Slovakia Bike Tour Reviews
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★★★★★ Jan 2018 September 24, 2018Beautiful bike tour through Austria !
· · Danube Discovery: Bike and Boat through Enchanting Capitals
Our room on the ship had a broken thermostat so we were freezing most of the time...the food was good but we wanted more green veggie salads..the tour guide was very hard to understand, but the bike baths were smooth and mostly flat, so the biking through little villages was unforgettable!!!
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★★★★★ Elizabeth Gray 7 months agoBeautiful trip on the Danube
· · Danube Bike and Boat: Passau-Budapest-Passau – MS SE-Manon
This scenic trip is beyond description!!! Boating on this beautiful river, in and out of small towns, bustling cities and incredible mountain and grapevine views was fabulous!
The boat was nice, clean ( very cold pool) and plenty of service, however; instructions were poor at best.
There were a couple that provided directions on the routes and many other events upon the boat, SE Mannon, however one spoke no English and the other struggled with describing in English the sometimes complicated routes. 85% of the travelers were non English speakers and were well informed by the German speaking gentleman. Many English speakers became lost in Bratislava and some in Vienna. The routes were beautiful and not too challenging to ride if you paid close attention during the briefings and asked a lot of clarifying questions. When you are t quite sure, ask again until you do. We found not understanding the German and Austrian speakers frustrated them a great deal but don’t get offended. You need the correctly translated information. As simple as “up stream or down stream” can be miscommunicated.
We had one bike that needed to be changed out, however, the people checking the bike said it was ok and we suffered 2 days with a bike that was not shifting properly. Day 3, new bike, no more problems.
Do not waste your money on ANy of the drink packages! It is only honored after 4 pm, even soda or coffee is charged outside the 4 pm- 11 pm hours. Dinner drinks are included in restaurant. Breakfast includes coffee but not soda as many drink in AM. Bring snacks back on board if you want anything to eat outside breakfast or dinner.
Now for the food: we had “guess that dish” every night Everything was covered in some kind of gravy. Pork for dinner the first 3 nights! Desserts were the most disappointing. Very bland puddings, and some had breakfast cereals mixed in. After day 2, we started eating dinner out when possible. One night we had spaghetti which wasn’t too bad however we couldn’t get any Parmesan cheese or extra bread to fill up. Breakfasts offered many options, however, the omelettes were not always cooked through. Stick with the waffles, they were good. Plenty of meats and bread to make sandwiches for your lunch ride. We generally stopped at a pub or beer garden for goulash or French fries and beer! Lots of little places to choose from although good places could be recommended in the route book! No one on board would suggest any restaurants in the towns. That was disappointing. We found a great restaurant on top of a hotel in Vienna with a fabulous view of the city and river.
In our info from Biketours. Com, we were told not to book travel from the boat before 12. The boat wanted us out of our cabins by 8:30. We waited up on top of the boat until our taxi arrived at 11:00. We were the last party to leave. None of the Americans got off the boat until 10-10:30. Lack of communication again.
It was nice unpacking only once for our bike tour, however we will probably stick with the bike/hotel version in the future! Croatia here we come in 2024!!! Still had a blast with our party of 6! Thanks Biketours! SHOW MORE -
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★★★★★ Ricardo Hein November 7, 2022Nice biking vacation
· Danube Cycle Path Passau – Budapest
The Danube is beautiful and the Austrian portion is beautiful. After Vienna it turns flat and less developed. The opportunity to share with people is limited by the places to stay, I didn't like to stay away from the towns in isolated guest houses, when guest homes were available in small towns.
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★★★★★ Mycycle50 July 1, 2019Very beautiful but more difficult than advertised.
· Prague-Vienna-Bratislava-Budapest
Our outfitter provided lots of info- maps, gps routes and suggested sites to visit. Some very rough roads, some steep hills.
- What was the date of your tour?
- May 22 to June 15
- How many tours have you completed?
- 9
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia
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★★★★★ mb001 October 28, 2019Fun trip with lots of biking.
· Vienna to Budapest 5-nights (Active)
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.
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★★★★★ Medium October 18, 2016
Very good trip with a couple glitches.
