Reviews

I really enjoyed our tour guide and crew. Frans was great at adjusting our bike route for parades, traffic, weather or seeing something interesting. The suggestions of what to bring for the tour were very good but I would suggest adding roughly how much time would be spent biking. We spent about 4-5 hours biking per day with about 3 or 4 stops.

An amazing tour combining so many different things. The captain and crew on board Sarah were charming and went out of their way to help. The tour guide, Frans, was very knowledgeable and patient and set a steady pace. He guided us through busy cities such as The Hague and Amsterdam and showed us the beautiful smaller towns such as Delft and Gouda, pointing out all the points of interest. We visited interesting museums, such as the windmills, the Delft pottery and an old typical Dutch village. Another major highlight was a tour of the largest flower auction in the world. Even my apprehensive non gardening husband enjoyed the experience!

The whole combination of living on a barge and cycling thru the Heart of Holland was fun. Food was OK and bikes were high quality. Scenery most days was green and interesting as was learning about Dutch history.

We were greeted with a very warm welcome by the crew when we first boarded. The whole crew on the Gandalf were very professional, helpful, polite, and friendly. The kitchen staff bent over backwards to cook to our special needs. We so much appreciate their willingness to do this. We had a very good experience on this trip and enjoyed all of the biking, coffee stops, and city tours. One suggestion I have is to perhaps include more special stops like at a cheese factory, or an artist’s display, or a farm. I would have enjoyed more stops like this than lots of coffee house stops. Yes, there was the Delft pottery, which was great. It would have been special to have seen an actual cheese factory in Gouda. Another suggestion is to make sure all of the porthole windows have screens or meshes covering them. This is my only complaint. In the middle of the week when it was warmer than usual, we had both the bathroom window and the bedroom windows open. There were 2 nights in a row where I woke up in the middle of the night violently scratching myself. I had about 50 bites on my legs, ankles, feet, arms, and shoulders. At first I wondered if there were bed bugs as I did not see any mosquitoes. I pulled the sheets back and did not see any bed bugs. I had to conclude that it had to be mosquitoes and we did start seeing them after that. I was very miserable with all of those bites. I did talk to the captain about this and he said that they had removed the screens/mesh to pass something through the porthole windows and had not replaced the screens. I strongly urge the captain to cover the porthole windows back up with screens for the next vulnerable occupants.

Great – the crew (most helpful, cheerful, hard workers) the room (compact & efficient) the boat (fun & different way to travel, no unpacking & repacking)

The best way to see the Netherlands! Comfortable accommodations & great food in our floating hotel that followed us on our cycling adventure. Fantastic hosts – Captain, cook, guide and other staff. Very knowledgeable about Netherlands and guided us safely from place to place stopping to introduce us to their country. So many personal added touches from our guide who worked so hard for us during our week. I loved my e-bike. Highly recommend this adventure. This was our second trip with boatbike and next year we are booked for Italy!

Comfortable rooms, good food (evening meals were exceptional), good bikes, friendly staff and a great guide. All for a very reasonable price.

After a year of planning and anticipation, we were excited to arrive in Amsterdam and board our barge. The vessel certainly met our expectations and the meals provided throughout the week were varied and first rate. The Captain and crew were extremely welcoming and attentive to our needs and our tour guide excelled in both her guidance and knowledge of the areas. Would we do another bike/boat vacation? Absolutely!

The trip overall was a great experience. I have a suggestion for going forward. If possible try to have everyone speak the same language. Our guide and staff had to say everything twice because of the language issue. It also made table conversation impossible until we separated everyone by language. Our room only had half its electric outlets working. The captain said he wasn’t able to fix it. This type of problem could have been fixed when we were gone for 9 hours a day. The food was good and plentiful. No one left the table hungry. The self serve bar had an ample variety beer and wine. The staff were friendly and very helpful. There was a lot of biking; perhaps more than I expected. I was lucky I elected to get an ebike. There were time especially when the wind was howling on the nose that I was grateful I had pedal assist. The staterooms are functional. This is glamping. The rooms get hot and needed a fan which was supplied. I’ll never understand why the Europeans don’t supply sheets and a blanket for the beds. in that way you can layer your covers when you sleep. Instead all you get is quilt like covering that has two sheets and a filler between them. I asked and got the sheet thing with out the filler. Otherwise like the other guests we would sweat all night.

Our tour on the Lena Maria was excellent. The chef Lars was excellent and we all looked forward to our meals each evening. The storage space in our cabins was very good. Our tour guide Thomas was very good although busy crossings at streets was often stressful having to bunch up and cross quickly. I realise we had a big group to keep together. The facilities for dining and lounging were good.