Rick Steves Tour

What's your concern about your wife's CPAP?
I've done a dozen RS tours and use one, and I know many other participants do, too.

Not sure what information source you have, or the accuracy of information you might have, on "smaller beds" in Rick's hotel picks for this tour. What size bed(s) do you need? Booking.com often provides bed measurements in cm which you can convert to inches. So in light of your previous independent success with RS materials elsewhere in Europe, I'm just wondering... if Rick's bed offers don't meet your needs, why not organize your own two-week trip for G-A-S, one that is designed around just you two?

Any thoughts on this, and especially on this particular tour, would be
appreciated.

This particular tour itinerary is quite fast-paced and IMO attempts too many destinations in too little time. Some destinations have weak credentials for inclusion on a "best of" tour too, I think. Germany and Switzerland are independent-travel-friendly, and English is widely spoken. I could easily see a 2-week tour making different stops on a shorter overall route, one which might snip off the Wachau Valley and Vienna but would still include southern Germany, the Bernese Oberland and Alpine Austria, including the very scenic Arlberg Railway and Salzburg, with departure from MUC airport at the end. Such an itinerary could be accomplished either by train or by car.

I'd suggest calling the tour office and discussing your specific concern re: bed sizes. It's pretty rare to have king sized beds in Europe generally. FWIW I've been on 5 RS tours and there have been plenty of tall people and I don't recall any grumblings about beds (other than perhaps being too hard/soft for someone's taste).

And the CPAP should be zero problem other than possibly needing an extention cord to reach a wall outlet (which is not a RS tour issue, it's a hotel outlet placement issue).

This would be a good question for you to ask Rick's headquarters. I think most German double beds are two of their single beds, which are wider that our single beds, pushed together. I think in the US, a "Texas King" is two of our singles pushed together, and is wider than our standard King. So a double bed over there should be wider than your King at home.

Now, some places in Germany use what they call, "French beds", which are smaller than German double beds. I think they are about the size of what we used to call a full size bed (bed for two, smaller than a queen). According to the German Hotel and Gaststätten Verband (DEHOGA), which awards stars, any hotel with stars must tell you before you commit, that they have French beds. In over 160 nights in Germany, I have never had a French bed. I think I did have one in Prague, but since I was single, it wasn't a problem.

There are two different length of mattresses sold in Germany, 200 cm and 190 cm. 200 cm is about 6'7", 190 is 6'3".

But I don't know what Rick's organization checks for in booking hotels. As I said, you should ask them.

You can read DEHOGA's requirements here.

It's amusing. I think in the US, hotel stars are based on traveler's subjective opinion. In Germany, typical Germans, they are based on hard objective standards (size of rooms, size of beds, hours .

Well, it's good to be concerned. On my Ireland tour, most of the couples had rooms with two single beds. Yes, you can push them together. However, maybe that was Ireland? So it's a good idea to check with the RS office!

We did the RS Best of Germany tour last spring and all our beds were twin size pushed together with individual comforters. It’s been a number of years since we did the GAS tour but we have been to Switzerland recently with the same type of set up in hotels.

We are still in Berlin after finishing the Best of Germany tour on the 18th. My husband is 6’2”, I’m 5’9.5” and all our beds were fine. Definitely long enough for him and frequently appeared to be king sized width too. I’ve done 13 tours now and I think the hotels have gotten more upscale over the last 5 years or so. Great tour by the way, we all wished it was longer.

On my Ireland tour, most of the couples had rooms with two single beds.

In Germany, they have DZ, Dopelzimmer, rooms with a double bed, and ZB or 2BZ, Zwei Bett Zimmer, a room with two separate single beds.

all our beds were twin size pushed together with individual comforters.

In all my years travelling in Germany, I don't think I've ever been anywhere that didn't have beds for two with "individual comforters". (I call it German birth control)

I remember one trip, it was late in the fall. In real German Hotels and Gasthäuser, they turn off the heat at night, so the room was really cold, but under the Federdecke (I think it was Eiderdown) it was so warm, I was roasting. I finally had to hang one leg out from under the duvet to regulate my temperature.

Jim,

Just to be on the safe side, it would be a good idea to check the power supply for your wife's CPAP machine, to ensure that it's capable of use on 220 volt electrical systems. It's highly likely that it is, but still good to verify that. You will of course need plug adapters.