Reviews

Professional, very hard-working and friendly crew and cruise director. Interesting routes. Good food, especially the soups. Good value. The boat (MS Olympia) is in need of a little bit of a refresh.

The well trained personable staff who would sincerely do anything that needed to be done made this trip exceptional. They were always helping each other and making sure the guests were having a good time.

Extremely disappointed that the original itinerary for the trip was not followed and another substituted due to supposed concerns for weather issues. This was apparently decided prior to leaving port and was not made clear until later in the trip. What was substituted was basically another itinerary with modification including additional time docked in port and activities that were not really appropriate for all. While the rides on the islands were interesting, they were not adequately staffed and at times not as described in the promotional literature – even the tour guide was surprised by this. While the other passengers and boat crew were delightful – and the food wonderful – it was not the experience expected nor purchased.

Great guide’s, beautiful trails and sights , mostly free of cars..
Barge was comfortable, staff were very hospitable , food very good.
I would recommend this to anyone looking for a cycling trip !!

Great routes, boat, crew staff food and scenery. Wonderful way to experience a part of Europe you’d never get to on your own. We used regular bikes and enjoyed the routes each day. I found the bike guides catered to the “ lowest common denominator “ which ended up being someone who had no business being on a bike tour even with an w bike. We were not highly skilled cyclists but had to go on our own as the groups on e bikes took so many stops and a very slow route. They had 2 guides- should have had a “ slow group” and a regular group vs. just a big slow group. But we learned how to use Ride with GPS and self guided ourselves through the entirety. We still made all the stops but would have been more fun with others. E bikes are good for some but we saw many on our trip who hadn’t ridden a bike let alone an e bike in years and it really changed the trip. We are mid 60s so not spring chickens. But the scenery, boat, boat staff and food were wonderful.

Freedom Treks & Boat Bike Tours: The good, the bad and the ugly. I would highly recommend avoiding this company. The extra charges beyond the expensive luxury boat cruise and Ebike rental was outrageous. It was a fantastic trip only because of the Croatian Islands. We have been on three other bike and barge tours, which cost way less, had way better food, had more interactive staff, better historical knowledge. Basically everything was subpar – especially for the price paid. They charge you extra for water and it had to be paid in cash. Corkage for bringing your own wine on the ship was €20 a bottle which is outrageous, in fact it’s 4 times as much as what we were charged other bike and barge tours. Since it was a luxury cruise, we expected consistent excellent meals. I can only state that there were two meals that were good. After tipping was provided in envelopes for the staff, our last meal was downright awful. They didn’t even serve it to us, they just put a big platter in the middle of each large table of eight people and expected us to reach across and dig in. On previous trips, we were always treated to a snack immediately upon returning to the ship from a long bike trip. There was nothing provided by this company, so people found themselves extremely hungry by dinner time. You weren’t allowed to bring any food or drink onto the ship so was torture. They placed salad in the middle of the table some meals but it was heavily sauced with some type of mayonnaise and there wasn’t nearly enough for 8 people and again we had to reach for it ourselves. One of us ended up being the server which you would not expect to have to do on a luxury cruise.
Beer on the ship was 5 euros per beer, as was a small glass of wine. Coffee was served only first thing in the morning and it was some syrupy warmed up mix which somebody said was a pre-mix. It was awful. As soon as breakfast was over, the coffee was taken away, which is just as well. If you wanted to have a decent coffee, you had to order it from the coffee machine at 2.50 euros.

