“Summary of Issues Experienced During Hooked on Cycling Sound of Music and Danube Holidays
The first problem that we encountered was the fee Hooked on Cycling charged each of us to roll the trip back a year during the covid pandemic. With a non-refundable deposit already made, we paid the required additional fee, but have always felt it was completely unjustified, as this was not our fault.
Handlebar bags. We’re told we each would be given handlebar bags for the Danube trip in emailed documents. "A gift to you" the material stated. When we pointed out that we were short four bags, we were told that each hotel room booked gets a bag, not each person. This was very misleading. Again, in the previous week tour we had handlebar bags and were counting on the space and access of this type of bag.
Rental Bikes were not ready to rent and in poor condition when we arrived at the bike pickup. About 90 minutes was needed to adjust and repair bikes. This was a very poor way to begin our Danube trip. Even more time could have been taken on the bikes but the older head person, in addition to doing shoddy work was obnoxious and disrespectful. We could only take so much of being around him
When we documented our concerns to HOC concerning the problems when picking up the bikes, it was pointed out that we were given vouchers to take to a bike shop so we could bring any bike in for repair. This is a great idea for problems that occur during the tour but does not make up for neglecting to check the bikes before renting them out. This was a very poor response by HOC.
Navigational APPs were a great idea and they did help us to navigate efficiently through places that would have taken much longer using the paper method, but... On two back-to-back trips, one two week and one week, we were given 3 different GPS based navigation methods. We found this cumbersome using a different system each week even when on the same trip on the Danube. Additionally, we had constant problems with the first two systems in particular and the second system, Passau to Vienna, was a website not an APP, which was quite difficult to use. On the first two systems, the position curser would intermittently freeze, or the map would not update, or the position curser would disappear entirely. We found ourselves closing the APP or website, reopening it, which was most annoying and time consuming. After that we would need to set it up each time. This varied from one source to another.
Several Ferry crossings were required in order to stay on the planned route. These were drawn on the course we followed (purple line) but not mentioned in the written instructions all the time. We would be riding along to discover that there was a ferry we needed to take right now. We were not provided vouchers for several of these crossings. Fortunately, we had enough cash on us to cover them. Crossings were usually located away from towns (ATM machines) and rarely took anything but cash. This could have been a very bad situation if we didn’t have cash.
Late bag delivery twice. Information within APPs stated that bags were guaranteed to be delivered to the hotel by a certain time. When bags arrived 2 1/2 hours late one night we complained. The response was “we don’t guarantee bag delivery” the APP is a second party APP (implying that the guarantee doesn’t apply because of this). Take responsibility for the information you provide your customers, don’t skirt responsibility and blame someone else.
In Summary, it was HOC’s responses or lack of responses to our issues that created our greatest dissatisfaction. Rather than comforting their clients during holidays in a foreign country, HOC defensively made excuses rather than addressing the issues at hand.”
“I have just done 3 tours with Hooked on Cycling and they were superb. Great service during the booking process. Rented bikes we excellent quality. Hotels all very good and the landscapes in Scotland absolutely stunning . Cannot fault these guys”
“I have just done 3 tours with Hooked on Cycling and they were superb. Great service during the booking process. Rented bikes we excellent quality. Hotels all very good and the landscapes in Scotland absolutely stunning . Cannot fault these guys”
“I submitted a booking request for a 5 day tour, which was provisional and still needed to be confirmed by Hooked on Cycling. However they required the entire amount to be paid for this provisional request, which was about $1,180 USD. Then they informed me they could not find bikes to rent for this cycling tour, and so I decided to go ahead with the full refund they offered me. However in the time between the booking request and the refund, the exchange rate changed and so they refunded me in GBP which then got converted to a USD amount less than what I initially paid. When I emailed to ask why I did not get my full refund they responded that they can’t do anything about the exchange rate. Well as a business they are requiring customers to pay the full amount for a provisional booking request and so I am being forced to pay for a service they ultimately couldn't provide which is not my fault however I am the one losing money. That is poor customer service and I will not be using them in the future.”
“This family run business really do offer a first class service. No question is any issue and they answer quickly, we had a lovely trip in Scotland, the scenery is breathtaking, the bikes first class. Nick at Hooked on Cycling adjusted our bikes on delivery and showed us in person how the E-Bike worked. We shall be back”
“Simply a broker for other cycling tour companies, most of which speak English and have English websites (for instance, Radweg-Reisen.com in Germany). They make a sizeable markup for simply answering emails and accepting your payment. They add no value at all. Avoid this company for your next cycling tour.”
