3 Star Bike Tour Reviews — 151 to 180 of 340

The tours were very educational & informative. We only had 1 guide and he was pretty cranky & could be insulting to several of the ladies. To be honest the women were not prepared either.

We loved our day at Keukenhoff Gardens. We also enjoyed the amazing dinners on the boat prepared by our chef, Paulina. As for suggestions, the bike leaders need to understand vacation culture more. The bike leader seemed to be in a rush wherever we biked, and was not happy if we wanted to stop and take pictures of the countryside. Many people like to stop and take pictures!! We would pass by beautiful fields of tulips and hyacinths, but couldn’t stop to take photos (except maybe a 30-second stop to get one quick photo) because otherwise we’d be too far away from the rest of the biking group. We weren’t given any kind of detailed maps of where we would be biking, so if we did want to stop and take pictures, or drink some water, or grab an energy bar from our sacks, and we lost sight of the others, there would be no way to find or catch up to the rest of the group later on. One of the reasons why we liked Keukenhoff so much was because we were on “our own time” for the entire day, and didn’t have to worry about being on someone else’s schedule. We would have also liked it if the bike leader would’ve pointed out some interesting facts and history about the different places we visited. We got almost no guidance about what to see or do at each of the villages/cities we visited.

The barge route was very nice and the food was excellent.
The Fluvius is an old barge and had several maintenance issues including; no hot water for 3 days, electrical problems and other maintenance issues. In their defense, the captain did his best to make it up to us with reduced bar bills and a free canal ride.
Bettina was superb particularly since it was her first time on this tour. Tom seemed to want to be elsewhere. His communication issues were almost nonexistent and attitude gruff.
Ride with GPS was very good though those of us who chose self guided were pretty much on our own.
The patch kit provided did not include a wrench so fixing a flat would have been tough for a bike mechanic and impossible for any other.
We did have wonderful entertainment one evening. I would have loved more history as it is such an important part of these countries.
All in all, if the Fluvius had been in better shape and Tom not so gruff, it would have been a wonderful tour.

Riding through the countrysides of the Netherlands was on my bucket list and it did not disappoint! The incredible beauty of the wetland areas and the diversity of bird life far exceeded my expectations!

I must sing praises for our tour leader Nico! He was always there when we needed him! Are there more than one of him?

Watching the De Amsterdam crew one day sail the boat through the canals is a must! It was a peak part of my trip watching them maneuver sideways and make the turns ! Such incredible scenery and seeing the huge variety of boats and vessels was outstanding!

There were several memorable parts:
Both Strasbourg and Nancy are beautiful cities with a great deal of medieval charm; the Valley of the Locks with its dried abandoned channels and locks, and of course, the St Louis-Arzviller lock, where lock, water and boats are lifted (or lowered) 42 m, replacing 17 locks we saw abandoned; our boat, the Clair de Lune and its friendly and competent crew, the smallest barge we had ventured in till then, but that it showed us the efficiency of its cabin layouts to remove previous concerns about barge size to the point that we are booking another trip on a similar sized barge next year.

The islands and the guides on the boat!
This is a moderate to difficult ride even with e bikes.

Reik welcoming and friendly nature & Omar's cooking.

I learned never to be on the last trip of the season, the exterior of the boat was kinda 'sad' looking.

Guides should actually know where they are going and put safety of riders at the top of their concern. Paul was so careless he was dangerous.

I don't think I would've gone on this trip if I would've known that I wasn't free to ride/stop when I wanted to or even provided the route information. I've been on several trips with Backroads and this did not measure up.

Dinners on the boat. The pace of biking was not to my liking. Not enough time for pictures. I felt pressured to keep up with the group. Planned stops were longer than needed. Would have liked a slower pace with more, shorter stops. Many of the roads were rough, and roads through cities were scary with traffic.

Appreciated that all on the trip were from USA. Trip leaders and crew were very nice.

I have used Tripsite for 10 bike trips and have always enjoyed the concept, scenery and people I have met. Nothing I am about to say has anything to do with those qualities I have come to expect and love about bike/barge experiences with Tripsite.

