Germany Tour Reviews — 511 to 540 of 1690

Fantastic trip in every way!

Our guides were amazing. They provided variety, information and enough stops to inform, rest and recharge.
Our cook must have come from the most prestigious restaurant. Her variety, presentation and enthusiasm made every meal a treat.
The crew could not have been better. They attended to everything and worked as a fine tuned team to make our trip memorable.

I highly recommend this trip experience.

This was my second trip with the Merlijn and I will travel with them again in the future. The staff made our our living conditions on board very comfortable, the food is always amazing and the biking was outstanding. We had a family emergency which they handled professionally and efficiently. The friendly relaxed atmosphere that this boat/barge provides in a small group setting is exactly what we look for.

Had 2 awsome tour guides

Lovely biking holiday! So enjoyed the bits of history as we biked through German villages and towns. The The boat was delightful, food delicious, and the hosts went out of their way to ensure a wonderful time.

We really enjoyed going to three capital cities that we had not visited before, while being very active and seeing the countryside. The rides were not difficult but we were glad that we rented e-bikes for the occasional steep spots and headwind. We will definitely do a bike and barge trip again. Since we like sightseeing, next time we would look for an itinerary that includes more villages/places of interest and less long distance biking in isolated areas.

Fabulous food-very fresh and expertly prepared. Beautiful rides through the countryside- and many historic sites!

This trip exceeded my every expectations from start to finish. The ship was more beautiful than than the brochure. The bikes were top quality although next time I will definitely get an e-bike. The crew & service were top notch! The meals & beverages were outstanding. I especially liked the different wine pairing at each dinner. The entertainment was eclectic, from soft piano during Tea & cake time, then kicked it up at nite for dancing. The pirate & 70’s theme nights were also super fun & unexpected. Everyday was a new experience. I especially liked our last day Krems - Melk and all the great villages, gothic towns, Vineyard’s, castles and breathtaking views.
The only thing I would change personally, is the guided bike tour in the city. Our tour guide was amazing, but I was so focused on riding the bike, due to lots of cyclist and lack of experience in city cycling and the rain, that I feel I missed out on lots. The next time I would due the walking tour or hop on - hop off! Thanks you for the great memories.

The boat was very nice. Swiss Crowne. The crew and cruise director were wonderful, always very helpful. The food was very good. The only recommendation I would have is that the timing for the cycling and meeting the boat could have been better. We rode each day and we would have liked to have had more time while riding through some of the towns., The weather in the morning was a bit of a hindrance - but we realize that could not be helped. In the future I would prefer a trip that has guided cycling tours so we can get more historical background.

All in all, we enjoyed the trip, very relaxing and would recommend this trip for people who want a combination of cycling and touring.

This was a nice trip. The boat and staff were amazing. The scenery of the Danube was spectacular but the most memorable part of the trip were the other passengers!

I loved this trip! The food was wonderful, our guides Hetty and Corri were amazing, and the boat was very nice. Unfortunately the air conditioning in our room did not work very well, but other than that everything was perfect. The staff was excellent.

It was an absolutely amazing trip! I had high hopes from this tour and it even exceeded anything I could ever hope for. The boat was incredible, everything was beautifully decorated, our cabins we're really nice and well equipped, the sun deck was very pleasant and gave us a good place to take in all the beautiful landscapes we passed through, and the hot tub was a real treat! The staff was super friendly and professional, and the food was excellent. My need for vegan food was answered above any expectations, they really went out of their way to include me and give me the same dishes as everyone else but with a vegan version. The bicycles were excellent as well, very well maintained and they felt light and easy to accelerate even though they we're heavier than my own bike. I could really cruise in those bicycles with little effort. The routes were absolutely amazing and beautiful, the briefings were excellent and the app made it even easier to navigate (with added on map points of interest). The schedule was very well balanced between the cycling routes and rest days in which we did some sightseeing in the amazing cities we went through. Overall, simply incredible and I would highly recommend this trip!! Thank you!!

Wonderful trip, actually; perfectly organized, very friendly and helpful staff, everything went by the book.
Especially admirable was the response of the kitchen staff to our demand for vegan food.

Biking through the small Austrian cities was wonderful. The Se Manon cruise boat is well appointed and the boat floated down the Danube so quietly. The Staff on the SE Manon was eager, enthusiastic, talented and fun. We ate and we drank plenty. The Chefs and the Bartenders took good care of us.

Great way to tour the Danube River valley with a good mix of active bike riding and the opportunity to visit cities such as Brataslavia, Budapest and Vienna by having a boat that can cover long distances while you are sleeping.

The biking was certainly the highlight. Loved it. The boat was great, rooms good sized ,staff lovely. Food was not great but ok for price. The vegan in our party was not planned for but chief did his best. Overall certainly recommend.

If you are not using an electric bike, the hills are strenuous but doable.
The beauty of the countryside in Germany and Denmark was spectacular.

