Northern Holland BoatBike family reunion

Exceptional, friendly, polite and competent staff in all areas: meals, cleaning, boat, bikes, tours, hospitality. Very nice atmosphere on board. Very good mix of structured tours and flexibility. Being able to stay aboard the comfortable boat all day instead of biking was a real advantage. There were often alternative biking routes. We had anticipated more leadership/ guidance from the tour guide while biking, but it proved not to be necessary. We were a more experienced group, but others might need to be led and this was not a possibility. Good with TV for the UEFA games, a must! Perhaps more WiFi. People would post more pictures if there was more free Internet access (more free advertising for you). Every destination was superb. Holland is really beautiful. I loved all our stops and all our rides. Fantastic scenery all around. To improve this trip experience — more information is needed about the bikes available. These were not light-weight touring bikes. They were old, heavy-duty city bikes with new gears and brakes. These bikes were too heavy, cumbersome and uncomfortable for 40-50 km/ day in all weather for 6 days. I have experience with other tours that offer better bikes as the standard. Perhaps these can be the discount bike. Have on offer better bikes!!! There was no drinking water available on board without an unreasonable cost. The mark up on the bottled water was 10-20 times what it cost in the village stores. Drinking water on a summer bike trip is a health issue, not a courtesy. Water needs to be freely provided or at least reasonably priced!!! Not to mention the environmental pollution due to the small, un returnable bottles solely available on board. The ride to Texel we learned could be dangerous in certain weather; in fact we adjusted our crossing due to safety concerns. Passengers should be told about life vests, what to do in the case of an emergency, etc. We received no such information. Traveling with children places more safety requirements on the tour and crew. But everyone should know about life jackets on a boat! More consideration needs to be placed on where one can use the toilet. These places should be marked on the map. There are cafés, but we were often turned away even if we offered to pay. Perhaps there needs to be a wider system of ECO toilets on the map at convenient nodes. It must be possible to go to the bathroom on route. Perhaps rightly so the same cafés are tired of handling 100s of bikers every week! Again, on other bike trips, toilet stops were clearly part of the deal – no stress.