Reviews

The boat, the food, the crew were wonderful. We enjoyed the bikes and the bike routes. We made new friends on the tour. I had a mishap with no fault of the tour. We had to make changes to our itinerary. We had tremendous support from the Swiss Crown staff related to the changes, especially the Cruse Director. She was a tremendous help.

A great holiday with excellent food, very good service from the crew on the fine ship “Swiss Crown”. Nice bycycling on fine bikes in the beautiful nature along the Danube. Could not be better.

Wonderful tour to Germany and Austria, boat and bike tours are the best, serviceminded tourleader and very good service on board. The biking tours were excellent. Stunning views.

My wife and I thoroughy enjoyed the Danube tour on the SE Manon (June 9-16). The cabins were comfortable, the crew was friendly and helpful, the food was fine. The scenery – well, quite spectacular. This was our first trip with Boat Bike Tours and it left us with a very positive impression overall. However, we do have a few comments and suggestions: – We found that the travel information that we received in advance did not make it clear where the boat would be docked. We had tried via email to get clarification before our arrival, but were unsuccessful. Upon our arrival in Passau, we were surprised when the staff at the Tourist Office directly across from the train station were not aware of our tour (run by SE Tours) or where the SE Manon was docked. After a number of phone calls by the Tourist Office, they found where the boat was docked and were able to provide us with the information. It was then interesting to discover (from fellow passengers) that taxi drivers seemed to know the location of every boat that was docked in town. – While snacks were provided every afternoon, it would be nice if there could be something other than cake with afternoon coffee/tea (a healthier option perhaps?) – It would be helpful if the bikes were equipped with water bottle holders. – For those who choose to go into cities on their own, it would be helpful if the crew could provide some basic and accurate travel information for common excursions (e.g., Vienna). When the boat was docked outside of Vienna, we were told to walk 200m in order to get to the tram station. This left us and a number of others from the boat scurrying around, asking shopkeepers and locals for information, as the actual distance was 1 km. Overall we enjoyed our trip and it left us with wonderful memories.

We had excellent, efficient service from all staff all week. The breakfasts were delicious and the choice of dinners were beyond expectations. The recommendations for the self-guided biking were very useful.

The staff on the Swiss Crown were incredible! The wait staff, room attendants, front desk folk, all exhibited the highest level of professionalism, all while being friendly and helpful. Anything we needed was promptly provided. The accommodations were wonderfully comfortable. We were surprised at the high level of quality of the bicycles as well. Everything functioned perfectly. The daily mileage, something that steers me away from most tours, was easily attainable, Now, if they could have changed the weather… It would have helped those of us non-German speakers if our cruise director spoke better English, the shoe, for once, was on the other foot! I always felt a little cheated that the Germans got a longer and seemingly more entertaining briefing. But our cruise director was fun and enthusiastic nonetheless. He could use a good assistant, he was running ragged for half the tour. The deboarding process could use better organization, things broke down during deboarding. An attempt was made to board taxis by room number but the first group could not be located and things got chaotic after that. Perhaps a bus assigned to take a group to the train station? A strong organizing hand would have helped. We had the best time! I had never experienced anything of that level of “swank” and I felt like royalty. I could have happily spent the rest of the summer with them.

We really loved our trip down the Danube aboard the Prinzessen Katharina. The ship is lovely and beautifully maintained. Staff were all very nice and attentive. The bikes were in great shape and easy to ride. Food was good and plentiful. The reason I am not giving this 5 stars is we were told by Boat Bike Tours that the beverages would be included on board (basic beer, house wine, water, coffee and tea) which were not. For example, a glass of water at dinner was 1.80 euro. This added an expense we had not been anticipating. There was water and coffee and tea available at breakfast and they had a coffee service mid afternoon, otherwise if you wanted any beverages there was a charge. I was very disappointed that we were misinformed by Boat Bike Tours and by their lack of response to their error. Otherwise, beautiful trip, incredible scenery, all great, just be prepared to pay extra for any beverages you may want to consume.

The trip was excellent and surpassed expectations with accommodation, food, bikes and support all very good. Boat and bike were super responsive when we had to change our train tickets on way back as a result of later docking and were most impressive with refunding our costs. I very highly recommend boat & bike Peter Barron, Cape Town

The Danube boat and bike tour was very good. We only did not understand when and why the original itinerary was changed?

Overall the tour was quite good. The boat crew were so hard working. Some personnel could benefit from better or more experience or training. Better mapping for bikers would be a good idea. We needed a better overview of Wien and more detailed transportation information. (Just walk up the road a little way and it will all be easy from there is not good direction.) We were looking forward to the concert in Wien and were not disappointed with the performance however there were no programs and the conductor did not introduce pieces or soloists. Surely a program should have been available.