May 17th Paris & HOF Tour Cancelled

I'm so sorry.
I have 2 tours planned this year and I remain hopeful that things will work out, but I think things will not be easy or simple.

I hope they are able to offer a suggestion that works for you.

My May 3rd Paris and Heart of France was cancelled yesterday. Was looking forward to taking this tour that was also cancelled in 2020.
Staff issues was the reason given. I share your disappointment.

I'm so sorry for both of you who had your trips cancelled. Hopefully you will be able to change to different dates.

sad....and that could be happening to a bunch of them

So sorry to you both. This is a wonderful tour! I hope the office can help you work out a solution.

We took this tour in 2019, and loved it. Sounds like maybe a guide had to cancel? How disappointing! And you probably already have your transportation and housing arranged.

Let's all hope you can transfer to another date, or another tour on the same (or similar) dates.

We did a France tour in October 2021 with Road Scholar. Our guide was Tom Thal-Jantzen, and those of you who saw my trip report info know that Tom was fabulous - fun, funny, easygoing, and resourceful.

He does private itineraries around France and - based on the daily price he shared with me as we rode around on the Road Scholar bus - the price wouldn’t be any more than the Rick Steves’ itinerary. I can’t give you an exact amount - but he might be worth emailing. He has a daily price and can either drive you around or hire an driver to come along.

He’s truly phenomenal and our tour group loved him.

Here’s his email: thaljantzenthomas@gmail.com

I am so sorry to hear this. I know this must be very disappointing. I did want to mention that although you may not be having the exact trip you dreamed of, it is still possible to have a great trip. You can either rearrange your tour to a different date or you can develop an alternate independent plan if you feel like that is something you would like to do. I've taken this tour and it is great. I hope you find a solution that will work for you.

Sorry for your cancellation, it is very disheartening. But, I am hoping that his February tours are going and someone will do a trip report. Gotta figure if he hasn’t cancelled them yet, they must be good to go.

I wonder if some of these tours will be like schools where administrators are having to be substitute teachers? Maybe a certain someone who hasn't been guiding lately will have to start subbing!

We were contacted last week that our April BOE in 21 Days trip was cancelled but they gave us two other options. Their reason was there were only 7 people on the tour. We rescheduled for the one a week later and made all of the changes with our airlines, hotels and advance events we had planned. We keep wondering if we should have just gotten our money back.

severhart-51-

I know you will enjoy this tour. These are anxious times and I can see that having the tour cancelled once would make anyone nervous. I don't think they would have rescheduled you to a tour that they did not think would be running. I'm so glad you were able to make the necessary changes to the rest of your arrangements. I look forward to reading your trip report after the tour.

severhart_51, it looks like the tour you've switched to is full, so you're probably safe. That's a great tour, and you'll be glad you went.

I'm being deliberately optimistic that the tours will go as scheduled, except for the few flukes like missing guides or too many people cancelling, which is what I'm assuming happened in your earlier tour. I'm envisioning a large family group discovering that they have something better to do that month. Maybe.

We got an email last night that our May 15 Best Of Adriatic tour that was on waitlist only was canceled due to staffing issues. Unfortunately all the other May departures are full. We have booked a private 8 day tour of Montenegro at the end of this tour and our guide has referred us to a guide out of Split so we will likely work through him to do a independent/private itinerary. I had planned to book our flights today so good timing there although RS tours will pay up to $300 per person for airline change fees.

I think all the trips will be iffy in 2022 until you are actually there and it starts. There are too many moving parts now. So sorry to hear and I hope you are prioritized on another.

Oh no, I am so bummed for you and then I ran and checked my email to be sure I didn’t get the same dreaded email for our Paris & HOF tour on April 12th. Lordy, I was not nervous before, but now I am. I did get an email the other day, saying my final payment due date was pushed back.

• edited to add that I am also signed up for the Best Of Paris tour on April 24th and it does not look to be full or even filling fast. Uh-oh, now I am really nervous.

diveloonie aka Tammy - seems we are on the same tour as you. Looking forward to it! Fingers crossed that others are able to reschedule & move forward too.

Kacachat, look forward to meeting you on our tour. 🤞🏻 fingers crossed!

I'm booked on the May 10th Paris & HOF followed by the Best of Eastern France. I haven't been notified that either are canceled so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm waiting a little longer before booking flights.

StormyB, we did those tours back to back in 2019. What a great time!

Here are my trip reports:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tours/tour-report-paris-and-the-heart-of-france

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tours/tour-report-best-of-eastern-france

Enjoy!

