Avoid Hooked on Cycling as a tour organiser
ChrisCee
Posts: 8
Just got back from a weeks tour of Aquitaine which had been organised by HOOKED ON CYCLING the Scottish based cycle tour organiser.
If you are considering arranging a holiday on your bike with luggage transfers my advice would be to organise it directly with the hoteliers, gites and chambre des hotes.
My partner and I paid nearly a £1000 each for 7 days touring between Chateux, B&B and hotels.
The service and support from Hooked on Cycling, who resold a tour from a Bordeaux based tour operator was nigh on useless!
We paid nearly £300 per night for £100 accomodation with £40 dinner/breakfast included. Although our luggage was transferred, I'd say you could do the same for 60% of Hooked on Cycling's charges.
We struggled to obtain an advance list of accomodation before the holiday started.
We had written confirmation that picnic lunches would be provided.This proved to be false as all our hotels/B&B said this hadn't been paid for. We challenged Hooked on Cycling whilst on holiday; they "said look at our website" for what you get, "we usually rely on our customers to proof read our literature". I have a great bike but it didn't come with wifi so reverting to the web is tough in the middle of Les Landes.
In mitigation the accomodation was adequate and meals OK. again I stress, you could do this yourself for considerably less.
So my advice; use the Hooked on Cycling website for inspiration but do not consider booking, you will be wasting your money.
If you are considering arranging a holiday on your bike with luggage transfers my advice would be to organise it directly with the hoteliers, gites and chambre des hotes.
My partner and I paid nearly a £1000 each for 7 days touring between Chateux, B&B and hotels.
The service and support from Hooked on Cycling, who resold a tour from a Bordeaux based tour operator was nigh on useless!
We paid nearly £300 per night for £100 accomodation with £40 dinner/breakfast included. Although our luggage was transferred, I'd say you could do the same for 60% of Hooked on Cycling's charges.
We struggled to obtain an advance list of accomodation before the holiday started.
We had written confirmation that picnic lunches would be provided.This proved to be false as all our hotels/B&B said this hadn't been paid for. We challenged Hooked on Cycling whilst on holiday; they "said look at our website" for what you get, "we usually rely on our customers to proof read our literature". I have a great bike but it didn't come with wifi so reverting to the web is tough in the middle of Les Landes.
In mitigation the accomodation was adequate and meals OK. again I stress, you could do this yourself for considerably less.
So my advice; use the Hooked on Cycling website for inspiration but do not consider booking, you will be wasting your money.
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Comments
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What you were paying a night would probably cover 5 days touring for my club-mates, even staying in hotels! Even £100 (120€ approx. in my mind) is expensive if you are out of a tourist-trap area, one would expect a high level of comfort for that. I can only hope that you haven't been turned off coming back to France by the experience. There are a lot of companies providing touring packages in France, there is really not much place for the bad ones.
You don't have the name of the Bordeaux company that organised the original package by any chance?0 -
Point taken. Without knowing the form in respect of whats good or otherwise, my partner and I thought we would pay a little over the odds for an "organised" tour. On reflection we realised a lot over the odds was more the mark.
The Bordeaux based tour organiser was a company called Evazio who I have to say were pretty helpful.
I have just checked their website and found my £987 tour with Hooked on Cycling could have been bought for £700. Caveat emptor!0
