Reviews

Exceptional, friendly, polite and competent staff in all areas: meals, cleaning, boat, bikes, tours, hospitality. Very nice atmosphere on board. Very good mix of structured tours and flexibility. Being able to stay aboard the comfortable boat all day instead of biking was a real advantage. There were often alternative biking routes. We had anticipated more leadership/ guidance from the tour guide while biking, but it proved not to be necessary. We were a more experienced group, but others might need to be led and this was not a possibility. Good with TV for the UEFA games, a must! Perhaps more WiFi. People would post more pictures if there was more free Internet access (more free advertising for you). Every destination was superb. Holland is really beautiful. I loved all our stops and all our rides. Fantastic scenery all around. To improve this trip experience — more information is needed about the bikes available. These were not light-weight touring bikes. They were old, heavy-duty city bikes with new gears and brakes. These bikes were too heavy, cumbersome and uncomfortable for 40-50 km/ day in all weather for 6 days. I have experience with other tours that offer better bikes as the standard. Perhaps these can be the discount bike. Have on offer better bikes!!! There was no drinking water available on board without an unreasonable cost. The mark up on the bottled water was 10-20 times what it cost in the village stores. Drinking water on a summer bike trip is a health issue, not a courtesy. Water needs to be freely provided or at least reasonably priced!!! Not to mention the environmental pollution due to the small, un returnable bottles solely available on board. The ride to Texel we learned could be dangerous in certain weather; in fact we adjusted our crossing due to safety concerns. Passengers should be told about life vests, what to do in the case of an emergency, etc. We received no such information. Traveling with children places more safety requirements on the tour and crew. But everyone should know about life jackets on a boat! More consideration needs to be placed on where one can use the toilet. These places should be marked on the map. There are cafés, but we were often turned away even if we offered to pay. Perhaps there needs to be a wider system of ECO toilets on the map at convenient nodes. It must be possible to go to the bathroom on route. Perhaps rightly so the same cafés are tired of handling 100s of bikers every week! Again, on other bike trips, toilet stops were clearly part of the deal – no stress.

Really had a wonderful time on the recently added Bourdeaux, Boat Bike tour. This well laid out tour lets you bike along quiet country roads with scenic vineyards and chateaus from five major producing regions. The MS Bordeaux was clean and well presented, the crew friendly and courteous. For me the highlight on board the ship was the excellent French meals and a later sampling from the wine region we were to visit the next day. If you are not a bike rider or just out of shape, consider renting an ebike as this tour has some gentle to moderate hill climbs. Merci Beaucoup to the Captain and crew, Scott, Pascal and the Chef du Maison.

We did the Paris to Epernay Champagne tour in early July. We were blessed with amazing weather (no rain at all while cycling). The crew of the Zwaantje are truly outstanding. They work together like a well oiled machine and always with a smile on their faces. The on-board meals, served ‘family style’ were plentiful and equal to many luxury sea-cruise lines we’re taken before. The cabins are small, but you’re only there to sleep and shower, so they’re sufficient. They were cleaned each day while we were out. The sundeck (roof) was great for relaxing (and dancing some nights) after dinner. Martijn (captain/owner) altered the morning routine a couple of days at our group’s request to give us a breakfast cruise along the river. He indicated he may add this to the itinerary for future trips. It was beautiful to enjoy the early morning sun on the roof as we glided along. The bicycles are all Treks for the non-ebike versions. Great shape and easy to adjust. The cycling part of the tour was wide ranging from flat to steeper hills (both up and down). Our guide, Mijntje, speaks English, Dutch, German, Italian, and French. As we explored the French countryside, we’d stop for pictures and information about the areas we visited. We also visited a few champagne houses, from large commercial operations to small family run enterprises. Our favorite was Champage Nowak. Be sure to buy some bubbles when you are there! Every evening there was an optional (no charge) walking tour of the town where we were moored. Led by Mijntje. As the Euro Cup was on, we also went to a few pubs to cheers on the teams in the evening. I highly recommend this tour. We’ll be back to go on the Bruges to Amsterdam beer tour!

We had a very good, relaxing experience. Our time on the boat was very pleasant. The rooms were a little small but perfectly adequate and always cleaned thoroughly each day. The food was excellent and we really enjoyed our time with our fellow guests at table. The bike routes were well selected and the rides were very enjoyable. One small criticism is that the maps provided certainly sufficed in rural settings but were sometimes inadequate once the route entered a crowded urban environment.

The Magnifique II is a beautiful barge. It was a pleasure to return each day to this oasis of the senses. The food was exceptional. The crew were personable and enthusiastic. They went out of their way multiple times. The bikes worked out well and we enjoyed each day’s ride. We think Mariels, our guide, was superhuman to bike all day, then do an after dinner town tour. This was a memorable experience!

