Reviews

The tour guides – and entire staff – were attentive, responsive, fun, friendly and professional. The route was just stunning!

The boat, The Romantica, was comfortable with Air Conditioning during the 90 degree plus weather. Lunches and dinners were tasty. I think that there should be separate e-cycling guided trips and regular pedaling cycling guided trips. Our speed differential was noticeable. As a regular cyclist, we’d just get to the meet up spot and be off without rest since the ebikes were raring to go.

The MS PRIMADONNA is a very nice boat but the cabins on the main deck (should really be called the LOWER deck) are very noisy in sluices. A better cabin is outrageously expensive. Food very good, prices for drinks very acceptable, sauna and indoor whirlpool can only be privately booked, therefore hardly useable. Not too many seats on sun deck due to the glass roof. Service to get bikes on and off the boat excellent! – Guided bustour in Budapest terrible, a waste of time as we spent 1,5 hours at Castle of Vajdahunyad instead of seeing more sights of the actual city, only one photo stop and Caste area not included.

Small group made it easy to connect with other travelers. Very friendly and helpful tour guide. Beautiful location!

Fantastic new experience! The ship was great, food was way above our expectations, crew and tour guide were exceptional, and the people on board we fun to be with. We had a wonderful time!

Was a wonderful experience.. the staff were amazing food on my goodness so good and the rides we went on were just beautiful..

Exceptional boat crew and guides. Food was very well prepared and delicious. Staff were friendly and guides kept us safe and very knowledgeable. Guides created an atmosphere that was welcoming and inclusive of all guests especially since we were of different ages and cultures.

The team (captain Jean Marie, chef Steffie, sailor Maikel, Hostess Franziska and tour guides Carol & Valérie) on the Fleur is good: Cheerful, attentive and hardworking. Every meal was delicious. The barge is small. It has to be in order to fit the narrow locks. It is CLEAN and well appointed. The scenery was very nice. Our tour guides seemed new to this particular tour. We got “lost” briefly at least twice a day. This is understandable since, in France, there isn’t a great network of bike paths like there is in Belgium, Germany and Holland. Carol shared interesting facts of history about the places we stopped. Both guides were enthusiastic and kind. We all adopted a wry attitude when, almost daily, the promised café or pub was closed. It was good to meet up with the barge in the afternoon instead of stopping once again. The guides and sailor were vigilant in maintaining the bicycles. The e-bikes had been ridden many kilometres and it showed. There were a few repairs done enroute as well. We especially enjoyed: -The Apiculture’s Living Museum -Jardin Bourdelle -Saint Séverin (the wash house) -Ville de Grez-dur-Loing -Visiting the bridge of the ship (rainy trip to Melun) -FONTAINEBLEAU Tips -Pack light. We avoided long lineups at every airport because we had only carry-on luggage. -Unless you are cycling outside this tour, don’t bring a bike helmet. They are provided. -Rent one of the e-bikes. This tour is definitely level 2 in difficulty. There were a few long hills to go up. Those with regular bikes struggled. -Keep a good distance between your bike and the one ahead. Not everyone will be experienced with cycling in groups and hand signals. On this tour the guides lacked experience with the route. Some sudden stops or turns lead to issues for those who hadn’t left enough space. -Do bring a gel seat cover. The seats on the bikes are just okay. They were much more comfortable with an additional squishy layer. -Do bring water-PROOF raingear, top and bottom including good quality shoe covers. Bring an extra pair of shoes. -Do bring a few Ziploc bags. – Do get a data package (eSim). This was so easy and useful on the whole tour. Note: -It’s only a 1-hour train ride from Paris (Gare de Bercy) to Montargis (118 km). Therefore, this tour is meandering. One doesn’t go from one large centre to another. The longer daily routes are out in the country. Much of the tour, cyclists share the road with motorized vehicles. It can get hectic in some spots. -Since the barge is on the small side, there is a maximum of 20 guests. On ours, everyone opted for the long route each day. Therefore, we were 1 large group cycling together. -For those with pet allergies: Steffie, who owns the barge, has a dog. “Bas” is well behaved and friendly and most of the guests loved having him aboard. -There is not much to do in Montargis. It is beautiful, but 1 full day is enough. The start/end of the tour, the barge stays put for 2 nights. We wished we had spent an extra day in Paris instead. We really appreciated that Boat Bike tours provided a bus from Melun to Paris. The Paralympics were just finishing, so docking at the usual final location wasn’t permitted. If we had known this, we might have chosen a different tour. But it worked out just fine. Suggestions: ☆Let passengers know if there is a change in the mooring locations as soon as possible. We didn’t find out about our final destination (Melun and not Paris) until after we booked. One couple could not make use of the bus provided. They had to pay for a taxi to the train station. They would have booked a different flight had they learned of this change in time. ☆The tripsite website mentions the dog but this is missing from the boat bike website. My husband is allergic to dogs and cats. We would have chosen a different tour (barge) had we known. ☆There didn’t seem to be much in terms of snacks waiting for us on our return after cycling. One guest grabbed the bowl of chips for himself everyday. Perhaps another bowl or 2 would be a good idea. ☆As a person who abstains from alcohol, I appreciated having the choices offered. Heineken zero would have been nice! A de-alcoholized wine as well. The coffee machine on the barge is AWESOME. ☆The guides were very leary of meeting up with the barge too early. I suggest that they send a quick message to barge to obtain a thumbs up to return. Most of us were tired near the end of the ride. We just wanted a shower and a beverage on the boat, not a smoky café or pub. And the mixture of fatigue, age and alcohol may not have been a good idea. Another visit to Paris is in our future. But next time (2026?), we will cycle with Boat Bike tours in the Netherlands and/or Germany. Date of experience: Aug 31 to Sept 7

We loved the crew, they did everything possible to make us comfortable and helped us play some silly group games. There was a bit of difficulty with food supplies not arriving and our chef Micheal had to quickly shop and prepare our meal and also there was some confusion about where we docked one night. We were docked and had to leave that dock and travel to a different dock. So maybe for our trip some details were missed but the crew made up for them

Great trip, well organized, beautiful areas biking, very good crew and tour leader.