Just one month prior to our trip, we received an email from freedom tracks, stating that they messed up on the booking and they didn’t have proper accommodations for some of their staff. They reached out to each one of us in our 10 person booking to find out if we were interested in changing cabins from twin beds to double. Not sure how they ended up solving that one, but that was just another example of their unprofessional business practices. During the cruise sailors entered our room every day without telling us and emptied out the garbage, looked for food items that we might have brought on-board, and threw away things they thought should be thrown away. I complained that something of mine got thrown out, they looked for it and couldn’t find it and were visibly aggravated by the fact that I didn’t think it was garbage, but they did. Future encounters with these individuals was extremely awkward with a evil eye given to me when our paths crossed. The old boat did not have a bow thruster, and therefore we missed going to the island of Brač since the winds were too high for us to dock. Had the boat been better outfitted as a luxury boat should have, it would’ve had a bow thruster in which case we would’ve been able to dock safely and we would’ve been able to see that island as promised. Apparently Boat Bike Tours is the actual company that manned the ship and so they are dirctly responsible for this disaster but Freedom Treks chose to work with them so they are ultimately responsible. One person of our group had direct communication with Freedom Treks representative to express our serious displeasure and they said starting next year they will have proper coffee available to which I say yahoo, but sorry not enough to impress me.

they responded: Thanks for at least responding to my review – now get to work on making some improvements

Our guides Eddy and Dominic were both outstanding – very knowledgeable and helpful! The staff on the boat were excellent too – very accommodating, especially when we came down with colds. The food was plentiful, tasty, and very well presented. The rides were very scenic – a bit tougher than we had expected. Many of the riders seemed more focussed on the bike experience rather than enjoying the scenery, so the pace was fast, and that made the long uphill climbs difficult. The boat was comfortable. One thing we were not aware of is that we would be tied up in tandem with several other boats in port so we often had to walk across them to get to shore – that was not a big problem. But some of them were “party boats” so they were noisy when we were trying to get to sleep. And something to note if you are allergic to perfumes/scents – make that clear ahead of time because they spray the bathrooms with strongly perfumed cleaners that last for days. All in all, it was a great trip but we just thought people should be aware of those little things.

We absolutely loved this trip! The boat (Magnifique II) was very nice, the food excellent but what really made it was the staff. We loved the collaborative approach they took to making sure the guests were well taken care of no matter what their role was. The sites we saw and the biking overall was awesome. We had some iffy days weatherwise but the staff just adapted as we went along – the route may change slightly, the boat may have to sail at a different time than was planned but everything was always very well communicated well organized. We loved the little stops we did during the bike rides – sometimes little surprises along the way as well! The only slightly less-positive comment we have is with regards to the biking part. I believe the website said we’d cycle btwn 20-50kms per day. I’d say most days were above that and given the wind, some days it felt like we were biking up hill even though the routes were flat! As well, we had regular bikes and about 75% of the group had e-bikes. Sometimes it got annoying as the e-bikers sped ahead and were annoyed when the regular cyclists were slower – that felt a little off-putting. For anyone considering whether to do e-bike or regular bike, I would say this – if you want to cruise leisurely and see the sites, get an e-bike. If you only want exercise, get a normal bike. I hurt my knee one day from overdoing it in the crazy wind and had to take a day off. On the last day I upgraded to an e-bike so I could participate and riding it was 400% easier!!! If I were to do it again I think I’d only do an e-bike. For context, I’m 56, in decent shape. Keep up the great work – this trip was excellent!

The boat and cruise were wonderful! A couple of hiccups/suggestions: We missed one day of riding due to the locks breaking (unfortunate but not a big deal), so we were unable to make it back to Passau by boat. We were told that we would be disembarking in Pochlarn and transported by bus (again, understandable). However, that morning we were all required to get out of our rooms by 8:30 so they could clean. We weren’t due to get to Pochlarn until noon. Every passenger had to remove their luggage and wait in the lounge until disembarking. There were 2 bathrooms available for all passengers and I’m pretty sure that they would have had time to clean otherwise. There were no trips planned immediately afterwards. All translations to English ceased that morning also. This all took place after the crew had collected their reviews and tip envelopes. Honestly, it left a little bit of a bad taste in our mouths after what had been a really nice trip. We hope you’ll relay these comments to the SE group.

Great introduction to well run active small boat cruising.