Update - The RS office called and we were able to move to another Paris & HOF trip. The staff at the office was very helpful and quick to respond to my inquiry and arrange to reschedule us. Now just have to work on rescheduling the flights and hotel rooms. But very thankful to still be going to Paris!

Waiting to see if my scheduled May tour is cancelled. It must be hard to get bus drivers and local guides and places to stay and eat as the world slowly gets better.

I am on the May 1 Eastern France ----so far it is not cancelled

I am not sure what "safety" criteria he uses to decide whether to cancel or not. All of Europe is in the Red zone--Level 4 for Covid cases.---all official sites say that Level 4 means DO NOT TRAVEL--and yes that can change by May but it may not--

Level 3 is TRAVEL IF YOU MUST---OK I am sure all of us MUST travel for our mental health at this point. Not sure I am willing to risk getting Covid in a foreign country and I am triple vaxxed. Too many of my triple vaxxed friends have gotten breakthrough infections and some pretty severe.

There is a February 20 Rome tour still listed--that is only 3 weeks away. Not cancelled so far. So other than staffing issues---what other criteria does he use to cancel? Maybe he will discuss on Monday night's show.

The first cancellation I saw reported on the forum was due to inadequate demand. It was an early tour, and apparently a large number of the original folks signed up for the tour had canceled. There were fewer than ten remaining.

Hi everyone,
I am going on an early tour - Best of Sicily starting on February 20th. It is running with 19 people.

Our early April Sicily tour went from "waitlist" to "available" and then we received an email delaying final payment 30 days. It had me worried about whether the tour was on the verge of cancellation. I called the office and right now there are 17 signed up - they said the minimum required to run the tour was 13 (50% capacity) - so fingers crossed there are not many more dropouts - in 2020, we were a week away from the tour start date when we got the call that it was cancelled due to Covid...

Tammy, so happy you could reschedule your tour!
Talked to Rick Steves office today and they tried to get us on another HOF tour, but dates did not work. Good news! We are now on the Venice, Florence, Rome tour. Paris will have to wait.
The person who helped me was great… this is why I love Rick Steves tours!

I also called the office today and both my tours (Paris & HOF, and Best Of Paris) tours are a go for April. My Best Of Paris tour has 18, but that is enough!! Wahoo, so excited! I have not been to Paris since 1984!!! That’s before the O’rsay was even there.

Tammy, you're in for a treat. Two treats! We loved both those tours, and learned so much.

“That’s before the O’rsay was even there”

Weeellll, it was there but it was probably still a train station, lol!! The cool Impressionist work was probably still at Jeu e Paume!!!

Jane, I completely agree with you! Both these tours really made me feel comfortable traveling in France.

Pam, our 2011 BOE tour ended in Paris, and to my surprise, Stan loved it! So we signed up for the Best of Paris the following year and had a wonderful time, going early and staying late. We've been back a few times, but have yet to spend as much time there as we would like. We did go about 3 or 4 days early for the HOF tour, and once again loved Paris. We're only there a few days this year (fingers crossed for our trip!), but hope to rectify that in the next couple of years.

Jane, I added Best of Paris on to the 21BOE because I’d been to Paris in the 70’s and did not enjoy myself and thought…I must be missing something! Yep, I was and Rolinka filled in the missing parts, lol. Paris and HOF was the next year and Rebecca completed my Paris education!!

Fingers crossed for all of us!!

Thank you Pam and Jane. My husband lived in Paris for 3 months while working on Disneyland Paris project, so he is also excited to go back and show me the hotel that his company put him up in while he lived there. It was the Prince De Galles hotel, near the opera house. I thought it would be cool to stay there for the couple of days before our tour starts, but NOPE! Rates are over 750 euros a night! Yes, it's a very nice place to stay indeed. However, he will have fun showing me the lobby!

Our Paris in 7 days tour for May16 was also cancelled but we were able to get on the May 15 tour. We will need to join the tour one day late as we are coming in from Prague. We are also staying one day after because it would cost over $500 each to change the flight. Fortunately the RS folks offered to reimburse us for the extra night at the hotel. Looking for others who are also on the May 15 Best of Paris tour.

"Fortunately the RS folks offered to reimburse us for the extra night at the hotel."

Wow. Just wow. They are going above and beyond to accommodate customers.

RS also offers to pay the difference in airfare if you need to reschedule your flight due to the cancellation of your tour and acceptance of another tour date. But with change fees not really a thing right now, they are saving money on that policy.

Going on my first Rick Steves tour to Portugal in October. Am a long time independent traveler but looking forward to this tour. Quite a ways off yet so hoping its a go. Glad I am retired and can be flexible. Good luck everyone, stay safe and keep on traveling!