Berlin Bike & Barge

This adventure was a luxury river and sea cruise utilising bicycles to experience the NE corner of Germany. The highlights were the service from staff, the accommodation and food, and riding though agricultural countryside, forests and waterways. Even though there were a high number of people, there was never any sense of being too crowded.

Really well organised. The bike was great and the crew on the boat were friendly and efficient. Loved it.

We thoroughly enjoyed our bike and barge trip. For personal reasons we were unable to join the barge on the first day, but the captain and tour director without any fuss were happy for us to join on day 2. The bike trips and places we visited were interesting, the bike riding was fun (distances easily managed and navigation easy most of the time with a very good mobile phone app). The barge was very comfortable, like a high quality hotel (small cabins excellently designed) and the food excellent - perhaps too much so with a 3-course meal every night! The bikes were sturdy and well serviced (our e-bikes were very new). Our reservations about the tour are: a) very little English is spoken on board. All guests except us were native or (if not native) fluent German speakers, but only a couple were fluent in English. The tour director’s English was not that good and we didn’t really learn much about the route at each morning briefing. Similarly with the captain’s briefing. The burser (manager) however was fluent in English and always helpful. Because we could not follow the daily oral briefings from the tour director, without the navigation app (Guibo) the printed route notes (although in English) would perhaps not be quite enough. b) the cycling is not at all demanding. Very flat, low distances, though you can take some extended routes here and there. We really didn’t need e-bikes for this trip! c) the level of service is pitched very high - for us very luxurious - reflecting the high cost of the package.

The ship was great and all of the staff excellent.