This bucket list trip does not disappoint. One week of magic. Unpack once and you are good for the week which was a huge part of the magic. Every day was different. Cycling through villages and towns, or wineries and vineyards, or just along the river. The two 'rest days' were filled with walking around Vienna and Budapest and seeing all the sites we could. Food on board was exceptional and the service of the staff exemplary. We also liked that there was time in towns/cities to also eat local food during the day and a few days the boat was docked at dinner as well so although food was prepaid for all meals - we liked that we could also experience local cuisine. It was a mostly German speaking boat or week but we did have about 30 English speakers and the staff all spoke English so that was helpful to us. The routes were good (but we did have to crowd source a bit to not get lost). There is not really anything to do on the boat per se - but the scenery was continuously striking and you go through a variety of locks which is also interesting. We were on the Vivienne which is a newly remodeled boat (a few years back) so the rooms and common areas were decorated nicely. Overall - great trip for active people seeking ease and flow on a vacation where you could see 4 countries and not be stressed.

Overall, the self-guided tour was excellent. The trail system was impressive, going through cities, towns and countryside mostly along the Vltava and Elbe Rivers. There were some tricky spots and we made some wrong turns, but always managed to get back on track. Make sure to get the electronic GPS maps and download and test them before you leave. It was essential to have all three sets of directions (electronic, maps and written directions). It was really special to visit all the historic towns and places in the Czech Republic, including Melnik and lunch at Strekov Castle as well as seeing all the spring flowers and crops growing everywhere. We stopped and paid our respects at the Terezin Memorial, the Nazi concentration camp, which was a sobering experience. Please note that in Hrensko, the trail to Pravicice Gate, (the natural bridge) goes through a major forest fire burn area, which really detracted from the experience. If we had known how devastated it was, we probably wouldn't have made that side trip. According to other travelers there was no forest fire damage around Edmund's Gorge, the other major attraction in the area. My advice would be to skip Hrensko and press on to Bad Schandau and take extra time to visit the Bastei Brucke between Bad Schandau and Dresden.

I have done multiple boat/bike tours now and this trip was definitely everything I had hoped for. The experience onboard was outstanding, the bicycle routes were excellent and the optional excursions I chose were fun. The bicycles were perfect. This was my first ebike experience.

Beautiful architecture and countryside

We were very fortunate that we had beautiful weather the entire trip, except for a brief hail storm as we returned to the barge in Bratislava. The alternate days of biking and city touring was excellent in that it allowed time to recover from saddle sores, and the e-bikes were very comfortable for the long distances we biked. The crew was fabulous and accommodating to every need, and the Cruise Director (Leslie) made sure we were prepared and had everything we needed to make our biking a pleasure and free of stress.

We finished this trip in May of 2023.

We did the self guided with just my wife and I. We are in our late 60s so we used the e-bikes as there are some hilly areas. We picked the highest hotel category and also spent three nights in Prague prior to the trip.

We loved it. The spa towns were amazing as were the hotels. The breakfasts every morning were fantastic. The rides were almost entirely on very lightly traveled roads or bike paths. The countryside is amazingly beautiful and so were the towns. We felt very safe everywhere we went. We called ahead and signed up for spa treatments several times. We have done many rides and this ranked up there with the best.

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 

There were so many memorable parts of the trip. The places we biked to were amazing. Astrid's meals were exceptional and beyond 5 stars. The staff was so friendly and helpful with any concerns we had.
However, the bikes we had were awful. The majority of the group had problems with both the ebikes and the regular bikes. My wife's ebike did not work properly for the first 2 days and she had an accident because of it. The power kept going off and the guide set it permanently on turbo, however, when she was going up a hill and turning onto a bridge the power cut out again and she was not able to pedal and fell into the cement barrier. Fortunately, nothing was broken but she was very bruised. Each day there were a number of bikes needing repair with problems with brakes and gears. We had friends who biked the same tour in the fall and he said the bikes were terrible then and was told it was the end of the season and that all the bikes would be refurbished and repaired before the tour began in May. I guess this wasn't done as only 2 or 3 actually had no problems.
Also, the guides were not that familiar with the routes and we went off track a few times. There seemed to be a personality clash between them and at one point they actually argued in front of the group, which was not very professional. Both guides, however, were personable and helpful when needed.

The scenery while biking. The small towns we explored along the way. The staff on the boat.
The upscale dining experience each night.
The comfort, storage options, and arrangement of our cabins. The wonderful duvets on the beds. The large windows in our cabin.

Cycling along the Mosel was magical! Vertical Vineyards! Who knew? Fabulous rides!

The wonderful paved cycle paths

Definitely the biking part was the most memorable. The scenery was incredible and I loved riding through the vineyards and small towns along the Mosel.

Vineyards and villages

Review of local cycling etiquette would have been helpful