4 Star Slovakia Tour Reviews — 31 to 60 of 172

I especially liked the ability to bike through farmlands, quaint country villages, vineyards, apple orchards and see old castles, church spires, rolling hills in the background and of course, the beautiful Danube river was always on our side. Most of all though, was the chance to visit Bratislava, Budapest, Vienna and Munich on foot and enjoy the different food offerings and beers!
We did do the excursion into Budapest at night and that was fabulous. Seeing the three bridges all lit up and riding around Pest after having goulash and watching the dinner show of dancers and musicians was lovely, I'd do it all over again!

The trip was fantastic and well worth doing - highly recommend. The cycle route was wonderful and the hotels were all great.
The paper maps, app and instructions for getting between towns were excellent and very detailed (with one exception, see below), but the instructions for navigating from the end of each day's route to your hotel for the night were not clear or sufficient, and on occasion, missing entirely. This unfortunately meant that after 2-3 hours of relaxed, lovely cycling through fields, castles, ruins etc, each day ended with 40 stressful minutes trying to find the hotel.
The first day's route gave an alternative option for anyone staying in Petronell-Carnuntum, rather than cycling all the way to Bad Deutch-Altenburg on the north side of the river and then 30min back to Carnuntum, an option was given of taking the ferry across the river at Orth an der Donau and then "following the cycle path to Carnuntum" - this advice was not sufficient, as there was no signposted cycle path on the south side of the river. I ended up catching a train to Carnuntum rather than cycle on a busy main road.
I was also given an incorrect time and date for the briefing session, and had to find my way to a different hotel in Vienna in order to attend a briefing session (it turned out all briefing sessions over a 2 day period had been wrongly communicated to all travellers, and the poor driver was having a very hard time of it).
Lastly, the tickets for the train and boat that I was issued were for incorrect dates, but I'm pleased to say that the company sorted this out very quickly and sent replacement tickets for the correct dates on to one of the hotels along my route, which was good service.
I liked the fact that both a map app and paper maps with detailed written instructions were provided, as the app drained my phone battery very quickly so it was good to have the paper maps and directions as well.
I would still recommend this trip very highly, but I hope that better directions to the hotels (and the alternative route on day 1) can be provided to future travellers.

The biking was scenic and beautiful. The best biking was in Budapest and then in Austria on the last day. It was an experience I will never forget.

The itenarary was very good. Unfortunately the heavy rains did some of the distances a bit difficult.
I must however point out that the bikes where not up to standard. On arrival several bikes where actually broken. If it had not been for our excellent Guide Victor, it may have been a disaster.

The maps were more helpful than the written directions. All hotels were excellent, rooms, service and food. The bikes were quite heavy for the distances involved. The women did not like the seats, rubbed their lady parts the wrong way. Questions were answered quickly through What’s App. Inform riders than many restaurants in Europe are closed on Sundays. Have a map that shows where the hotel(s) are located. Considering the Danube flooding conditions, the staff responded quickly, but it would have been nice to be better informed each morning about changing conditions.

The scenery was beautiful, very memorable. The staff was excellent, accommodating and professional. Thank you for that. The e-bikes were great, and definately made riding fun. Unfortunately, due to flooding on the Danube, we did not get to experience important parts of the trip. The staff did their best to make up for this, but we did miss out on anticipated stops and excursions.

Passau to vienna was amazing. Great bike trails and incredible scenery.

We were looking forward to enjoying this well-planned out trip, mostly on well-maintained cycle paths, but the weather had different ideas! All started out great in Vienna on a warm and sunny day. Our hotel in Vienna was pleasant and the trip guide / Austrian partner, was very helpful and patient with the many travelers needing his guidance. But then Storm Boris hit with torrential rains and strong winds! We struggled through mostly wet and rainy days. However, we got great support in changing out our bikes, due to mechanical and ergonomic issues when we arrived in Bratislava. There certainly were some very enjoyable moments, especially the hotels and food (we chose the half board option) but we cut our riding short on the fifth day to avoid additional days of rain and cooler temperatures. The local partner helped us with securing a hotel in Budapest a day early and with a train ticket from Komarom to Budapest. We know that our trip would have been totally amazing had the weather cooperated! There was no way to predict the unexpected 10-year deluge in Central and Eastern Europe.

Budapest and Vienna were fabulous cities to see. I would suggest that more info, printed the day before on bike routes be given out to everyone. The info meetings were hard to get all of the details and minimal route information changes. Also, bike routes for each day should be based on temperature and wind direction with advisories about how much water to bring along, where to get more. The bike route that was suggested for Bratislava was terrible: prior information on the 30 mph wind gusts that we headed back towards the boat in and 90 degree temperatures made the trip difficult and dangerous: my husband almost suffered from heat stroke and we could not find any place on route to get water after making the return after the bridge crossing.

