Bike Tour Reviews page 151
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★★★★★ Greg Scheurich July 8, 2024??
· Danube Bike Path 7 Nights (Classic)
The App was great Difficult to locate hotels. Many hotels resturants were closed
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★★★★★ Glenn Schroeder May 22, 2024Great crew and bike guide
· · Enchanting Cyclades and Saronic Islands
We had a really great time on the trip. Our guide, Dionesis was fantastic in every way. The food was wonderfully prepared and served. We enjoyed great service. The boat was very clean and comfortable. Our cabin was big enough for the two of us. The high winds did prohibit us from being able to go to the Cyclades Islands, which was disappointing but we did go to other places in the Saronic Islands that were nice. It was also disappointing that we never sailed. When we asked, the captain said that the winds were too low or the passage was too short. I sensed that the crew wasn’t trained to sail the boat. Again, one of the reasons we chose this trip was to sail. We also spent 2 nights of the 7 in the home port in Athens. This area is not very interesting and again was disappointing.
- 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
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Greece
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★★★★★ nunn July 28, 2019Wunderbar
· Lake Constance Bicycle Path
The tour was as described. The ferry came in handy one of the days. Directions were a problem. Once we got our of Konstanz and figured out what we were to follow it went better. Thanks to all the people who helped us along the way. Very helpful and friendly. The lake was delightful to swim in and cycle along. The scenery was delightful. We had ebikes and that's the way to go.
- What was the date of your tour?
- 6/30/19
- How many tours have you completed?
- 10+
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Germany, Switzerland
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★★★★★ gsf1 August 8, 2017· Three Lakes Tour: From Geneva to Annecy
- What was the date of your tour?
- 7/9/17
- How many tours have you completed?
- 2
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- France, Switzerland
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★★★★★ Gudrun58 September 28, 2017Group of friends
· Lake Garda (Based in One Hotel)
Hotel was very good and the staff also. Italy is so beautiful and charming.
- What was the date of your tour?
- 14.09-19.09.2017
- How many tours have you completed?
- 5
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Bikers September 25, 2017Passau 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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★★★★★ Lynn M July 31, 2019
Daube Bike Path 7 nights
· Danube Bike Path 7 Nights (Classic)
The staff were great and the hotels were up to expectations. On commencing the instructions for the first 2 days were good but the bike tracks should be labelled eg R1 or No 6 - this would be helpful. Also with the instructions we were given - you would need a GPS. We rode 10km out of our way because we missed a sign and directions were not helpful. Locals did point us in the right direction ..but we had to resort to "google maps" Some people had assisted with spray painting the track with directions...so our confusion wasn't a one off.
- What was the date of your tour?
- July 2019
- How many tours have you completed?
- 2
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists, Families with young kids, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Germany
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★★★★★ Harry Williamson August 5, 2022Well done
· · Bike and Boat Croatia’s Dalmatia Coast
I thought that the tour was very well organized. The guides (Ivan and Jelena) were excellent. Ivan's command of English and tour guide experience were especially valuable. Jelena's upbeat personality and cycling experience added even more joy to the tour. Island hopping did a great job of organizing each day's rides and events and the San Snova's crew was excellent, especially Andro (Saloon manager and bartender). The Capt. and crew were very efficient and friendly.
Frankly, 2 weeks was a bit too much for me to do basically the same thing each day, I would have preferred a 1 week tour with less time spent in Split and Dubrovnik (crowded tourist towns). I do realize that most of the people on the tour were fine with the itinerary. I think that the tour information guide should more accurately describe the rigor of the tour. By the time we were barely getting started, virtually everyone (except 2 incredibly strong riders) had requested or later opted for Ebikes during the tour.
Otherwise a good tour. Also helpful that Jim Johnson was there to add his experience and fellowship.- What was the date of your tour?
- July 15- 29
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Croatia
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★★★★★ Heather 1 month ago
Classic River bike ride
· Danube Bike Path 7 Nights (Classic)
Hotels exceeded expectations…except 1 palace.
Pedalo app was excellent….a few small errors.
Unable to get a proper fitting helmet. One size does not fit all. Ended up buying a large helmet.