· · Danube Discovery: Bike and Boat through Enchanting Capitals
A week can only touch on the highlights of what the Danube has to offer for bikers, and this tour accomplished that, leaving us with ideas for more in-depth exploring. The boat was fine, the meals were good and the crew was great, but the WiFi access was almost nonexistent; had to go to Starbucks or other coffee houses in cities to check email. The cruise director was a last minute replacement with insufficient English to answer most questions... a nice guy but not well organized. Fortunately, the routes had been well planned, though the slide shows provided scant info, so we could have benefitted from a handout each day describing the route specifics, sites of interest and perhaps suggestions on restaurants.
- What was the date of your tour?
- 1-8 Oct 2016
- How many tours have you completed?
- 6
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat easier
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia
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★★★★★ Thom October 25, 2016
Lovely trip on the Danube River with biking to keep us in shape!
· · Danube Discovery: Bike and Boat through Enchanting Capitals
A great trip to four cities and capitals in Eastern Europe. Comfortable accommodations, friendly staff, good meals, easy biking. Weather was chilly and grey at this time of the year. The Danube is NOT blue if the sky is grey and it is drizzling!
- What was the date of your tour?
- Oct 1-8, 2016
- How many tours have you completed?
- 4 European bike trips
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia
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★★★★★ antovince June 29, 2019
Fun trip!
· · Danube Discovery: Bike and Boat through Enchanting Capitals
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★★★★★ Normbc June 4, 2019
Enjoyed the biking and scenery, but time of year with high water slowed boat down
· · Danube Bike and Boat: Passau-Budapest-Passau – MS SE-Manon
This was my first experience on a bike and barge cruise. It was great to have to unpack only the once and have the same place to sleep each day. The rooms were very good, the staff excellent and the meals exceptional. The first couple of days we had rain (time of year) but we were still able to get out and bike (if you don't mind doing so with rain gear on). The timing between stops by the boat were really off because of high water. At one place we were not even able to dock to get off the boat to leave on bikes so that day we had to start where we should have ended and biked an extra 10 km to complete the circuit. Only 2 of us actually the did the entire cirucit due to the rain and wind conditions and distance. The rest of the trip the weather improved and we had some sunny beautiful days biking. We lost our free time to explore Vienna though because of the slow progress of the boat coming up-river where we arrived at 5:30 pm rather than 10 am as scheduled.
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★★★★★ skinut 7 June 17, 2019
good trip with a few qualifiers
· · Danube Bike and Boat: Passau-Budapest-Passau – MS SE-Manon
The accommodation and food were good. The bikes were excellent.
The joining instructions were poor. We followed the bus directions after leaving the train and ended up with a 2 km trek with luggage to the boat-the bus took us to summer dock not winter.
There needs to be clearer advisories re trips in late May and possibly early June, that due to high water in the Danube, there is a greater likelihood of delays and alterations to plans. We were 4 hours late docking at Passau at the end and missed our flight from Vienna. We had arranged a transfer for 12noon as directed(not the scheduled time of 10am) but could not make our flight with a 2pm arrival.
Also our scheduled stop in Devin was not possible due to high water.- What was the date of your tour?
- May 20 2019
- How many tours have you completed?
- 2 including this one
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia
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★★★★★ Francis Farrell 7 months ago
A Family Danube Adventure
· · Danube Bike and Boat: Passau-Budapest-Passau – MS SE-Manon
As Grandpa, I organized this adventure for my daughter, son and his family. This seemed an ideal year to do it since my grandson, 16, wouldn't be bored and my granddaughter, 12 and the youngest passenger, would be able to manage the biking and appreciate the countries and cultures she'd experience.
The ship, cabins and, except for the grand kids, the meals were good.On the downside, there were very few English speakers including the tour director. He spoke only German but his wife would do a reasonably good job of translating. Many of the crew and other passengers were capable in English. Also, the cruise line offered a "Drink Plan" with unlimited alcohol for 15 Euros/day for all seven days. This would have been 630 Euros for us, all but me non-drinkers - ridiculous!
I'm sure we will take another "boat & bike" trip but I doubt with CD Cruise Lines.