.The trip was well managed by Lesley.He was great. The boat staff were not very helpful so that was a bit frustrating at times.Food was good. Lots of activites. Biking was fabulous.

Vienna and Budapest at night. Coffee and cake at 1600. Breakfast buffet. Large lager.

Our favorite parts of the trip was the day in Budapest and also the last day of riding. The scenery and stops were all beautiful.
While the daily itinerary sessions with the cruise director were well done and informative the timing should be rotated between the different language groups. The other group was larger and therefore always ran longer than planned.
We found the bikes to be of good quality but you may need another crew member to service them after each ride. We pointed out that there was an issue with my wife’s bike but on the next ride the front brake was still rubbing. Also another member of our group’s chain was quite noisy. Still dealing with these bikes is a massive job and I give the crew full credit.

The route was amazing and the guides were great. The food was average at best. Folks were assigned a table for dinner. Despite that, the waiters still had to ask everyone whether they had ordered the fish or the chicken. Folks should have been able to sit with whomever they wanted to. Being stuck with someone who was a pompous ass for a week is ridiculous when the waiters can't even get who ordered what correct anyway.

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.

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.

Vienna, Budapest and gyor. There wasn’t much to see along the ride.

The Hungarian dinner, music and bridge tour was one of the highlights.
The guides gave personal help with excursion directions. They were out on the trails that were our shepherds leading us.

The scenery, the historic buildings, and food.
Budapest biking was difficult, as maps weren't detailed enough.

Visita da cidade de Budapeste. Cidade maravilhosa e o passeio a noite foi incrível

The biking was perfect - equipment worked well and was as promised

Bike pathways through Austria were in fantastic condition, well marked and easy to follow making for a relaxing ride. Some of the paths in Hungary were not suitable for a road bike (no pavement and loose rocky terrain). Some warning about this before selecting a bike or alternative route would have been helpful. Our bags were always at the hotel when we arrived which was very nice after a long ride.
The hotels were nice. Most offered a nice relaxing outdoor space. The breakfast options were all comparable to each other and provided a good start to the day.
The bike “fitting” was a bit disappointing, the bikes were dropped off and only after a lot of hunting around was the staff able to provide a tool to adjust the seat height. There was no tool kit provided and when we asked the kit was not suitable for the bike we had. I would have preferred a stop in Linz rather than the small city before it. There would be more things to do in Linz in the evening.
Overall I was pleased with the trip and I would recommend it, especially the Germany to Vienna section.

We enjoyed biking off the route to visit some small towns. Google maps worked great to get us back on track to meet the boat. Really appreciated the knowledgeable guides on the Vienna and Budapest bus tours.

The whole experience was memorable.

My suggestion to others would be that they do not rent a Touring bike for the 10 day - sportiv - version of the trip.

It was an amazing trip, only issue was getting an e-bike as a tall person. I was able to get one from a local bike shop in town who were great, but if It was something that caused a little more work on my part and considerable worry that it would be there.

Internet sucks. Needs to be available throughout the ship, not just in the bar. Also we were not told how to use our electric bikes. And some parts of the bike route were hazardous, e.g., loose gravel, fast auro traffic. 3 of 4 of our group wiped out at least once.

We did the entire Great Danube bike trail from Passau to Budapest. It was actually 2 trips Passau to Vienna and Vienna to Budapest. The first one Passau to Vienna was on a very well defined bike path that followed the Danube River. There were many bikes on this route. The second trip Vienna to Budapest, was on a combination of paved and gravel bike trails and roads. Certainly for the more adventurous rider. Personally we would dont think we would do 2 weeks of straight biking, one week would have been plenty. Highlights were Vienna and Budapest each would have been better with longer stays as there was so much to do.

Good trip. I knew of 2 people who complained of having a "cold" toward the end of the tour. 3 days after returning home I tested positive for covid having minor symptoms. Not the fault of Tripsite but I think you should be aware.

For the most part, the trail was paved and easy to ride. It was a great trail to do. The Iron curtain monument on the way to Bratislava by Devin Castle was moving and should not be missed. Take some time to visit Budapest at the end if you have never been there, it is a beautiful city.
There was one glitch: one of our hotels from the final list that we had gotten from Tripsite changed shortly before we left. The representative never mentioned this when he gave us our package the night before we started. On the fifth cyclin day, we were supposed to stay in Esztergom but had to stay in Visegrad that night which meant we had to take two trains that day. The tickets for the first train were in our package, but not for the second train. We had to called about this. The tickets were supposed to be with our luggage one day and they weren’t which meant another call. The tickets did come the day before. Suggestion-when you get your package carefully look at the list of hotels and compare it to the list you had received. It would have been better and we wouldn’t have had to waste time calling when we wanted to sightsee.

Biking through the countryside of Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary offers an experience you can get no other way. Our group experienced an "insider's view" of these countries, towns and cities you can't get by car. If you want an immersive experience that leaves you fulfilled at the end of the day, biking is the way to go.