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★★★★★ melwood August 24, 2017
Great trip due to the scenery, companions, and beer.
· Danube Bike Path 7 Nights (Classic)
Overall this was a great trip. I have a few complaints, though.
1. The bikes. We asked for hybrids and what we got were heavy cruisers (24 # or so) with 21 speeds and barco lounger seats. The seats were comfortable for about 20 miles the first day, then they were downright painful. Next time I'll bring my own saddle if I have to use these bikes. Also two of my companions are well under 5 ft tall and the bikes were big for them and hard to handle.
2. The distance. We told the company we wanted to do about 40 miles a day but it averaged 56 miles per day (with hot weather and heavy bikes and a headwind the entire way) for 4 days. We thought were spending 5 nights in hotels but it was only 4. I could have sworn I saw 5 days on the itinerary they sent before we left, but I guess i mis-read it.
3. The directions book. It was a little confusing arriving at the hotel and leaving it daily, as we had to pick out our directions from everyone one else's who were doing a similar ride but staying at different hotels or different villages.
A better approach would have been individual instructions. Especially when we arrived in Vienna. Once we were in town it was still an hour to our hotel through the city at high traffic. I could have kissed the hotel desk personnel when I finally arrived.
4. Accommodations: 3 out of 4 were great. The breakfast meals were great and plentiful. I would have liked to stay closer in the whatever village or town we were in (for those hotels that weren't) as it'd been nice to have a choice for dinner other than the hotel. Once we arrived, were too tired to bike any further, and we didn't want to spend $ on a taxi. Just a
suggestion.- What was the date of your tour?
- Aug 12-16th, 2017
- How many tours have you completed?
- 6
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- 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
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★★★★★ Heather July 5, 2016Alsace Cycling Vacation
· Alsace Wine Country
Bike Tours Direct is a very organized company that has good connections in the area. They provide a consultation on the first day of the trip to go over maps, routes, lodgings, and recommendations (for self-guided tours). They also spend some time making sure the bike is in good condition and is adjusted to fit you comfortably. We upgraded to road bikes, I would strongly recommend this as there are some steep hills on days 3-5.
We chose B hotels. The accommodations were comfortable.
The first 2 days of cycling are peaceful and flat, riding along a canal. Starting in Colmar, the ride is along the Alsatian wine route. It becomes hilly, and this is where the picture book starts. We cycled up and down hills, though vineyards, and medieval towns. Each town has beautifully preserved architecture, historic monuments, cobble stone streets, not to mention delicious local food and wine. The Alsace region is a perfect mix of French countryside, and small medieval towns with rich history and culture.- What was the date of your tour?
- June 2016
- How many tours have you completed?
- 2
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- France
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★★★★★ Wiederholen September 12, 2017A great tour with good friends
· Danube Bike Path 8 Nights (Upscale Lodging)
Overall, a wonderful trip. Highlights included the Engelzell and Melk Abbeys, the towns of Dürnstein and Tulln, and the finish with an extra night in Vienna. The best scenery was in the Wachau, where we cruised through beautiful vineyards and lovely villages. On a couple of days the scenery was rather ordinary, and made the short rides seem longer out of boredom. Although the route was very flat, we did have a couple of short but steep climbs, the biggest being out of Melk to cross the bridge. This being our third bike tour in this region, I'm not sure the "upscale" lodging was worth the extra cost - some of the hotels were great (Schloß Dürnstein and Steigenberger Vienna) but most were not of any better quality than the standard tours. Biggest disappointments were the Hotel am Domplatz in Linz (where they charged us 20€ to garage our four bikes) and the Diamond City in Tulln, which was not "upscale" at all. The local tour operator was great - they provided us with a face-to-face briefing the night before we started riding - and the bikes were solid. We had a great time on this trip, despite two days of steady rain, but if I had to do it again I'd seriously consider the 7-night standard tour and save a few hundred Euros.
- What was the date of your tour?
- 31-AUG to 6-SEPT 2017
- How many tours have you completed?
- This was our third in this region
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers, First-time bike tourists, Families with young kids, Families with teens
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Germany
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★★★★★ Helayn October 7, 2019More than I expected
· UNESCO Sites of Albania
- What was the date of your tour?
