Coronavirus outbreak Northern Italy

All universities in Emilia Romagna closed for the coming week. This train will end in Bologna instead of Milano Centrale because of the scheduled stops in Modena, piacenza, Reggio Emilia.... passengers can take other trains from Bologna to Milano. It’s becoming more real here.

We're scheduled to end a trip in Venice in 3 weeks...definitely panicked this morning waking up to this news!

Carnaval festivities in Venice have just been cancelled.

Damn, we're scheduled to start a three-week trip Sunday, March 1, arriving at Marco Polo and beginning in Padua.
Unsure what to do at this hour, but am eyeing maps and thinking of landing at Marco Polo and training immediately south. Maybe.
It will interesting to see what RS does with the tours that start in early March.

We have never traveled on a Rick Steves tour before. We are scheduled to leave in 3 weeks. So far the areas we are going to are not under the quarantine but as we have all seen this thing is spreading fast. Is there a possibility for safety reasons that Rick Steves Tour would cancel the tour and give you the opportunity to rebook at a different time without losing your money. We did not take travel insurance but this is above and beyond what anyone would have thought could happen usually the insurance is meant for other reasons. Anybody have feedback they could give me.

Re: the question of would Rick Steves' Tours allow you to cancel and rebook another tour (or at a different time), since the virus situation (and potential risk, since it unknown how long its duration will be or how wide its reach may become), it is best that you call the Rick Steves' Europe headquarters (Rick Steves' Tours operating company) and ask them. Please post what you learn.

This weekend, I took a few minutes to look up tours for a few of my favorite tour companies, and I noticed there has been significant drop off (new availability for others to sign up). For the brands that I viewed (and I will be kind and not list them here), it is highly unusual to have some spring/summer/fall availability for popular tours, especially Italy..........as are showing up on their web sites now. So, you are not alone in your concern.

Even for America, I noticed some drop off on a high-end group tour company's web site for an Alaskan trip (but then noticed that particular trip uses a Princess ship), then there was now one date available for a trip for which they use a small French-owned ship, but I was surprised to see many dates available for one of their land-based, family-oriented Alaska trips (but maybe they added some additional dates recently....I had not looked at that tour before).

I will not comment on what I saw when I did the same quick look at available dates for country-specific Rick Steves' tours, because anyone on this Forum will know how to evaluate open dates for RS tours himself/herself.

Currently ban for all activities is set to lift on March 1 for much of the affected areas. Latest communication that I’ve received. I’m in Emilia Romagna and everything is cancelled beginning tomorrow.

The Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona was canceled a few weeks back. This is one of the biggest trade shows in the world. IBM, Verizon and AT&T just pulled out of the RSA Conference in San Francisco which occurs this week. That show will still go on, but in total fourteen companies have pulled out. I think anyone is right to be apprehensive around travel plans until this thing passes, especially to an areas where a significant number of infections have occurred.

There are a lot of what if's here, and unfortunately we can't know what will happen.

If you have booked airfare, stay in touch with your airline. If you can follow them on Twitter/Facebook, you may be able to see if they offer a travel waiver for certain regions for certain dates.

I'd definitely pay attention to the news, but I wouldn't panic. Concern, yes. This situation seems to change daily, but travel may still be possible.

PS - If you're booked into a tour through RS or another travel company, definitely contact them directly for their latest information. And if you're in the US, then follow the CDC guidelines for travel to other countries.

Looks like we are a "hope and pray" situation with respect to COVID19 and Italy. We have three hopes, First that our March flights will go and the Italian authorities will let us in to Milan. Second hope is we will be able to get to our destination, Cogne, a small mountain village. Third hope is that we are allowed to return to the states.

State Department Health Alert issued today: https://it.usembassy.gov/health-alert-u-s-embassy-rome-italy-february-23-2020/

Health Alert – U.S. Embassy Rome, Italy – February 23, 2020

Location: Regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto, Friuli Venezia
Giulia

Event: The U.S. Embassy continues to monitor the health situation in
Italy and recommends that individuals follow Italian health official
guidance and avoid government-designated affected areas. Due to
reduced staffing levels, the U.S. Consulate General in Milan has
suspended routine visa services until March 2, 2020. Both routine and
emergency American Citizen Services will continue at the Consulate
General in Milan. Full consular services are also available at the
Embassy in Rome and the Consulates General in Florence and Naples.

Hope we don't need consulate services.

I certainly hope the Italian people, and everyone Ill with the virus survive and get well soon.

Hello everyone,

Please see our response to the concerns regarding the coronavirus and travel here:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/coronavirus-what-you-need-to-know-about-travel-in-italy

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, we'd been scheduled to leave for Marco Polo-Venice on Sunday, March 1, for a three-week visit to northern Italy

We contacted our airline this morning and, fortunately, they offered to extend us a credit for the flights (to be used before year end) and waive the change fee.

So far, two of our planned pre-paid hotels agreed to refund with no cancellation fee. We asked another for a credit to be used later this year, but they will refund only 250 Euros of the 800-plus Euros we pre-paid. Travel points were being used for another and we'll have to see how they will handle.

I wonder how Trenitalia will handle the four/five pre-booked/pre-paid fares.

All in all, it looks like we're out about $1,000 or so. But we have a trip all mapped out for the fall, when, hopefully, things improve.

Trenitalia is offering refunds for pre-booked tickets for travel through 1 March..

https://www.trenitalia.com/it/informazioni/rimborso-per-rinuncia-al-viaggio-febbraio-2020.html

Also Italo:

https://italoinviaggio.italotreno.it/it/italo-informa/misure-iniziative-coronavirus

I would expect the dates to be extended beyond 1 March if the number of cases continues to rise.

Lola - Thanks for the Trenitalia refund tip. I'll keep an eye on their web pages to see if they extend the refunds.

That said, I have to say my dealings with Delta/KLM and Expedia were excellent. I'll gladly do business again with the airline and the hotels we booked through Expedia - and hopefully we will as soon as this virus situation is remedied.

SamA, I’m encouraged by your experience with Delta. I’m scheduled for the RS Venice-Florence-Rome trip flying out on 3/17. There are a couple weeks to see how things progress but I am on immunosuppressants so I am actually a little worried. Even if RS doesn’t cancel my doctor may recommend against it.

I will be very interested to see what happens to flights returning from Italy. The last thing I want is to be quarantined, especially at JFK!