Hi,
We are so excited to have the opportunity to travel again and have booked some RS tours for next year (April/May and August/September)). While we normally don’t book our hotels until about 6 months out, I am wondering if we need to book these now even though our tours are a year+ away. Thoughts on this?
I would book as soon as you can. The tour hotels can fill up. Do note the cancellation policies of the hotels.
Definitely book quickly - others on your tour will have the same idea... We booked our pre-tour nights as soon as we were confirmed for the tour. Definitely note cancellation policies - most allow for cancellation up to a 3-7 days in advance without penalty. Have fun!
What we've experienced is that hotels RSE uses are often having new RSE tour groups arriving every few days, so they are familiar with RSE tour groups' expectations, and will set aside blocks of rooms for extra days. A year+ out is hard to say. Worth a try, if you have a solid air itinerary. If the hotel has committed to support the RSE tour that far out, then they should be able to handle your direct request. You probably know to contact the hotel directly via email, explaining you are on the tour, as they may block these saved rooms from availability on their website booking engine or third-party sites.
Thanks, everybody. I figured with the flood of RS bookings it may be best to book now rather than later. This is especially true in Edinburgh with the Fringe going on when we will be there. I think there is a lot of pent up demand for next year RS tours or otherwise. I may also book the Tattoo as soon as it’s posted. We booked that 6 months prior a good number of years ago but we will probably need to do that earlier as well. Now I just need to figure out how many days we want pre and post tour for our tours.
Mary,
I hope you will share your experiences with the Scotland tour, I assume, the 13 Days? I have it on my list for future travels. I’m curious about going when the Fringe and the Tattoo are on.
Hi Judy,
We will share our experience of the Scotland 13 days but it won’t be until the fall of 2022. We have been to Edinburgh during the Fringe and it is crowded but fun. And the Tattoo was amazing so we are looking forward to doing that again. We are also looking forward to seeing the Highlands, etc. as our last visit to Scotland was Edinburgh and the borders area.
Mary
I just sent email to our hotel in Stockholm.
What hotel do you have in Edinburgh? We had the parliament hotel. We enjoyed our stay there.
Kim
For your spring tour, I would contact the hotel for extra nights. For the Fall tour, I think that is so far out I would not think they would book anything. Most places do not accept reservations more than a year in advance. Since you are there during event time, that may change things.
If you have the ID of the hotels I would at least contact them to find out when you can book them. The Aug/Sept may be too far out to book, but knowing when they will start gives you the best chance to get what you want.
Be sure the cancel/refund policy ( or lack thereof) is clear before committing any $$$ .
Good luck
Kim,
We are staying at the B&B Hotel in Edinburgh. I need to contact them to get a reservation. As someone mentioned, our trip to Scotland is in August 2022 and may be too far out to book. But it is during the Fringe so things are going to get booked up quickly. I sent you a PM.
Thanks, Joe. Yes, I want to make sure the booking is fully cancellable.
One tip when staying pre-tour in a tour hotel:
Get the room you really want even if you pay a bit more for it.
I paid extra for a balcony room over the river for two nights pre-tour in our hotel in Luzern. I loved the view! The hotel let me keep the same room for the tour nights as well. Mytwo night upgrade actually covered several nights.
Some of my fellow tour members received balcony rooms anyway. Some did not.
Consider what type of room you are selecting. It is likely to be your room for the entire stay.
I would book the extra nights as soon as possible. We were confirmed yesterday for BOEE and I emailed the first hotel in Prague today for one night prior to the tour starting as we definitely know our fly dates though we haven't booked flights yet. I'm also going to book 2 nights in Venice, which we will fly out of traveling there for a few days after our tour ends in Lake Bled, but I don't know where we are going to stay yet so that will have to wait. I imagine, like us, people are itching to travel so things will book up quickly.
I took care of the travel insurance this morning and will work on the hotels for Italy tomorrow. The hotels in Scotland and Ireland may not be bookable yet as they are in August/September but I will reach out to them as well this week.
I always book refundable hotels ASAP. I did find a great deal on a very fine hotel for one of my tours, but it's non refundable. Sorry, I am not going there. I would rather book a nice 3* hotel for $120 a night refundable, than a 5* hotel for $99 a night nonrefundable. We are too far out to be purchasing non refundable rooms. This is my two cents.
Or maybe we can talk Rick into getting us floor space in one of those Beer Garden tents he used way back when. :-)
We attempted to arrange extra days at the end of our Holland-Belgium tour early in May 2022 but the hotel in question was completely unaware that a Rick Steves tour was booked there. They have been trying to "clarify the situation" for several days now....it's very comical actually. Still waiting.....
Silas
Send RS’s office a note that the hotel is unaware of a tour scheduled there.
Silas
Send RS’s office a note that the hotel is unaware of a tour scheduled there.
Diane, thanks, I notified RS immediately 2 days ago and the hotel itself told me they were contacting the office as well.