This is a bike boat tour. It is about biking every day in all elements to see the country side and parts of cities and towns. The cabins are small but adequate for the purpose of the cruise. Three meals are provided each day. The staff was very helpful and nice.

Boating was fun, always enough wind for the sails to be hoisted! E-bikes were mostly good, but power setting on one bike was not satisfactory. Food on board a plenty, great honesty system for the bar! Cabins good for size of the boat!

We had a great week on the Magnifique II going from Brugge to Amsterdam. The boat far exceeded our expectations for facilities – lots of light, beautiful furnishing, nice decorations – and the crew were warm, knowledgeable, and fun. We set off a lot on our own without the larger group and appreciated the maps and tips on how to navigate both Belgium and the Netherlands on bike. Thanks for a great week. We will be back!

Overall this was a great trip enjoyed by all of our party of four. I would recommend this tour to anyone – especially those that don’t like cycling up hills. Just be aware that isn’t a luxury cruise, some of it is basic but this is very much in line with the price you are paying. I would say it is good value for money. The selected cycle routes were well chosen and very easy to ride though the flat Dutch countryside. We were supplied with a map detailing all routes and every day our guide Marguite (I hope I spelt that correctly) explained the routes, provided a list of cycle junctions to follow (much easier than following cycle routes in the UK) and explained where we would meet up with the boat. Marguite also cycled the routes at a relaxed pace and was contactable by phone if we got lost. The countryside was beautiful with windmills, quaint villages, beaches, dykes and lakes. It’s worth emphasising how safe and plentiful the cycle routes in this part of the world are. The rental bikes were standard Dutch type (wide handle bars) – easy to ride but very heavy. Most of the bikes applied brakes when you back peddled – something I’d never had before and it took quite a bit of getting used to. The bikes came with an easy to use in-built lock. One point to note: if possible, arrive at the boat quite early to select your bike – in our party of four lads, we had two smaller ladies bikes as there were no other bikes available. The boat was clean and the all the crew were helpful and friendly. The accomodation was small but not unexpectedly so. We had three people in one room which had two bunk beds with the top bunk quite close to the ceiling (maybe 80cm). I wouldn’t recommend four in this room as someone would have had to sleep right next to the air conditioning unit (which worked well to keep the room at a good temperature). The shower area was large and the rest of the bathroom was reasonably sized. The lounge area and the sun deck provided pleasant spaces to relex in when not cycling or eating. There were five meals where we were cruising over canals or open water, which was very pleasant and there was lots to see when travelling in the boat. The places we stayed overnight were almost all in very nice small towns with lots to see (and places to drink in). The one exception was a marina in Den Oever that didn’t have much to see though we were able to find a quaint bar serving the local sailors. The additional features – two walking tours round city centres and a guided trip round a local cheese shop were interesting, especially if you hadn’t already walked around the towns. Although we missed the music night, it seemed to be very popular with the rest of the boat. The food was always plentiful though sometimes lacked variety. Breakfast always had 3 or 4 different types of bread, cheese and meats plus boiled eggs, muesli, granola, fruit yoghurt, spreads and a special each day (scrambled eggs, bacob, hotdogs). Lunch was a bottle of water, a fruit and sandwiches you made yourself from the breakfast foods. The dinner was a bit “school dinner” in quality. The starter and dessert were small but tasty. The filling main course usually had two salads, meat or fish, 2-3 vegetables and two types of potato – mostly these seemed to be made from frozed but the crew did their best to make them appealing by providing sauces and mixing in meat and spices. One small complaint here – I wasn’t a fan of was using fruit youghurt as a salad dressing. One of our party was vegetarian and was generally well catered for though he was a bit bored of cheese by the end of the trip. One small complaint would be the extra costs, which were introduced on the first night: – An optional 10 euro supplement to insure the bike that I’d already spent 70 euros on hiring – The boat had a token system for buying drinks which made some drinks expensive – 5 euro for half a litre of lager or for a two glass caraffe of wine was OK but 17.5 euro for a bottle of wine and 2.5 Euro for a small bottle of water was excessive. The price of water was particulary bad considering that water was not served with dinner. You are only allowed to drink your own alcohol (bought off the boat) in your cabin, which is a bit cramped for that kind of thing. One point of interest, in Amsterdam almost everyone speaks English as a second language but in North Netherlands, German is the second language. A lot of people do speak English but we occasionally struggled to make ourselves understood. For example, the brewery tour on the island of Texel was only in Dutch or German – they still had a tasting menu of drinks (very nice) but our Dutch or German wasn’t good enough to go on the tour (which looked good).

Excellent bike routes through Bordeaux and surrounds. Three meals a day provided of excellent quality for overall price of tour. Only negative is extremely poor Wifi which must be fixed. Locally bought wine should be allowed to be brought onto boat with a corkage charge. Overall very good value for money if you like an active holiday and not just lounging on a cruise boat !