Reviews

The boat bike tour exceeded our expectations. The staff were extremely professional and yet friendly and very accommodating. Our cabin was small and surprisingly comfortable.The temperature of the cabin was individually controlled. The common areas were very nice. The meals were outstanding. We always felt very safe and secure with the sailing of the boat even in busy and tight waterways. The bikes were foreign to us yet worked well. Our cycling guides Hester and Nell were extremely professional yet personable. They made an effort to get to know everyone and supported and encouraged us. They also made it a lot of fun. An unexpected surprise was Hester’s oboe concert which was beautiful. We had difficulties with the pace of the cycling as our group of 40 were very fast and we were not. However Hester and Nell always made sure we arrived safely at our destinations.

What a wonderful week–full of adventure. I recommend Boat Bike Tours and The Magnifique.

Although the trip was interesting, the attitude and behavior of the chief leader of the trip was poor. He is one of those people who is more concerned with getting to a destination than in actually enjoying and appreciating the country one is riding through, so that often there is implicit pressure to ride faster even though there is no particular hurry, It seemed odd to us that the short and long rides were not very different in pace. Another real deficiency was the effort to enable the participants to appreciate the towns. In one instance, this was exemplified by the leader saying “here’s a map – do what you like and we’ll continue in two hours.” The deputy leader was different in attitude and seemed to make a real effort to have the participants involved with the trip. On the last day, when we wanted to ride the bikes without the leaders, there was strenuous effort to dissuade us from doing so. This seemed absurd. The notes clearly stated that participants could ride solo if they wanted to. On the positive side, the meals were very good. Would I recommend the trip? Yes, but not with this sort of leader.

We had a great trip on the Sail and Bike Frisian Sea ship Leafde fan Fryslan. The crew of 4 handled the 300 ton ship easily, the cabins were small as one would expect on ship but very comfortable and each has it’s own bathroom. The crew prepared breakfast and dinner and provided bread, cheese, snacks and meat to make sandwiches each day for the ride. After breakfast, the crew set up all the bikes on the dock so all we had to do was get off and get our bike and take off. A very good map was provided to follow the well-marked bike routes – a short and long ride were outlined. You could stay on the boat if you didn’t want to ride and go walking in the town to sightsee. Dinner was generally served at 6 PM and was always very tasteful. The captain and crew handled the ship well when we sailed and docked in a new port. Overall we were very impressed with the cruise and the service and are considering going with this same ship next year for their “Tulip Cruise”. We highly recommend this tour and this company.

I did not bike, så I had nothing to say about the biking

We had a wonderful time. The crew was excellent! We especially enjoyed the gourmet food served throughout the trip. Exceeded our expectations.

Enjoyed the boat and the riding was great with beautiful scenery. The food was also excellent.

Well planned cycle routes with good instruction from the Tour Director. Good quality bike’s Helpful and friendly staff. Atmosphere on ship good despite some technical problems causing a change in plans and losing one days cycling. Food good and well served. Wi-Fi only available on certain parts of the boat Should be available throughout including cabins. Air conditioning not working on occasions leaving the small cabins hot. Overall a great holiday and would recommend it

As I understood it, the people running the trip on the boat do not work directly for the company that we booked with. Boat-Bike tours in Holland. The staff and crew are all very good. The itinerary and trip plans also were as advertised. The boat could use updating, and definitely better mechanical maintenance. We were supposed to have an air-conditioned room, as all of the units, and many of them did not work, including ours. Also, there was a sewer smell that was sometimes apparent in parts of the boat – sometimes in our cabin but fortunately not all the time – which some crewmembers said it was due to a broken pipe that had not been fixed. The air conditioning also often was not working well enough, and the dining room could get too warm at dinner.The worst part was the engine break down, which cost us a lost day of biking, which was very disappointing. That was coupled with the fact that we got stuck overnight at one stop because of low water, which then caused us to lose most of our plan full day in Vienna, and to have to take a bus to Vienna just to spend a few hours there Although things like this can happen, a lot of us were wondering why they didn’t have more information anticipating this low water problem, so we wouldn’t have got stuck. Most of the dinner food was good and the breakfast buffet was satisfactory. The food made available to pack lunches was subpar. The lunchmeat were not very good, and they also should’ve had some things that were not subject to heat, like peanut butter, so we didn’t have to have our lunch be outside in hot weather for many hours before eating it. We did bring our own little insulated lunch bags, but there was no ice or anything cold to put in there with the sandwiches The other big problem is water. It was hot most of our trip, plus we obviously were all engaging in a lot of exercise. However, we could not drink the water on the boat, and they would give you one small bottle each day to take biking with you. They also didn’t serve water at dinner, unless you wanted to pay for it. On a trip like this, there should be a lot of water provided, if they can’t make the boats water potable This is a good way to risk people getting the hydrated There was no information before the trip about the fact we would have to provide most of our own water.

We had an outstanding boat and bike trip! The crew, the chef and the tour guides were excellent! We did the Brussels to Bruges tour and we enjoyed international travelers on on boat. It was wonderful vacation and we’ll try another destination next year.