- October 23
- How many tours have you completed?
- 15
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Somewhat harder
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Albania
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★★★★★ hbth July 29, 2016Great tour from Dolomites to lake Garda
· Dolomites to Lake Garda: Picturesque Cities and Stunning Scenery
We chose self guided tour which was perfect for our group. We biked through amazing landscape and beautiful villages with nice restaurants and friendly people.
The travel documents were very helpful and the luggage transfer was perfect. It was
just a great tour!- What was the date of your tour?
- 3.-10. July
- How many tours have you completed?
- This was the first
- 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?
- Italy
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★★★★★ Carol McDonald September 29, 2022Beautiful Croatia
· · National Parks of Dalmatia by Bike/E-bike and Boat
This is the perfect way to see this beautiful country! Our bike guides were great - knowledgeable, extremely competent, friendly and helpful. We felt very luck to have them with us.
The food was a combination of very good, and sometimes not quite so good as it arrived luke warm. Salads scrimped on greens and the overly used combination of purple and green cabbage only as our source of greens wasn’t very good, especially since salad greens seemed readily available at our various stops.
Most importantly, we were horrified by the number of plastic bottles used on this trip! My husband and I brought water bottles, as did most of the cyclists, and were happy to refill our bottles from the water cooler. I can’t imagine the tons of plastic waste caused by the number of bottles our ship alone used, and then multiplied by the number of boats over the course of the summer - the numbers of plastic bottles to deal with would be staggering. I am fully aware of the recycle program, but the energy used to do this is also staggering, especially for a small and financially struggling country like Croatia. I strongly urge you to commit to a more earth friendly form of water use.
Lastly, and this is a small criticism, we’ve never been on a bike and boat (this was our fifth one), that charged a premium for tea and coffee. I completely support a charge for premium coffees and teas such as lattes, chai etc, but charging for hot water and a tea bag, or a simple cup of coffee seems very stingy on your part. Especially with a 50E pp charge for water, which again is something we had not encountered in the past.
Overall, we had an incredibly wonderful trip and hope to return to Croatia again in the future!- What was the date of your tour?
- September 2022
- How many tours have you completed?
- Five
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Croatia
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★★★★★ Charlotte F 5 months agoWonderful sightseeing of the Burgundy countryside
· Wine, Dine and Electric Bike in Burgundy
We knew the standard of the trip was going to be high considering what we paid for it but most hotels exceeded our expectations as they were really the best of the best. The exception was only Maison Philippe Le Bon in Dijon, which was very quaint but was definitely a step down from the other hotels when it came to the room and breakfast standard. They also seemed totally unaware of the deal with activetours until we showed then the voucher (didn't happen anywhere else).
The electrical bikes worked great but I would recommend to bring a cushioned seat cover if you're not used to biking regularly. If you are planning to bring a small bag to put on the rack behind the saddle, I would consider bringing en elastic strap or two to secure it on the bike as the straps on the bike are very tight and probably not elastic enough to hold anything bigger than a purse or an extra jacket.
The navigational app was quite a hassle to get used to (we had not used it before) and we could not get the resume function after we had breaks but had to restart the whole route for the day every time and then "reconnect" to the route. Also, we would have appreciated a heads up that the routes provided were not exact. For example:
1. The stops at wineries on the way were not exactly ON the route but in some places required quite the map reading skills to access. Even google maps struggled to find the right way.
2. They did not always show the route to our hotel but to another hotel in the city. For example in Dijon we were about 1km off. We checked the routes before leaving but if we would have gotten a heads up to check our destination as we approached our destination, that would have made our lives a lot easier.
3. Sometimes the routes were very illogical and for example when we biked along the Canal de Bourgogne it once wanted us to go to the other side of the canal for a few kilometres (a road with cars) instead of just continuing straight ahead on the walking/biking path, which we ended up doing. Getting out of Dijon we also struggled a lot as we had to go through, to bring up the most extreme examples, an alleyway that barely were wide enough to fit the handlebars of the bikes and an overgrown dirt path that was close to a stone wall on one side and had branches on the other side. Close to Chagny, a bridge we were supposed to cross didn't exixt anymore and was possibly under re-construction. This makes me question when these routes were last tested by the company.
