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New tours for 2021

NEW TOUR: “Discover Friesland” with the barge LENA MARIA. In the 2020 season, Boat Bike Tours experienced that quite a few guests do not necessarily want to visit larger cities, but prefer rural areas, nature and fresh air. For this reason, this new eight-day trip through the most water-rich province of the Netherlands including crossing the Wadden Sea to the island of Terschelling has been developed for 2021. The trip is offered in June, July and August and starts and ends in Enkhuizen, north of Amsterdam (also the home port of many sailing vessels). The small group size on board (max. 24 guests) is another attractive feature for many customers. This is an independent tour, with individual, self-guided cycling.

NEW TOUR: Instead of the “Best of Holland” tour, we’re offering the new five-day short break “Taste of Holland Especially for first-timers, but also for last-minute deciders, these roundtrips from / to Amsterdam with four overnight stays on board should be very attractive. Highlights are Amsterdam, Haarlem, Zaandam, Alkmaar and wonderful bike rides through the flat, rural “polder land”. The trips are carried out in May, June and July with several premium ships, so that excellent accommodation and great service are guaranteed at attractive prices.

NEW TOUR: In 2021 we are offering a fantastic new eight-day trip covering three countries on the Moselle river with the premium ship PRINCESSE ROYAL (the former MAGNIFIQUE, see below). This journey between Cochem (Germany) and Metz (France) leads through the historic and beautiful valley of the Moselle. This tour on German, Luxembourg and French waters and cycle paths is offered 4 times from Cochem to Metz and 4 times in the opposite direction from June to October.
There is also the unique opportunity to book a trip from Amsterdam to Cochem: on June 19th the ship travels once across the Rhine from Amsterdam to the Moselle: an excellent tour for e.g. (small) groups who want to book a special trip.

Premium Tours Amsterdam to Bruges vice versa:

slight changes in day-to-day programs; introducing new short tours

We have made some slight changes in the day-to-day programs of many ships for our 8-days Premium Tours between Amsterdam and Bruges. We will open new opportunities to book “a half tour” for all departures until end of August 2021: NEW are short breaks (either 4 days / 3 nights or 5 days / 4 nights) between Amsterdam and Antwerp and between Antwerp and Bruges. In order to make this possible, we have changed the programs of our existing premium tours slightly: please refer to our Dropbox for all details and to download and check the updated tour programs. Please update your published tour details, if necessary.

Change of ship for existing programs

The ship DE WILLEMSTAD with a capacity for max. 96 passengers is NEW on our Northern Tour of Holland (North Holland, Texel and Friesland). The introduction of the new ship, which will replace De Holland, results in a significant increase of the capacity on this very popular route. During the tours with this larger vessel two tour leaders will be available to assist the cyclists. Until 2019, the ship was – under its previous name ARLENE II – on the Danube river.

NEW: The Northern Tours with De Willemstad will now start and end on Sundays.
Throughout the 2021 season, the ship DE HOLLAND will be sailing weekly, without interruption, on the Hansa Highlights Tour in the central part of the Netherlands. Until 2020, the ship was very successfully operated on our Northern Tour for many years.

On the Southern Tour of Holland, the successful river cruiser DE AMSTERDAM will continue to sail this tour every week. In order to increase capacity on the Southern Tour, the ship DE NASSAU will be added twice in April and weekly from the beginning of July onwards. In 2020 De Nassau was en route on the Hansa Highlights tour.
The Southern Tours with De Amsterdam will start and end as usual on Saturdays in Amsterdam.

NEW: In 2021, De Nassau will run the same route as the De Amsterdam, but offset by one day, now with start and end of the journey on Sundays.

The LENA MARIA will carry out some of the five-day short break tulip tours, as well as one of the eight-day tulip tours in spring, instead of the previously advertised MECKLENBURG.

New names for well-known ships

The new owners of the premium ship MAGNIFIQUE, which has been operated for Boat Bike Tours’ cycling cruises since 2011, have decided to rename the ship again under its original name. From 2021, the elegant ship will be sailing the Dutch and Franco-German waters as PRINCESSE ROYAL.

As already mentioned above with the changes to the Northern Tour, we will be welcoming DE WILLEMSTAD in 2021, the youngest member of the “family”, which also includes De Amsterdam, De Holland and De Nassau. The comfortable ship was renovated and partially refurbished in 2017/2018 and was used for several years on the Danube river for bike and boat trips under its previous name ARLENE II.

