Reviews

Everything was nice. The boat could and should have had coffee and water available all day. We couldn’t get coffee till 7:15am. What if you are an earlier riser? You couldn’t get coffee till 3:00 pm and for only one hour🤷🏻‍♀️. Bikes need work, gear shifting, tightening up parts, etc. Guides were nice but basically useless. You could have handed me a paper each day on sites for the day. Guides were pretty much non existence on our ride. Maybe that is the norm on a self guided ride. 🤷🏻‍♀️. Rooms were fine, beds pretty comfy. It got cold and we had to ask to turn the heat on in lieu of AC and one day we didn’t have hot water and they didn’t say anything until it was brought up to them.
Check in was a mess…but check out went fine.

The rides each day were beautiful, the GPS worked well! Really liked having time in the towns in the evenings, gave us time to see some additional sites and explore the local areas.

I knew what to expect with the boat and it met my expectations. I would do another boat bike tour.

We just returned from our North Holland Boat and Bike tour on the de Willemstad ship. First, let me say the routes were beautiful, the meals delicious and plentiful, the crew were professional, the bike guides helpful, and our room (we splurged on a ‘suite’, which is really just a larger room), was clean and comfortable. The GPS data, written instructions and map all made for exceptionally easy self-guided navigation. It was a fairly windy week, but hey, it’s The Netherlands. I wish I could give the tour 5 stars, but there was one problem I couldn’t overlook. When we boarded the ship, we were surprised to see about 60 or so people bringing their own bikes, most of which were e-bikes. As we had flown to Europe, that was not an option for us, but we soon figured out why people brought their own. It took 3 days to finally get a somewhat decent bike for my husband to ride. The battery would turn off every km or so the first day and so the bike was traded out. The second day we had the same problem and since he had to get off the bike to turn it back on, he had to stop 23 times to turn the bike back on. Then the assist did not work properly. If he chose to use to add assist, he could not lower the assist so he had to ride in the lowest assist to not burn through the battery. Even so his battery was at 40% when mine was still at 80% which is not good. My bike was not as bad, but the first day I had an incredibly irritating screech of the brakes with every rotation. The guide switched out the bike with me which solved that problem. In general, we were VERY disappointed with the quality and maintenance of the bikes. Yes, The Netherlands are flat, but there is a lot of wind and there are other reasons we booked ebikes, including fitness and joint issues. We ride Gazelle (Dutch) ebikes at home and love them. Our primary reason to do this trip is to bike ride beautiful routes. If the bikes are old, substandard or poorly maintained, then that is very frustrating and disappointing. We traveled for ten weeks in Europe this summer and rented ebikes from multiple parties. The bikes on this tour were substantially lower quality than any other bike we rented during the trip. Truly, all other aspects of the tour were great, but we will not do another Boat and Bike tour until the e-bike fleet is updated. We were told the premium ships have newer, better e-bikes, but at the price point of this trip, we certainly would expect quality e-bikes in excellent working order.

Perfect trip

It was my first experience to boat and bike and it was fantastic. They made this experience so memorable. Beautiful boat with clean and cozy cabins, very friendly and helpful staffs, well organized, and good food. Well done!🙏👏👏

A trip of a lifetime on De Willemstad. The self guided biking tour was amazing passing through beautiful countryside with many windmills and farmlands, as we ate our way through restaurants and cafes in the little villages and towns along the way with no shortage of ice cream shops. The service on the ship was impeccable under the guidance of Lucian who is the perfect concierge and the servers at our table Irina, Maruni and Ionthe (I hope I got his name right) treated us like long lost friends and were very quick at servicing our needs. Food was also very appetizing and adequate. Definitely a trip that should be on your bucket list with Boat Bike tours. A++

The tour guides were wonderful. The gps app made the biking quite easy. Only problem was it would tell you your off route but would not reroute you. Food on ship was good, however the afternoon coffee/tea and cake could be better, more variety. Also leave the coffee and tea out for a longer period. Lastly, evening entertainment was non existent. This should have been provided, ie karaoke, bingo, dance, etc. nothing was provided! We has to create ourselves.

Excellent tour of Northern Holland. Guides Arie and Karen were wonderful and always seemed to be there to keep us on track! Food was good. Rooms were very comfortable! Evening entertainment in the lounge was lacking, although the evening walks were great!

Arnold and Marie are a great team and put the whole package together nicely

Great meals, scenery, comfortable cabin, clear instructions. Entirely enjoyable

Great guides, helpful and attentive staff, comfortable ship and the North Holland tour had the best cycle path system we’ve experienced