4 Star Bike Tour Reviews — 871 to 895 of 895

  Patria Koblenz to Bad Wimpfen
Germany

I ordered an electrical bike and found it VERY TOP heavy, causing me to take a fall and injure my hip.

  Normandie Along the Danube - Passau to Vienna
Austria, Germany

  Iris Metz to Cochem
France, Luxembourg, Germany

The guides are young and very athletic. People who sign up for this level of bicycling aren't usually top bikers, unless they are doing it to be with friends or spouse. I think a bit more thought could be put into the introductory ride the first day, bridge crossings, sudden merging into traffic, sudden turns to go steeply uphill. I've done much longer bike rides, but at this age, I didn't want that much challenge.

  My Story Along the Danube - Four Country Tour
Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary

I thought we would bike every day, not a problem, but it would have been nice to know.

  My Story Along the Danube - Four Country Tour
Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary

I had a good time on this trip, however, there was not enough time on the bicycle. As well, compared to the other biking trips we have taken, this one was very dependent on time. We did not have all day to get to the next spot. I felt rushed on three of the days, and we only biked on four. Also you lose the sense of discovery when every spot is picked out for you ahead of time, as to where to eat, shop, etc. The cruise staff were wonderful, but it seems to me that they think people only want to see cities, whereas I love the countryside and the villages. I would not do a combined boat and bike again.

  My Story Along the Danube - Four Country Tour
Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary

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

  MS Andante Mainz to Basel
Germany, Switzerland, France

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.

  Normandie Along the Danube - Four Country Tour
Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary

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

  De Holland North Holland Tour
Netherlands

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.

  De Holland North Holland Tour
Netherlands

  My Story Along the Danube - Four Country Tour
Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary

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.

Amsterdam to Bruges Bike Tour
Netherlands, Belgium

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.

  MS Andante Mainz to Basel
Germany, Switzerland, France

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.

  MS Andante Mainz to Basel
Germany, Switzerland, France

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

  Normandie Along the Danube - Four Country Tour
Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary

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.

Provence - Van Gogh
France

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.

  Fluvius Bruges to Amsterdam
Belgium, Netherlands

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.

  My Story Along the Danube - Four Country Tour
Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary

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

  Princess Diana Southern Dalmatia E-Bike & Boat
Croatia

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.

  Normandie Along the Danube - Four Country Tour
Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary

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.

  Ave Maria Mantova to Venice or Venice to Mantova
Italy

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.

Around Lake Constance
Austria, Germany, Switzerland

This is an awesome bike tour, great work.