Some new, some deleted tour dates

As a result of cancelled charter bookings because of the pandemic, but also because of new or re-booked charters, for various tours we are able to offer some new tour dates, but also had to change or cancel some departure dates from our original 2021 planning. You can check all available dates in our partner login, in our Dropbox, on our consumer website or by sending an e-mail with your inquiry to [email protected]

In 2021 the following tours will no longer / not be offered

The trip “Best of Holland” (premium ships MAGNIFIQUE 1, 2, 3 and 4) will be withdrawn from the program in 2021. The earlier announced premium tours “Hansa Highlights Premium” (Princesse Royal and Magnifique 2), the tours “Amsterdam to Cologne vice versa Premium” (Magnifique 3) and “Amsterdam to Maastricht vice versa Premium” (Magnifique 4) will not be launched in 2021.

Traveling with the Boat Bike Tours – “Covid-19 Corona Protocol”

Boat Bike Tours was the very first operator in the Netherlands to resume operations on June 20, 2020. This was made possible by a carefully developed “Corona protocol for cycling cruises” coordinated with all responsible authorities. The shipping companies, ship crews and tour guides have made every effort to offer our common guests a well-deserved and relaxed, but also all-round safe vacation.

It turned out that we were successful and that customer satisfaction in 2020 was even slightly higher than in previous years. Many guests have told us that the “Corona safety procedures” on board did not diminish their pleasure, but rather increased their satisfaction and the feeling of being well looked after and feeling safe. We are very proud of this.
We have collected some impressions in a short video clip that you can view HERE..

We would like to thank our guests for the fact that they have placed the implementation of their vacation, which was even more important in this extraordinary “Corona year” 2020, into our hands. And we would also like to thank you – our dear cooperation partners – very much for the cooperation, your understanding and patience, even under very difficult circumstances.

Unfortunately, the prospects for the 2021 season regarding the development of the pandemic are currently not yet very positive. However, we trust that we will all can travel again in 2021. We are already preparing for the situation that we will continue to work on board the ships with our hygiene concepts, protocols and additional measures at the beginning of the 2021 season, so that we can again offer our common guests a great, carefree and safe holiday.

Promotions for the 2021 season

For the reasons mentioned in connection with the current development of the pandemic, the booking sentiments are currently at a low level. In order to promote bookings among potentially interested customers, Boat Bike Tours will define new monthly campaigns that also apply to bookings made by our cooperation partners.

For new bookings for PREMIUM TOURS made by customers from all overseas markets* (i.e.: non-European customers) within the month of November 2020, the following temporary “flexible booking policy” applies:

  • This temporary flexible booking policy allows a customer to change her/his booking (travel date) without paying any penalties.
  • This promotion only applies to new bookingsmade before (incl.) 30 November 2020 with a travel date before 1 June 2021.
  • This promotion only applies to the premium toursfor which Boat Bike Tours is the organizing tour operator.
  • A customer may change the booking to a new travel date with a final arrival date of 30 September 2022.
  • A customer may change the booking up to 4 months before the departure date.
  • The change of date is subject to availability.
  • If the new booking has a different price, the customer must pay the new price.

*: please note that to non-overseas customers (inhabitants of European countries) exclusively the following promotion applies:

For new bookings for NON-PREMIUM TOURS made by customers from all markets within the month of November 2020, the following the following “extended early bird discount Nov. 2020” applies:

  • A customer receives a discount of 25% off the regular tour price.
  • This promotion only applies to new bookingsmade before (incl.) 30 November 2020 with a travel date before 1 June 2021.
  • This promotion only applies to the NON-premium toursfor which Boat Bike Tours is the organizing tour operator, with exception of all Sail & Bike tours in the Netherlands and also excepting the tours with the PATRIA on Moselle, Saar, Rhine and Neckar rivers in Germany.

By the end of November 2020, we will announce our new promotions, which will be valid from December 1, 2020.

Boat Bike Tours is “going green”

A year or two ago we have started a cooperation with Sea Going Green in order to develop a sustainability strategy for our company and to assess the extent of the footprint of our whole product chain (including ships, tours, office and operations). We started avoiding pollution and replace harmful products and services by more sustainable ones right away.

We are proud to announce that from 2021 on, Boat Bike Tours will compensate the remaining part of the full carbon footprint of her product chain by supporting a project set up by JustDiggit.

We will share extensive information on our sustainability goals and projects in one of our upcoming updates.