The Elbe River and Prague Tour Reviews — 1 to 8 of 8

Great traveling companions and great boat and food!

The boat and crew and guide were all top notch

My onboard experience was wonderful. The staff was awesome, very helpful and accommodating. The biking was quite an experience, a bit challenging at times due to some unpaved paths, however it was rewarding.

The boat was very clean and spacious. The crew very friendly and accommodating. The food delicious and a good variety.
The trails we rode on were not very good, however. A lot of pot holes and very narrow. We could not look around and enjoy the scenery as we had to keep our eye on where we were riding.

It was a good experience for all of us.

Visiting Prague. What a magical city. The bikes on our trip were very nice. I rented an ebike and my husband had a regular bike. We love biking in Europe but I would not recommend this trip. Lots of the paths were dirt paths that were rough to ride on. The trails were not marked very making it easy to miss a road sign because you had to look where you were riding due to the rough terrain. The towns were small and poor. Not many places to stop for a lunch or beer. The villages were very boring to our group of 12. The MS Florentine was very nice and the food was good. The restaurant manager provided excellent service. Our tour guide Frank was very disappointing. His English skills were marginal (he is German) and he wasn’t very friendly. We hated to ask him questions, he always acted put out by us bothering him. The map and written description of the daily route needs improving making it easy to get lost. I was grateful we were traveling with 10 friends since most of the guests were German and we never connected with others on the ship. I will do another bike and barge trip but I will pick a more interesting itinerary.

It was nice just to boat and bike along in the river, seeing the Czech people relaxing and enjoying life along the riverbanks.

On the negative side, we had an uncomfortable experience when we first arrived at Prague train station, needing to get on the bus. The email that Tripsite sent us said to wait on the side of the train station OPPOSITE the car park - near the restaurant inside (restaurant name has changed, so did not agree with the name given in the email). Well, the bus was parked on the OTHER side of the street for at least a half hour. I did not notice it over there, as I was focused on the station/restaurant side of the street, checking every bus that arrived, but none said "MS Florentina". Well, eventually the bus did drive to the side of the street we were on, but when we got on board there were not enough seats for us! We were willing to stand, but the driver would not allow that. The tour guide didn't bother to come on the bus, so no one was in charge. Eventually, four of our friends exited the bus and took an UBER. I think they were reimbursed for that expense, but not right away. This was very uncomfortable for us! All the German speaking people on the bus must have thought we were idiots, and holding up the entire show!
Later in the week when two buses drove us into Prague, they told us repeatedly that the bus would return to the boat at 4pm. When we arrived in Prague and were exiting the bus, the driver told us 5pm!!! There really seemed to be a breakdown in communications between the bus driver and the boat.
I also didn't like the markup on the drinking water. You can buy a big bottle of water for about 75 cents, but the boat charged the equivalent of $3.00. When we booked this trip were had no idea there would not be potable water. Then to have that kind of markup seemed petty.

We booked this tour last fall with 10 friends and unfortunately the route had to be changed in Jan due to repair work done on one of the rivers that prevented the boat from departing from Prague. Unfortunately miss directions were given to us about where to wait for a bus that would pick us up at the main train station and drive us to the new location of the MS Florentina. This caused much confusion as we were waiting on the wrong side of the street. Once we boarded the bus there was not enough room for everyone to be seated. The driver did not speak English nor was there a representative on board from the MS Florentina who could direct us. Four of our friends had to take an Uber. This set the trip off on a very disturbing note and delayed our arrival.
In addition our guide, Frank seemed condescending when asked questions about our activities and often times gave us miss information about the routes. Our bike paths often took us past areas that were not scenic and quite bumpy.

Although we enjoyed being with our friends on this journey the logistics of the trip were less than satisfying.

The most memorable part of the trip was actually the time spent with friends. We had five couples join us on this trip. They were all new to bike and boat, and it was our fifth. They all enjoyed their experience. Since we were the only group of Americans on the trip, we were happy to be joined by friends who spoke English!