Recommend the private tour! - Best thing. Great tour guide (Mirek) sharing his vast historical knowledge while driving us to and back from the Elblag Canal tour.

An unforgetable day on the Elblag canal - it was a grey, cold and rainy day. My driver and I arrived vefore a tour bus and were treated to cake, tea and coffee. How lovely of the crew!. The tour is about an engineering miracle. in waterand over dry lansd with the same boat. I keave it for you tosee how that is possible! A group of lovely school children were on the boat and talked to me rhrough google transkate. Theywere very sweet, wrll behaved and adorable. .My driver and I went to the town of Elblag for coffee and the beloved cake of Pope John Paiul II. I could visit the church and. walk atound. i was also given useful tips n what to do back in Gdansk. It was an unforgetable day despite miserable weather. Ronél Smit Johannesburg

Excellent tour and guide - Picked up at our hotel an driven to the starting point in a private car. Michael was very knowledgeable and provided us with lots of information about places on the route. He saw us onto the boat and was waiting for us at the other end. We really enjoyed to canal trip it's quite a unique experience going uphill on land in a boat. We could have stopped off for an hour or so in Elblag but decided to go straight back to Gadansk as we wanted to go to the WW2 museum so Michael dropped us off there. Great tour and tour operator.

The background to... - The background to construct such unique transportation system is very interesting. The guide explained in English for us.

This trip was very interesting. - A very unique and interesting solution. We liked it. We made a returntrip Buczyniecist - Katy. Four languages were spoken while driving about the history of the canal.

Very nice day and trip to Elblag Canal - Ever since seeing the Elblag Canal on Michael Palin's video, we had wanted to go on this canal. I saw this tour advertised on Trip Advisor and selected it. We are very glad I did. Michael picked us up at our Gdansk hotel and on the way to the canal, gave us lots of info about Poland and the surrounding area. the ride on the boat in the canal was really great. We were joined by a bus (small number) of people and had a good intro video. The canal is very peaceful and transitioning up and down the various levels was most enjoyable and interesting. After the canal Michael took us to a nearby town for a small break and we walk a couple blocks and went into the church there. It was a very enjoyable day and I would do it again.

An easy day out from Gdansk - A pleasant drive into the country outside Gdansk with a stop for coffee and a sandwich on the return trip. Enjoyable commentary en route, but there was no English language presentation while on the canal itself. Seeing and experiences the technology first hand was delightful.

A really lovely day out - We were picked up promptly by our driver Michael who then drove us to the canal boat for our tour. I have to give him a special thanks as he was so friendly telling us all about the surrounding land and the history and the economy of it. He also was telling us about an area close to the hotel we would never have found out about if it wasn’t for him! The canal tour was absolutely lovely and a very chilled experience pottering down the canal and moving through the pulley systems making it up. One of the best bits was that we were allowed to go out onto the side of the “carriage” on the last pulley to get a better look and to take photos. The whole experience took about 3-4 hours. Michael said that it’s normally shorter but we got lucky as the weather had been so good today that we got to do the whole length. The one very small downside is that the commentary wasn’t in English, but we were the only English people on there and we shouldn’t expect to be catered for just because we’re English. If you speak Polish or German you should be fine. Michael did a good job of filling in all the gaps for us on the way there so we didn’t feel like we missed out. We then had a short stop off in the town of Elbląg for a very late lunch where we were lucky enough to be there for a dragon boat racing festival. Unfortunately I think all the racing had finished but there was still a lively buzz around the place. A really lovely day out and a lovely chilled experience.

Five stars for the guide, two for the boat - To do positives and negatives - the positives first - the way the boat is carried is very unusual and very interesting so it is definitely something worth seeing and we are very glad that we did. Unless you were travelling in your own car it would be very difficult to get to on your own from Gdansk, so if you want to see it - take the tour. Scenery is lovely too. As everyone says, Michael is a great guide - lovely man and very interesting to talk to. As for the negatives - the boat was crowded. We were lucky to be seated near to the openings for the exit but there was a lot of jostling for position as people came to look out/take photos etc. It was therefore disappointing and frustrating to see that the few boats we passed going in the other direction all had roof decks with people sitting on them enjoying all round views of the countryside. I don't know whether this tour always uses the same boat or whether it is luck of the draw on the day. We were lucky with the weather and obviously you wouldn't want to be sitting outside in the rain. Three stars is an average - we would give Michael five stars but for the cost of the trip I think it would be nice to have a good views consistently without having to keep giving up your seat to let others have a look outside. Don't like to sound churlish and wouldn't even have thought of saying all this if we hadn't seem other boats where people seemed to be having a more relaxing viewing experience. This is the sort of niggle you forget in time but we will remember fondly our time with Michael and his sharing of his insightful thoughts on his country's history and culture. Loved Gdansk and hope to come back and would love to do other tours with Michael as our guide.

Five stars and one star averages three. - This is both a 5 star and a one star review, averaging three. 5 stars: The fee includes hotel pick up. The “driver” was actually a highly experienced, knowledgeable, and gracious licensed tour guide named Mirek. He had been a guide under in both communist and democratic times, having lived half his life in both. He and I both adored the Gdańsk shipyard where the Solidarity movement started so he showed me a few things I hadn’t seen there since we had time. The drive to Elblag was a little over an hour each way and those two hours spent with Mirek were two of my entire trips’ favorite. While driving Mirek spoke from the heart on a wide range of topics. Mirek leads many other tours, he’s not a “driver”. So my expectations were wildly exceeded for the pick up and delivery. 1Star: The Elblag tour itself. It was not in English. I went to learn about the engineering and the man who built it, not just a view of an endless canal.. It was standing room only-think crowded bus… I asked the captain (some other passengers translated) to get off and the captain said it was not possible so I was stuck for 3 hours. The tour operator from Gdańsk said he could arrange a pick up for me despite the captain saying no (I had a moment of phone reception), and I could call Mirek. I was even willing to walk back… At that point he crew decided to let me sit on the bow so then I could see the views. Beautiful scenery from there. Really lovely but boring. 3 hours was way too long but from the bow it was pleasant. I didn’t want to spend a precious day on a boat ride. I was there to deepen my understanding of the canal system and hopefully see some birds (no luck). Lesson learned: make sure you are on one of the boats with roof top seating (some have that). Don’t go on a Polish holiday when everyone wants to take their kids on a boat ride. Know you won’t have reception making calling for a pick up difficult. Think twice about going if the weather isn’t excellent. Confirm that your boat captain will do the tour in English. If you can, ask for Mirek to drive you, without him, I would have asked for a refund. Because of Mirek, and being allowed to sit on the bow, it was a nice day.