Tour Photos

Traveler photos

• ★★★★★ David Klaeser 7 months ago

  Danube River Tour

  Initial communications with BikeTours was challenging due to not knowing there was an 8 hour time zone difference. The hotel in Bratislava was located several km from the bike trail and it was difficult to navigate through town to get there plus staff were not friendly. Directions to this hotel in the app would have been helpful. The hotels in Gyor, Estergom and Budapest were easier to get to and had excellent service. The trip app was easy to use and provided lots of good information. The bikes were ok. A water bottle holder and phone holder on handlebars would make navigation safer and easier.

  What was the date of your tour?

  September 2024

  How many tours have you completed?

  10

  Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?

  As expected

  Who is this tour suitable for?

  First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers, Families with teens

  Do you recommend this tour?

  Yes

  • BikeTours.com staff reply from Jan November 12, 2024

    Apologies for the delay in communication and thank you for your review. During the week we have sales and support folks online globally 24 hours a day. Sometimes a booking - or support there of - falls outside of the desired time zone if we are really busy. Unfortunately the time during which you traveled is our busiest travel month hence the breakdown. Having said that, we are actively working on streamlining this process further. Thanks for your business and have a wonderful holiday season.

  • 5/5 Value
  • 5/5 Included meals
  • 3/5 Bikes + equipment
  • 5/5 Hotels or boat
  • 4/5 Scenery
  • 4/5 Ease of navigation
  • 4/5 Tour documents
  • 5/5 Route selection
• ★★★★★ Kitty Brodie 9 months ago

  Not quite what we expected

  We booked a self-guided 5-day tour from Vienna to Budapest.
  There were a few things that did not sit well with us on the organizational front.
  The tour itself was great once we got started and the cities/hotels en route were great.
  The bike service was great... we had a mechanical issue on Day 1 of riding, and the bike was replaced the next morning.

  Organizationally:
  Confirmation of tour was delayed until the 1 day before the original day of departure.
  When I tried to cancel because we wanted to book something that was confirmed, I was told this was not possible.
  That seemed unfair, when the tour operator has the right to cancel, but not the client.

  The initial orientation meeting on "Day 1" in Vienna did not happen until "Day 2".
  Nothing at all was arranged for "Day 1" other than the hotel in Vienna.

  The 5 day tour turned out to be 5 nights, with the 1st night in Vienna, where we already were staying.
  So not 5 nights on the road, but 5 nights in hotels. Starting on the morning of "Day 2" makes the tour really only a 4 day tour in my opinion.

  The bikes that were brought to us on the morning of "Day 2" were not the right bikes that we had ordered.

  Pick up time for our bags from the hotel was not mentioned in the orientation meeting.
  Consequently, we missed the pickup time on the first hotel and had to pay for a taxi to bring the bags to the next hotel.
  This again seemed unfair.

  What was the date of your tour?

  May 2024

  How many tours have you completed?

  2

  Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?

  As expected

  Who is this tour suitable for?

  First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers, Families with teens, Families with young kids

  Do you recommend this tour?

  No

  • 1/5 Value
  • 5/5 Bikes + equipment
  • 5/5 Hotels or boat
  • 5/5 Scenery
  • 5/5 Ease of navigation
  • 5/5 Tour documents
• ★★★★★ Josée May 3, 2024

  Not our dream trip

  We booked the active tour because we did not have time to do the classic. 80-100 km per day were too much, specially when 1 day/4 was 100% rain. We cannot control temperature on a cycling trip, but to cycle 50-60 km in the rain would have been much better than 100km that day. On top of that, our hotel was booked at 130km instead of 100 by mistake. The hotel was nice enough to send a van and a trailer to pick us up. We were soaked!!! Out of 5 hotels, I would consider that 3 nights were more 3.5 stars than 4 and the 2 other nights were 4 to 5 stars. In some small towns, where nobody speak English, it would have nice have more guidance to know where to go to buy the ferry tickets and to know that not all countries use Euros and where to change money for cash only situation. Also, the ferry schedule was not clear, and found out that they take breaks in the morning and can cause a delay.
  We were 3 (1 road bike + 2 e-bikes). The roads were rough in some areas with deep puddles of water during the rain. Of course, a flat happened and we struggled to find a pump for the road bike. The pumps that were given to us were for the e-bikes and did not fit. In a small town with no English speaking around, we managed to resolve the situation. Also, the first morning we started the trip, we had to go to a bike store to ask for extra tires in case of a flat. There were not given to us at the beginning. Thank god we went! Having done 2 cycling trips (Portugal and Croatia) in the past year, we found that the Vienna to Budapest was a bit boring. The landscape was not very different from start to beginning and the distances were long in between the little cities we visited.
  Minimum information were given to us and it would have been nice to have suggestions for restaurants and more details, etc, etc. We received that info with the other companies we used for the other trips.
  A water bottle or a shirt from your company would have been also a nice surprise.
  The trip was OK, but can be improved in many ways for the price we paid.
  We were happy for the quick response when we had the issue with the hotel at 130km instead of 100
  The NH Danube or NH Budapest (We had to change room at 11h00 pm because there was a heating problem that made the room like a sauna and the window handle was broken, so we could not open it….) are more 3 stars hotels. The loft in Bratislava was VERY VERY Nice and the Barok in Gyor was great also. We expected more at the to pass on Esztergom, because we could not come back the next day to visit. I heard that the 30km we missed were worth the views and cycling.
  I would recommend the trip to people that did not cycle in Portugal, Croatia and want a flat route.
  4 days were a lot concerning the distances, but 6 days would have make it long for the lack of change of scenery. This is my opinion!