However (and there's always a "however") this tour, which was described on your website as "easy" was anything but.
I am 68 years old and have never used an e-bike on any tour, including the hills of Provence, but the hills encountered on this trip were challenging even for the riders half my age. The tour description was erroneous and misleading. I say misleading because looking at the tour guides' maps, the elevation levels were clearly labeled but not communicated to the guests. So those on e-bikes had a much different experience than those of us (4 out of 10 guests) who did not. Those of us who did not struggled.

The other complaint was a lack of things to see in the middle of the tour, unless churches are your thing and that's all I seemed to see in the form of tours, which got repetitive.

Nothing I have complained about here would prevent me from traveling with Tripsite again, as I am a true believer in this experience. BTW, the crew and the culinary staff were superb, as always.

O percurso de cruzar a ilha, as cidades visitadas e os hotéis propostos foram muito bom e agradáveis. Já fiz outros passeios semelhantes com a Tripsite e achei q o roteiro poderia ser mais sucinto se os caminhos fossem melhor sinalizados. O mapa era confuso e não ajudou. O GPS só serviu pra validar se a rota estava correta. Se nos caminhos houvesse uma marcação, como no passeio que fiz anteriormente, resolveria todas as dificuldades.

I liked the app showing the tracks, it would be even better if it automatically zoomed in around intersections. The bicycles are good (we used the non-electric enhanced ones), smooth gear switching, adequate gear ratio.

I am not sure if this is obvious to others, but a large part of this route (60km give or take) goes over gravel trails, which is not fun to say the least.

While hotels along the route are generally good, one night accommodation was a real dump, I did not expect that, and it was very disappointing.

A couple of suggestions:

- bring your own phone holder to make sure the phone with the map is mounted properly
- sometimes the luggage is left in the reception area, and sometimes put away in a storage room. Ask the receptionist if the luggage arrived to be sure, to avoid wasted time.

The boat elevator.

The reason we booked this trip was the I wanted to see a European rail-trail. It for us, was the highlight of the whole week.

The beauty of Croatia is breathe taking! The boat was comfortable and roomy. We found that we didn’t do as much biking as we had hoped. The rides had numerous long breaks with often nothing to do. One thing we were very upset with was the guides wouldn’t phone for a taxi or other means of transportation at the end. There was something about the boat having a transfer company which was extremely expensive but they weren’t allowed to provide anything else! Never experienced anything like this before. The food was ok, but far too much cheap fish for my liking.

Making it up the hills. Make sure to pack extra water and snacks for yourself

The boat breaking down (and the way the crew accommodated the changes).

The biking experience was ok but not great.
The most disappointing part was having a German ship and guides. Maybe we didn’t do our research but we had not expected this. As we would not want a bike ride in Germany by Portuguese guides. Also, totally unsustainable practice to bring the van and bikes back and forth from Germany.

First 2 days along the Atlantic beaches is great.

The routes were good and the right length each day. I would have like to have received the route information details in advance as requested so that stops could have been planned. We received the route details only a few days prior to the trip. In addition the GSP provides was somewhat difficult to use and didn’t always provide good directions. Ended up using my cellphone GSP which provided better directions. Without the cellphone we would have wasted much more time with the GPS provided. Upgrading to a newer GPS is needed.

Biking the various islands is always a delight. The views can be magnificent and the riding a lot of fun.
The boat, however left a lot to be desired. Their was a significant amount of black mold in our bathroom. Several of the cabins leaked in the rain. There is no reason for this except for poor maintenance. Wood requires varnish and that was sorely lacking on this boat. On other trips (4) that we have been on the crew was always busy working on the boat. Not so with this boat. The crew sat around and did not do a good job of looking after the customers. I would never recommend this boat to anyone.
On the other hand, the two bike staff members were outstanding. They were able to react quickly to changing weather conditions and provided an outstanding experience.

Visiting the windmills

Two weeks before our departure, we were notified that a negative Covid test was required to board the boat. This was after the date for cancelation. Two of the members in our party tested positive and could not board the boat. Neither one was symptomatic.
We experienced rain on the second night of the trip and two cabins leaked… a lot. Beds and clothes were soaked. No one offered to clean the clothes or dry them, and the leak was patched. It leaked again the next night.
The trip was cut short due to weather and we were loaded onto a bus and sent back to Corfu.
There were def opportunities to continue with some biking, but it was not a consideration.
Disappointed to say the least

Beautiful scenery on some of the islands.

