Sep 8, 2024
Amazing! - Our guide, Martin was excellent! So attentive to everyone and very knowledgable. The only thing, and it wasn’t his fault at all, was that we didn’t have enough time at the market to pick up food for our picnic lunch. Everything I tried was delicious and I wanted more time to browse and try things out! We were on a time crunch to fit everything in, but I enjoyed every moment!
Review provided by Viator
Sep 8, 2024
Awesome! - Martine was an excellent tour guide! He was super enthusiastic and made sure we were all having a great time! Definitely recommend this tour!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Aug 15, 2023
Amazing experience - highly recommend! - OJ was an amazing and fun guide! We had a great time on this tour - two moms, and three teenagers. We are travelers who normally do everything on our own, and once or twice each trip treat ourselves to a guided tour. Last year we did Fat Tire's tour in Munich, and so wanted to use them again in France. Highly Recommend! Versailles at sunset with all the fountains and gardens was the highlight of our time in France! They made everything so easy and it was a great value even though it is a little costly!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Jul 15, 2023
A long day well spent! - Fat Tyre Tours communicated very well and the tour took place in spite of protests going on disrupting many other events at the time. Everything was on time. Matt(hew), our guide, was relaxed, informative and fun to be with. He very professionally handled the situation when it turned out that one of our group members couldn't really cycle! The market in Versailles was somewhat disappointing; perhaps because I was expecting a more traditional, farm-style market with lots of fresh products for the picnic. The cycling, sights in the gardens, picnic, tour of the chateau and performances inside the chateau, as well as fountains - and fireworks shows afterwards, were all very special and definitely a more rewarding way of experiencing Versailles than usual. It is a long day, ending back in Paris at 2 am and thus not for the faint-hearted, but for us South Africans a once in a lifetime experience not to be missed!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Jun 29, 2023
Wonderful way to explore Versailles. - Wonderful experience with an outstanding guide. Carter was friendly, informative and fun. Highly recommend.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Jun 25, 2023
Our guide made it awesome! - Chai was entertaining, caring, and fun. He made it a great experience. We lucked out having the best guide!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Jun 23, 2023
Versailles on a bike - Great combination of biking and walking. Dan was informative and kept the large group of 18 on track.
Review provided by Viator
Jun 28, 2022
Worth the price - My wife and i really liked this tour. It was out first time in France and having some one showing you around was really helpful. The tour guide was really helpful and it gave a us a lot of recommendations. The Bike tour was awesome and i dont see how you can explore the gardens without a bike, it will simply take a lot of time.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Jul 30, 2023
Enjoyable - Well organised tour. The tour guides are friendly and helpful. The bike ride is enjoyable, you ride along the old laneways of Versailles.
The picnic opportunity is a nice touch and a chance to meet the others on the tour and see the palace from a different perspective.
You will still require some level of fitness to walk around the formal gardens within the palace as they are very extensive with a lot of walking required
If you do the sunset tour plan on a very late night as the fireworks do not commence until around 11.15pm, and the last train leaves around midnight.
My advice is to find a spot on the stairs to sit where you can look over the gardens and fountains and watch the fireworks, otherwise you are standing for a very long time. The palace is well worth the visit, absolutely amazing and very beautiful at night.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Jun 18, 2023
Versailles Firework Show- what we would do different - Fat Tire Tours is one of our favorite companies to tour with so please don’t take the three stars as it was a bad tour. It was average and we felt like it was going to be more. We met our group and took the metro to get the bikes. From there we rode to a market to get snacks for a picnic. We had 25 minutes to collect out picnic goodies and go to
The bathroom. We felt like we needed more time; knowing what we know now we would recommend bringing your picnic with you from Paris. Give people in our tour purchased all the sandwiches at the patisserie so options were limited. Not blaming them at all just stating options were limited. There were several specific markets there but with the limited time we were racing to get food. Finding a bathroom was not easy. We ended up going to McDonald’s and sneaking in when someone opened the door. You have to have a receipt to get in. We didn’t feel great about doing this but we were told it would be a bit before the next bathroom.
The bike ride it through town and traffic was hectic. We felt so sorry for our guide, Dan, as he would have to stop traffic’s for people lagging behind. The bike ride was lovely just a lot of traffic.
Our picnic was nice and Dan was attentive to filling our cups up with champagne! Nice! He had interesting stories and was funny.
We biked through the grounds and headed back in to town where we picked them up at. From there was walked to the palace and said our goodbyes to our guide.
As you walk through the palace there is a play on some of the rooms. You have to stay with traffic and until the end of the act. This took about an hour. You go through another gate to reach the gardens so keep your ticket! We had 2.5 hours until the fireworks. We were warned that if we went out of the palace we may not be let back in for the show. We decided to walk the grounds and head back to Paris.
Here’s what we would do different if we were going to take this tour again. 1. We would get our foo/drinks prior to departure in Paris AND enough for some munchies between the end of the tour and the fireworks. 2. Bring some cards or planned entertainment while waiting for the fireworks. The grounds are very pretty but wasn’t 2.5 hrs of walking pretty. 3. If you’re wanting to do a photo shoot consider at the time.
We skipped the fireworks all together because it was 8:15 and the started at 10:45. There’s a small kiosk for food but you can imagine what the line looked like; no idea what they offered
Our metro tickets didn’t work on the way back to Paris so we purchased new ones. When we contacted Fat Tire they were quick to reply via email and told us that we could have gotten them exchanged at the train station for free. It was 8euros so no big expense. Flat Tires customer service is superb!
We hated to give this tour only three stars but we just felt it was too long a wait for the fireworks and bicycling through the traffic wasn’t relaxing. We would recommend a friend go see the palace and call it a day.
It seemed like the locals were really getting into the theme and were dressed in period attire! It would be fun to join fiends and enjoy Versailles that way.
Review provided by Tripadvisor