• ★★★★★ Gina Kelley-Smith October 10, 2023

  Bike Snob pleasantly surprised at Bike Quality and Great Hotels

  Overall a great trip. My husband, best friend & her mate rode the beautiful Danube winding through the small towns along the way. We did have a small glitch with our Estergrom Hotel given the Prime Minister Viktor Orban was booked. Our new hotel was another 15 miles away after the longest pedal day but BikeTours took care of it. I would recommend this outfit. Thank you!

  What was the date of your tour?

  September 2023

  How many tours have you completed?

  None but been on a couple dozen century, multi day bike rides

  Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?

  As expected

  Who is this tour suitable for?

  First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers, Families with teens

  Do you recommend this tour?

  Yes

  • 5/5 Value
  • 5/5 Included meals
  • 5/5 Bikes + equipment
  • 5/5 Hotels or boat
  • 5/5 Scenery
  • 5/5 Ease of navigation
  • 4/5 Tour documents
  • 5/5 Local tour company services
  • 4/5 Route selection
• ★★★★★ Terry Connolly September 12, 2022

  Very Smooth Arrangements

  This worked pretty seamlessly. Bike rentals were in excellent shape, well equipped for storage and travel. Paper maps they gave us were good, but seems like should advise traveler to download Komoot or similar for detail of route map and GPS. All hotels were very nice. Bags got there ahead of us every day. Gyor to Esztergom is a long ride, on busy roads and non-paved surfaces. But overall a positive using BikeTours.

• ★★★★★ Cynthia Ord August 21, 2022

  Loved everything about this tour (except the rental bikes)

  I recommend the Vienna to Budapest 5-night tour, especially as an inter-generational adventure. We were a group of two 30-somethings and a 72-year-old dad, and it was a great fit for all of us. This is really a premier section of the full Eurovelo 6 cross-Europe route. I was especially impressed with bikeways and great signage all along the route. We were impressed by the variety and quality of the hotels, and the destination town or city at the end of each day was well-chosen. It was such a treat to go exploring each evening after getting off the bikes!
  Squeezing it all into the four-day sporty/active itinerary, however, was challenging on heavy cruiser-style rental bikes, so I'd advise either slowing it down or bringing your own bike.

  What was the date of your tour?

  May 2022

  How many tours have you completed?

  1

  Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?

  Somewhat harder

  Who is this tour suitable for?

  First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers, Families with teens

  Do you recommend this tour?

  Yes

  • BikeTours.com staff reply from kirsten August 22, 2022

    Hi Cynthia!
    Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this tour! We are happy to hear it was a great fit for your group. Your pictures are fantastic and really capture the joy of your adventure! Seeing those smiling faces is why we do what we do. Thank you again for choosing to travel with us!

  • 5/5 Value
  • 5/5 Included meals
  • 3/5 Bikes + equipment
  • 5/5 Hotels or boat
  • 5/5 Scenery
  • 5/5 Ease of navigation
  • 4/5 Tour documents
  • 5/5 Local tour company services
  • 5/5 Route selection
• ★★★★★ mb001 October 28, 2019

  Fun trip with lots of biking.

  My friend and I did this trip in early Oct. The first hotel in Vienne is Hotel Arcortel and not near any restaurants or pubs but close to the start of the trip. I would suggest booking a few days before in the city center if you plan on seeing Vienna. We stayed next in Hotel Devin in Bratislava. The hotel here and city were great. Everything walking distance. Next was Hotel Barrokk in Gyor. This was a very nice hotel and city that you could walk to a variety of restaurants and shopping. Then day 3 we biked 124km to Esztergom. There is an option to take a train for half of this trip. We did the biking and found it a very long day, but doable. We had electric bikes and it was a good thing! This day of biking was the most difficult not only because of the distance, but the terrain. You are in remote Hungarian countryside with no one around for hours. The bike trail or paths are poorly marked in some areas you find yourself on dirt farm land. Unfortunately we were lost a lot! The hotel in Esztergom was the Hotel Bellevue. This hotel is set on a busy street with no options to walk to any other restaurants or shopping. We were not aware that dinner must be booked ahead of time. After talking our way into a reservation, we found the buffet was average. If possible stay in the city and not this hotel. On the last day we left and needed to catch the ferry across the river. We were lucky as the week we were there was the last week of the season for the ferry. We rode to Budapest and again found some of the trails or paths poorly marked. We ran into a guided tour along the way and the guide told us about an app called mapy.cz and it has the entire map of the bike path we used and saved us several times. It was great to finish in Budapest as it is a very large exciting city with so much to do! The NH Hotel was easy to get to and situated close to many sites.

  What was the date of your tour?

  10/6-10/10/19

  How many tours have you completed?

  4

  Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?

  As expected

  Do you recommend this tour?

  No

  • BikeTours.com staff reply from Chloe October 30, 2019

    Thanks so much for this review - so many great details and suggestions! We're glad you had a fun trip and enjoyed many of the cities. We appreciate your details regarding the cycling terrain and navigation. This section of the Danube cycle path is less developed and more rustic than other sections, as you have noted. We hope future clients will be well informed by your review and perhaps even utilize the app you have mentioned. Thanks again.

  • 4/5 Value
  • 3/5 Included meals
  • 5/5 Bikes + equipment
  • 3/5 Hotels or boat
  • 4/5 Scenery
  • 3/5 Ease of navigation
  • 3/5 Tour documents
  • 4/5 Local tour company services
  • 3/5 Route selection