Date: May 9th of 2021
By now, we know that the vaccinations are well on their way in the USA, pretty good in Canada and Europe, but not fast enough to resume regular travelling and offering our tours soon. We also know that we will, most likely, not be seeing any guests from Australia, New Zealand or South Africa this year. Also, we noticed, in general, that a lot of the travellers have decided to postpone travelling to Europe because of the continuing uncertainty, and decided to do something else this year instead.
This combination led to cancellation/rescheduling requests. And this led to the conclusion that we needed to cancel complete trips, and reschedule guests that were booked on hotel trips until the end of August, and the IRIS until early September.
After that date, we have enough guests at this point in time. the IRIS will start sailing on the 15th of September, on a 10 nights/11 days trip from Amsterdam to Cochem, continuing with a week trip to Metz (few cabins for this option)
We will offer the Moselle trips 4 times, to return back to Amsterdam in late October.
The hotel tour St. Moritz to lake Garda is still on offer, starts August 28th, has enough bookings to be a guaranteed departure (at this point in time). Could have up to 4 more guests.
Also, the DANUBE trip on the river cruise ship Primadonna is still scheduled and has a little group of guests, which is guaranteed departure (at this point in time). Scheduled departure 17th of September. Looking for around 6 more guests.
Our general policy still remains the same: we will make final decisions 3 months prior to the trip. After that cancellations will follow the regular rules unless the cancellation is due to covid 19.
Looking at what European countries are forecasting, the vaccinations should be done by August, among the total population above 18. Borders will be open, with proof of vaccination or a negative test result. All facilities will be open, and we can all enjoy the cycling tours.
Europe will not be as crowded as it used to be, due to tourism. Tourism will resume slowly, we hope you will be part of that by joining us on one of our tours soon.
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Date: November 26th of 2020
We published our last Covid statement end of May 2020. A long time ago. At that point, we hoped to be able to get back to normal by the end of the year. Well, we didn’t. At this point, there still is an ongoing struggle to deal with the virus. But, there are essential game-changers on the way. The good news about the vaccines is urging the government to prepare for plans on who can get a vaccine first, and at which stage in time. Expectations vary. Also, the testing improves, up until a level of instant testing. We also know that the hospitality business is suffering and a lot of countries depend on tourism for an important part. So we believe there will be a lot of effort on getting back to business a.s.a.p.
Our plans are still to offer tours as soon as possible, although we do realise that the first tours might be hard to imagine. We need more time, and we also need a flexible policy in regards to bookings and payments.
Our 2021 tours are well-booked because we had some guests who already looked at 2021 before Covid started to spread and we have rescheduled a lot of guests who booked for 2020.
But there are still options to book a tour with us for 2021!
The exception to our usual way of booking is that you can now get an free option on a booking and you do not need to decide upon it until we contact you four months before the tour departure date. Nor do we guarantee that we will sail.
In case your 2021 tour gets cancelled, we will give you a headstart to book a tour in 2022 if you like!
We will leave this policy in place until the uncertainty disappears, you can travel and we can run tours. Back to normal, more or less. So this policy will be temporary.
We want you to feel free to see what happens, and we will find out how you think and count heads to see if we have enough participants for the desired trip. In case the numbers are low, but you still want to come, we will try to find an alternative bike and barge trip for you, or you can stay on board of the IRIS as a hotel, and we will come up with some fun ideas on how to spend your time, including bike-rides.
Please know that we also offer bike tours with stays in hotels, no barges. Maybe this appeals to those who are a bit reluctant to be part of a group on a barge, with social distance rules still in place.
And, of course, you can also wait until the last moment to see if there is still space to join the trip.
Who knows how this new year will be? Maybe it will get jam-packed with tourism as soon as countries open up again, possibly there will be a high demand to travel after more than a year of not being able to do much alike. We hope you will stay safe and sound and can do what you like to do again soon.
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