Skipping a tour activity?

Are you talking about a Rick Steves Tour?. If yes, it's fine. Just make sure your guide, and buddy, know.

We've been on several RS tours. Occasionally someone bows out of an activity for all sorts of reasons, and as long as you mention it ahead of time and work it out with your guide in advance, it's fine. Of course, if you plan on skipping something on a bus transportation day from one hotel destination to another destination stay, that's more complex. Your guide will work with you, and yes mention it to your buddy as a courtesy as well.

If you aren't famililar, everyone has a buddy on a RS tour, with whom you cross check to make sure nobody gets left behind when the bus departs, or an activity is over. It's not your travel partner, as if you both go missing, who would report you missing? So your buddy throughout the trip is someone who is not your travel partner. It all gets worked out at orientation.

I have I have not yet taken a Rick Steves tour, but I have done this on a couple of other tours that I’ve taken

As long as you let the tour guide know and don’t just disappear off the face of the Earth, it’s never been a problem.

I have to meet this buddy system seems a little strange. They have 24 people. Can the tour guide not count?

The buddy system works really well.
I've watched guides with other companies count and recount, and wonder who was missing.

Last year in Berlin, during the Berlin, Prague & Vienna tour, I left the walking tour early because I had timed tickets for the Bundestag tour. I let the guide and my buddy know beforehand and when I left. It was not a problem.

Absolutely, you can skip an activity. Tell your guide a couple of days ahead of time, just in case they know the timing of the skipped activity will be different than you’re expecting. Then remind your buddy the day of that activity.

I actually skipped one location on my last RS tour. I told my guide early in the tour, reminded her the day before, and handed her a paper with my ferry reservation times to/from the island I wanted to stay at and my B&B reserved, so she knew all of my info and didn’t need to worry about me.

I have never taken a Rick Steves tour, but I have almost always skipped one or more planned activities on other tours. It often helps to build some trust and credibility with your guide first. Once you demonstrate that you can navigate on your own and return on time, tour guides are usually agreeable to whatever you want to do.

On my first trip to Europe, a Colette tour, my mother and over half the tour group missed the connection from Atlanta to Rome (through no fault of their own). I arrived in the morning, and those who missed the flight didn't arrive until late afternoon. I asked my tour guide what time I needed to be back at the hotel, and I took off to explore Rome on my own for the day. I arrived back at the hotel on time, having explored a whole laundry list of places. After that, our guide gave me a thumbs up anytime I wanted to explore on my own. I am always extremely careful to be back at the appointed location on time so as not to hold up the rest of the group.

The buddy system works quite well, much better than counting and recounting heads. The guide calls out "buddy check", you look around for your buddy, make eye contact, and it's all good. If your buddy is missing, you tell the guide, and it's immediately obvious who it is.
You don't have to hang out with or become best friends with your buddy. I don't remember my buddy's name from one tour, and another one I've kept in touch with for 21 years.

If it’s a seasoned guide, I’ve noticed they normally do a quick count, too. In Venice, our guide asked why we were short two and asked for another buddy check. Seems one couple had decided not to partake in the buddy system and had been left behind. And as for your question, it’s been a normal occurrence to opt out on something. As other have said just let your guide and buddy know so no one is scrambling to find you.

A good "guide" will also do a count.

Let's say the guide tells everyone departure is 3 PM. Most people are back by 2:55. She calls for a "buddy check." Only my buddy is so busy storing the cool souvenirs she just bought that she ignores the call for a "buddy check." (Don't say it doesn't happen because it actually happened to me numerous times on the same tour.)

No one says their buddy is missing so the coach pulls away. I turn the corner before departure time and see the coach pulling away. I can't get hold of the guide. I now have to find my way to the next stop. I also miss out on something.

Who pays for it? Me? My buddy? The tour company?

Is there something in the tour agreement that says you are legally and financially responsible for your "buddy" if you make a mistake?

In my experience on three RS tours, the buddy check is just one way of ensuring that everyone is where they are supposed to be. The guide always does their own count, too. That's one of the good things about having no more than 28 people on the tour; it's easy enough to do a quick count and it's also easy enough for everyone to know when someone is missing.

”No one says their buddy is missing so the coach pulls away. I turn the corner before departure time and see the coach pulling away. I can't get hold of the guide.”

Our guide gave us her phone number during the first evening, just in case.

After seeing a few times that my buddy on the last tour was listening to music with headphones instead of the guide, I asked a couple of my new friends on the tour to also take a quick glance towards me to make sure, as a solo traveler, I didn’t accidentally get left behind.

Buddy System remark: It works great most of the time. We were wearing our headsets so I could hear the guide. We had just gotten off a train. I must have been about 100 feet from the group behind a crowd trying to catch up. Imagine my surprise was the guide said, "Buddy Check" and then "We are all here, good" .............

On the Best of England tour, we were at Wells Cathedral and I got confused about the meeting spot to return to the bus. I guess everyone was on the bus, and my buddy swore she saw me getting on, but it turns out there were 2 people with a blue jacket. My sister in law searched through the cathedral until she found me…waiting for all those tardy people at what I thought was the meeting place.

The tour guide stressed the importance of making meaningful eye contact each and every time. He did not trust my buddy to do that, so offered himself up to be my buddy. The buddy system works well only if everyone on the tour is consistent. BTW, if you pick the tallest person to be your buddy, they’re easier to spot.

I always make eye contact with my buddy, and vice versa, so there's no cursory glance assuming that your buddy is one of the 6 people wearing similar jackets and all look alike from the back. Hopefully, eventually my husband would also notice at some point if I wasn't on the bus. For solo travelers, probably buddying up with one another is extra precaution. It's a nice reassurance to have. You're all on the tour together, and I've found on RS tours, people genuinely care about everyone's well being and look out for one another. (Or we've just been real lucky so far!)