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★★★★★ larry137 June 26, 2017
Donauworth to Budapest
· Danube Cycle Path Passau – Budapest
This was self-guided but with accom and luggage transfers looked after by biketours. The accoms were very nice, and transfers reliable. Included buffet breakfasts were a highlight. Bikes were ok - heavy but route flat so not a problem. Gears and brakes worked well. Odometers mostly did not work - possibly batteries dead. Maps were quite good, but simultaneous verbal descriptions were sometimes ambiguous or wrong. The directions to the accommodations were a bit confusing and could be improved - we had to rely on our GPS for most of them. We like to stop for coffee or picnics, and for parts of our ride, there were no places to get a coffee or a drink enroute. There were parts of the ride with terrific smooth surfaces along the river but quite a few sections where cycling was on rough gravel or even grass.
What made the ride memorable were the beautiful vistas of the countryside and the spectacular art, architecture and history in the cities. -
★★★★★ Bikers September 25, 2017
Passau to Budapest
· Danube Cycle Path Passau – Budapest
A great way to explore parts of the Danube and its environs including historical and present day influences. Good hotels with local cuisine, culture and friendly hosts. A great way to meet like minded fellow travellers and get lots of fresh air with exercise.
- What was the date of your tour?
- 2 - 15 September 2017
- How many tours have you completed?
- Nil
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia
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★★★★★ robbo1 June 14, 2019
Long way from home
· Danube Cycle Path Passau – Budapest
A great ride overall especially the Passau to Vienna was superb. Vienna to Budapest was more of an adventure with the trail not so well developed.
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★★★★★ Azmina Karim-Bondy August 5, 2022
The title is good and descriptive
· Danube Cycle Path Passau – Budapest
Cycling is a great way to see the country. Having the self-guided books were great and the tour representatives were very responsive. However, we found sometimes the instructions in the booklets were not as clear as they could be and sometimes did not have the correct information for our trip. Overall, though we had a great experience, the hotels were good, the luggage transfer worked well and we saw some wonderful sights!
- What was the date of your tour?
- June 2022
- How many tours have you completed?
- 1
- 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
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia
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★★★★★ Donna Schultz August 27, 2022Ship needs better ventilation in dining room.
· · Danube Experience Bike and Boat Passau-Vienna-Budapest-Belgrade-Iron Gates-Passau
We booked trip 3 years ago. It was cancelled twice. We are fully Covid vaccinated and boosted. The crew wore masks for the first 5 days. On day 7, my husband got Covid. The only place for exposure was the dining room. All the passengers ate together in a dining room that did not have good ventilation. There was no options for open air dining or room dining. We lost 4 days while he recovered.
After waiting so long for trip, it was disappointing there was not adequate controls to avoid virus spread.
After he got sick. I noticed at least 6 other people that were also coughing. No one was ill at beginning of trip.
We will not go on another bike boat trip that does not take precautions to reduce virus spread. There should be changes in table spacing, air flow & circulation, better air filtration, & open air dining option.
The boat was Swiss Crown.
- What was the date of your tour?
- August 2022
- How many tours have you completed?
- I have been on inn to inn tours. This was first bike boat tour
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Much easier
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia
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★★★★★ debo June 17, 2016Fun trip
· · Danube Delights: Biking through Four Countries
All in all, a great trip. Some communication issues between cruise director and guides and cyclists. Cruise director clearly overwhelmed and attimes, Difficult To Follow. Bike was very comfortable and routes, interesting and scenic. Having trouble adding photos.
- What was the date of your tour?
- May 22-29
- How many tours have you completed?
- many, but not lately
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat easier
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia
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★★★★★ jfvb October 7, 2017
· · Danube Delights: Biking through Four Countries
- What was the date of your tour?
- 9/24/2017
- How many tours have you completed?
- 0
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Much easier
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia
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★★★★★ Sandra Babich 11 months ago
Great Trip
· · Danube Delights: Biking through Four Countries
This was a perfect way to see parts of Austria, Hungary, Germany, Slovakia. Everything is very well organized and there is the freedom to leave the boat and cycle at own pace following the well laid out bike trails. The food on the boat was very good, staff were very courteous and always helpful, and our room was clean. We added extra time to our trip in Vienna because there is so much to see. Would also be a good idea for Budapest. Even though we had a considerable amount of rain and some flooding on our trails it was still a great adventure and enjoyable trip. Our boat was recently renovated and that was a bonus.
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★★★★★ Cynthia Ord August 21, 2022
Loved everything about this tour (except the rental bikes)
· Vienna to Budapest 5-nights (Active)
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
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Hungary, Slovakia
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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!