The boat was wonderful as was the staff. Food too was excellent. There were two central problems with the trip. The first is the route. We had anticipated that the trip down the Rhine would be in beautiful sections building t instead we spent a week in heavily industrial areas where there was little along the river that was beautiful at all.
The second problem was that it appeared that no one from the company had checked out the route of the biking since it was first established since roads had closed and there were continuous diversions. As a consequence we (and when I say we i mean many of the bikers) were lost within 15 minutes of departing every day. While the trip was billed as "self guiding" clear and accurate maps are needed

Biking through the vinyatds.

The ship and the food were a very favorable part of the trip, lovely.

The bike tours were boring and ill described by the guide. Less farmland and more quaint villages would have met our expectations. The last day was the best.

Ship was very nice and staff were friendly and helpful. Everything was spotless clean and bed was comfortable. Dinner meals were pretty mediocre and some of sack lunches included greasy deep fried items. Bikes were in excellent condition and the bike routes were fine, but the written descriptions for navigating the routes were indadequate.

The trip started out on a sour note because the De Holland was not moored at the De Ruijterkade West location shown in the Tripsite "Final Travel Information" PDF, but instead was across the IJ river next to the Buiksloterweg ferry terminal. Despite being told by Tripsite that the document would be updated with last-minute changes, the document was not updated with the correct location, and none of the passengers who booked through Tripsite were notified of this critical change. (We heard that Boat-Bike Tours, the organizer of the tour, DID notify the passengers who had booked directly through them.) We followed the De Holland on the Vesselfinder website so we knew where it was moored, and we notified a few other traveling companions, but a portion of the Tripsite group showed up at De Ruijterkade West and the boat management had to arrange for their transportation to Buiksloterweg, which delayed the departure. To our knowledge, Tripsite has never acknowledged or apologized for this serious mistake.

Regarding the tour itself, biking from town to town was well designed and wonderful -- beautiful countryside, lovely towns. We used the Ride With GPS app, which had a few route errors but in general was an excellent, well-executed tool. (Without the app, there were a number of signage errors or absences along the routes that could have caused problems.) The evening tour of Deventer was very well done; the local tour guide was excellent and the evening was perfect for it. We rented e-bikes and they were in great condition. The staff on the boat were all kind and helpful and friendly and the boat was exceptionally clean.

We thought Frans, the bike tour guide, could have done a better job. He was nice, but despite having many years of experience doing this, his evening talks were not always very clear, and he did not mention a number of places along the bike routes that would have been nice for people to know about, most importantly the Airborne Museum in Oosterbeek, which was on the map if you knew where to look but was not highlighted by Frans. We did enjoy the evening Frans played the keyboard in the dining room.

The biggest disappointment was that we had to sit with the same people at dinner every night. We understand there are logistics involved that make it much easier for the staff, but this requirement eliminated what could have been a prime opportunity to get to know others. We happened to be assigned the same table as our best friend, whom we obviously already know very well. We had little in common with the other three and were stuck with them (and they with us) for the whole week. There must be some way (perhaps a buffet a couple of times during the week, or a dinner in town one night) where we could have a chance to meet others, which would have made the trip much more rewarding.

Different city tours were the memborable part both positive and negative. We loved our tour with Peter in Vienna on bikes we did not like our tour with a different Peter in Budapest, he was rude to one of our rides, very opinionated against the West defense of Ukraine, and then left us in the middle of town since he had another tour to go to.

the communication about the departure from the very beginning was a fiasco and then throughout the German presenations were about 50% longer than the English ones. BUt Leslie the Tour Director did a great job overall.

The guide, the itinerary and the chefs were superb!! 5 stars for them!! But the boat, and specifically the boat owners, get a 1 star. How cheap can they be??!! They didn't even provide a plastic bike water bottle. And they charged a hefty fuel surcharge, even after the price of fuel had plummeted. This was my third bike and barge, and I will never go on another barge owned by this company.