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Biking sections of river/canal/barge cruises


ouse456
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ouse456,

As jazzbeau said, large river cruise ships now have these options, mostly it is a bike ride excursion which returns to the ship where it has been docked all the time while you were out. There have been few reports where people have actually been on a tour and caught up with the ship in the next port.

 

There are more specialised itineraries that focus on longer cycle rides. CroisiEurope does one for the German market, it is a trip along the Moselle. I do not know if it is available on the English-speaking market.

 

If you would like to do organized or self-guided bike rides of the more serious kind and possibly everyday, have a look at the niche market that one tends to call bike and barge. That could be helpful.

 

notamermaid

 

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Rad Reisen does bike and canal boat tours.

 

I saw one of their boats on the Rhine when I was walking along the river.  I took a picture so I could remember the name, and looked them up for my daughter.  It looks like fun, just not for me.  Motorcycles have spoiled me.

 

https://en.radreisen.at/

 

Between our 2016 to 2018 cruise, both on Vantage River Voyager, they went from 4 bikes to about 15 on board, including 2 e-bikes.

The 2018 cruise, twice I skipped day tours so I could explore and went around 35 miles each day, all on the e-bike.  One of the highlights of my trip.  The bike paths along the Rhine and Mosel were beautiful to ride on, great signage, and neat towns every fews kms it seemed.  Plus, you can ride one way and take a train back (in some spots).  The train cars had big symbols on them so you know which ones you can take your bike on.

 

And that's one of the great things about river cruising, my wife was happy on the provided tour while I was out and about.

 

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Avalon offered a bike tour from Durnstein to Melk, while the ship sailed. Uniworld offered a bike option between Boppard and Koblenz, also while the ship sailed. Uniworld also had an offering from Vernon to Giverny, IIRC, but the ship stayed in Vernon for that one, and the bikers returned.

 

Both lines had about 20 bikes onboard which could also be checked out in any other port.

 

Robin

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Scenic has bikes along the Danube for a 30KM trip along the river between 2 portages.  It was fun but there was 0 time along the way to see the towns we were pedaling through. Make sure to take coinage for rest rooms along the way or, ladies stand guard at the men's room door and use the men's room free of charge.  Scenic did tell other passengers that they would NOT take the bikes out of storage for any other days

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  • 3 weeks later...

We haven't been on Uniworld in a couple of years so this might have changed but in addition to the bikes carried on board for borrowing in port, the bike excursions were done on bikes specifically brought in by the excursion vendors along with the guide(s). My BIL, a very avid biker (100s of miles a week) with 5 Uniworld tours, rates the bike excursions and equipment very highly. 

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On 9/11/2019 at 11:32 AM, doverboy said:

Scenic has bikes along the Danube for a 30KM trip along the river between 2 portages.  It was fun but there was 0 time along the way to see the towns we were pedaling through. Make sure to take coinage for rest rooms along the way or, ladies stand guard at the men's room door and use the men's room free of charge.  Scenic did tell other passengers that they would NOT take the bikes out of storage for any other days

 

This is very odd. On our Amsterdam->Budapest cruise last year, Scenic had the bikes out and available for use at pretty much every stop, and the bikes were used quite a bit by passengers, for both short trips and longer excursions. This matches the description in their brochure, which says you can use the bikes to "discover on your own." I don't know why they weren't available on your cruise except for the one guided tour.

 

We unfortunately missed the Melk->Durnstein bike excursion on our cruise because we were swapping ships that day due to low water levels.

 

But we're booked on the Romantic Rhine & Moselle cruise for next year, and the itinerary says that during the Moselle cruise day there is an option for biking to Bernkastel instead of cruising during the afternoon, which I might do.

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Ouse456, I just got an email from Uniworld and thought of you.  They're partnering with a company by the name of Butterfield & Robinson to offer bike/cruise vacations.  Link to the Uniworld website below:

 

https://www.uniworld.com/en/butterfield-and-robinson/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=butterfieldrobinson&utm_content=consumeremail-10-5-2019-us&utm_subscriberkey=0032000001SRgCIAA1

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2 hours ago, Roz said:

Ouse456, I just got an email from Uniworld and thought of you.  They're partnering with a company by the name of Butterfield & Robinson to offer bike/cruise vacations.  Link to the Uniworld website below:

 

https://www.uniworld.com/en/butterfield-and-robinson/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=butterfieldrobinson&utm_content=consumeremail-10-5-2019-us&utm_subscriberkey=0032000001SRgCIAA1

 

and Trek partners with Scenic

https://trektravel.com/trip/rhine-river-cruise-bike-tour/

 

and Backroads partners with Ama

https://www.backroads.com/award-winning-tours/cruises

 

But these are specific sailings geared to cyclists.They aren't just cycling a small section of the route; there is daily cycling.

 

 

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