same issue.
• We would absolutely go on another Tripsite trip and we all had a great time – just wanted to give you the feedback. If asked, I would recommend the Danube over this section of the Rhine. I would however try a different section of the Rhine and we may look at Holland another year.  SHOW MORE