This is a follow-up of my previous post (now closed) Boat hire in Hungary.
OK, so here is my follow up. We completed this trip in early September 2024. Overall I'd give it a 5/10. Some if the deficiencies were not the fault of anyone (weather) and some we a combination of issues between us and Nicol’s Boat Charter and some based on location. The plan was for a 3 night trip. Here goes:
TL:DR-Pretty. Boat was nice. Things are only open Weds (or Thursday) though Sunday. There is not much to do the other days of the week. Nicol’s doesn’t quite have its act together in Hungary yet.
We arrived in Budapest on a Saturday and planned on taking the train from Budapest to Tokaj on Sunday to begin our trip. The train trip was fine, though it takes about 3 hours. It was comfortable and professional. We arrived in Tokay around 3pm. I guess I had expected the Tokaj station to be a bit bigger than it was as the town itself is a tourist attraction (wineries). Nope. Nothing. We needed to get from the station to our train. We tried calling the Nicol’s rep in Tokay. Nope. Phone number disconnected. There was another number to call. Nope. Disconnected. We tried calling the Nicol’s number in France and England. Nope. No one there on a Sunday. I emailed them (more of an FYI) and they never responded. Finally saw a number pasted to the phone booth for a taxi and got a ride to the boat (or the address on the instructions). Turned out the address was a bit wrong. We had to walk about ¼ mile (about ½ kilometer) down a dirt road to get to the boat. We saw the boat, but the office’s were not clearly marked, though we eventually found it. Fortunately there was someone there actually expecting us!
We got this person’s personal number and it was different than all the other number we had (and he promptly answered his phone each time we called). He introduced us to the boat. He pretty much gave us an itinerary that we could conceivably complete over the 3 nights and 4 days. We rented bikes and had to take to boat to another dock to pick them up. There were no markets within walking distance to the boat, so had to take the taxi.
Based on the guy in the office, our fist stop was to be Timar. He told us there was a nice fish fry restaurant right on the water. What he didn’t tell us was that it closed at 7pm on Sunday and was not open again until Thursday. We got there about 7:05pm. No service. There was NOTHING else in Timar. We had eggs (from the market) for dinner. We docked there overnight. As an aside, you can only dock at Nichols docks. There are plenty of them and they seemed to be in good condition and all had shore power.
The next morning we shoved off and headed to Szbolcs where there was an old (1000AD) soil fort and a good Indian restaurant. Unfortunately, the Indian restaurant was only open Thursday-Sunday (it was Monday morning). The “fort” was ok, but a 30 minute visit. We waled around town and went to a market for a few more groceries. It started raining. We rode bikes in the area along very nice bike paths and rode to Balsa. It was a nice little town, but there was not much there. We were unable to find any open restaurant open within a boat or bicycle ride. There were restaurants, just open later in the week or the weekend only. We stayed there overnight.
We headed back to Tokaj, figuring it was a (relatively) big place. Now it was really raining. We walked to Tokaj form the dock and got really wet. It was about a 1 mile walk (2 K) Some restaurants were open, most of the wineries were closed (again open Weds-Sunday). It was nice and we had a good time, but the rain and the persistently closed establishments kind of got us down.
The rivers (Bodrag and Tisza) were nice) They were pretty and easy to navigate. The Nicol’s docks were well marked. The boat was comfortable, was well equipped and in good condition.