All in all though, we highly enjoyed our adventures but I'd encourage the company to send someone out to test the routes before ech season and also to be more clear when you present the routes that they don't exatly lead to the door step of either the wineries or your next hotel. Especially the route to Domain Duchemin needs a thorough description (don't trust google maps!).
As for the difficulty level, some days were easier than expected and some harder. The route from Domaine de Rymska to Sainte Sabine is very long and we had a hard headwind for the last 20-30 km which made us almost empty our bike batteries that day. We are in average/good shape but appreciated A LOT that we had opted for e-bikes instead of traditional bikes. SHOW MORE- What was the date of your tour?
- May 2025
- How many tours have you completed?
- This was our first bike tour, probably not the last.
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- As expected
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- France
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★★★★★ Halloran911 September 14, 2017Awesome trip
· Prague to Vienna via Cesky Krumlov
Best way to see Czech Republic. Guides could not have been better. Total knowledge, kind and considerate and always following up on everything. Luggage always made it to the room. The tour company AVE is awesome and is not frilly but high quality. Rooms were great. No AC in rooms but not really a problem. Clean. Bring your own washcloths. One complaint. 2 hour heavy lunches were silly. Give us a snack and let us move on so we can have more time to relax when we get to the next village.
- What was the date of your tour?
- August 5-13
- How many tours have you completed?
- 1
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Much harder
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- Solo travelers
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Czech Republic
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★★★★★ charlotte lenssen September 26, 2024
Adventures around the Bodensee
· Lake Constance Bicycle Path
It was a super fun trip experiencing the different towns and landscapes. All hotels were acceptable and some were exceptional. My favorites were Lindau and Konstanz. We had 2 rainy days, so got lucky with weather. Austrias Fänder bahn was worth it too.
- What was the date of your tour?
- Sept 2024
- 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
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Austria, Germany, Switzerland
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★★★★★ Charlotte Dewar October 11, 2022A beautiful journey
· · Provence by Bike and Boat
We loved this trip. It was wonderful you hired a professional guide in Arles to spend 1.5 hours with us talking about the history, the Roman architecture and Van Gough. Provence is so beautiful and we are very blessed with the good weather and a wonderful group of travelers who cared for each other and enjoyed the company of each other on this trip.
As a professional travel planner for 30 years, I wish to share my honest feedback so you may improve your tours for future clients.
1. The chef Irene made the most delicious dinners for us every evening. We were always looking forward to her food at the end of long and exciting journey.
2. Our Captain was excellent and so was the assistant Phillipo. 3 crew members worked together beautifully and treated us like royalty.
3. Our guide Hens is not as professional. He never counted the number of guests. We had people falling off the bike everyday, no major injuries. Hens was out at the front riding quite fast. He rarely looked back and kept an eye on the group. Every time we had an accident, we had to send someone from behind to catch up with him and asked him to stop and wait for the folks falling behind.
4. The internet on the boat is very choppy. I had important business to communicate with my travelers going to Asia. Most of the time I couldn't receive or send emails. My PayPal app, my airb&b app and my VRBO app all stopped working. I had free roaming data on my phone and that had issue working on your boat either. it's very important you have a functional internet on the boat so people like myself could still carry on business while we are on your trip.We love the concept of bike and boat! We will come back for more of your tours. I am considering introducing your product to my high-end Chinese clients.
I am raving about this trip to all my friends in California. Thank you for putting together a fantastic journey for us.
- Countries included in this tour?
- France
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★★★★★ Cynthia Dees August 15, 2022
swim and bike tour
· · Bike and Boat Croatia’s Dalmatia Coast
They shortened the bike rides due to heat I imagine and spent too much time swimming. I would have preferred for them to give us choices...who would like to go on planned mileage...who wants it shortened?
- What was the date of your tour?
- August 2022
- How many tours have you completed?
- 1
- Difficulty (actual vs. expected)?
- Much easier
- Who is this tour suitable for?
- First-time bike tourists, Solo travelers
- Do you recommend this tour?
- Yes
- Countries included in this tour?
- Croatia
