Now its my turn - My RS tour will be cancelling

Oh, Kim, I am so sorry! I know you are beyond disappointed! But I know you will eventually gather yourself back together and be ready for the time we can all travel again.

We had to accept the cancelation of our Sweden, Denmark & Norway RS tour in early May, so I feel your pain. I did something that may turn out good or not, I immediately booked a different RS tour in October in Spain thinking that surely this pandemic would be under control by then but who knows? I miss traveling and hope that when the crisis is over our civilization can stabilize and life can return to a more normal state, right now everything seems surreal.

Donald, that's the spirit!

No research is wasted! You'll have it all in your pocket for when you reschedule.

So sorry about the cancellation though. I know you would have enjoyed this tour.

Pam's right (as usual!) No research is ever wasted.

You had a lot of fun planning the tour, and we all enjoyed sharing that fun at our travel meetings. I know you're bummed right now, but don't lose your enthusiasm for travel.

Our May 18 Best of South Italy tour has been cancelled, as well. I've put us on the waiting list for the August 31 tour, and have optimistically signed up for the one that starts June 22. Yes, I know there's a good chance it, too, will be cancelled. I plan to talk to the folks at RSE before I actually change our plane tickets.

Kim, keep up your spirits. This too shall pass. There are many wonderful trips in your future.

Kim: I am so sorry to hear this. It is so sad. I too was supposed to go to London for two weeks, a first for me to stay at a hotel for that long and no RS tour this year. I just wanted to be in London and see all the sites I have not gotten to and musuems and had day trips planned and paid for! A classical concert at St Martins in the Field church, a musical play Pretty Woman, a day in the Cotswolds and to see Highclere Castle. All gone, but if I do get to go back to London I know what I will do, I have all my days planned out. I was going in May.

I too make scrapbooks and save all the RS patches, photos, receipts, brochures, tickets, etc! Love to see your scrapbooks and compare. That would be so much fun. I love learning on how to improve my books! I even started working on my London scrapbook before I even went which is not something I usually do. Now I will save it for the future London trip. I hope to make London my next trip and do what I was going to do this year. We shall see what the future holds.

I meet with friends at Panera Bread once a month, our Rick Steves travel group and everyone had a trip planned and some of us already cancelled and some are waiting it out as they are going in July and August but who knows now. It was always fun to see them and share stories and photos. We have not met since Feb and who knows when we will be able to meet again, which that alone makes me sad.

Best, Ann

Kim & Jane,
I'm so sorry for your cancelled trips. I too think the June trip likely will be cancelled but hoping your Aug. 31 tour will open up for you. We are all fortunate to be able to travel so I hope we will all feel comfortable doing so. I feel confident in RS and his organization that if he cancels, then it is not safe to travel. So, I'm hoping he doesn't cancel my Poland tour in Sept. Fingers crossed!
Be safe and healthy, everyone, and continue to dream of your future travels. And savor your travel memories. A good friend reminded me last night that I have been on a lot of European trips in the last few years for which I'm grateful. Shutterfly keeps sending me deals to put together my photo books. I'm going to do it, finally! Given my social calendar these days is limited to the confines of my home I certainly have the time.

I can sympathize with you - just received my cancellation email for our 13-day Best of Turkey tour starting May 18. I am in the process of trying to cancel the hotel in Istanbul and a couple of private tours I had scheduled. I was going to wait a bit on trying to cancel my Turkish Airlines flights until the end of April in hopes that they will cancel the flights beforehand. We have already planned an independent trip (not a tour) to Italy in the middle of October - keeping my fingers crossed that things will calm down well before then.

You know, some countries rely heavily on tourism; and as hard as we are getting hit, its worse for them. It would be a beautiful thing to divert some of your refunds to a charity in the area. Maybe something approaching what you would have spent there if you had gone. It would be beautiful of RS would find a charity or two in each of the countries he operates in and offers to redirect some or all of his refunds to that charity in your name.

My tour for end of May to England by a company NOT RS has been cancelled. They were not as generous and kept the deposit, but did refund the rest. However, with the change in currency (their dollar has gone way down against our dollar) and the fact that they charged credit card fees I lost $1,500. Lessons learned-no tours except with Rick. Since I will end up with airline and other small expense vouchers I am planning a trip next year to include some of the things I was looking forward to seeing on the tour. It won't be quite the same as they had private access to some sites I won't be able to replicate, but trip planning does help me remain positive.

I am so sorry! I had to cancel a Norwegian cruise to Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Russia. Heartbreaking, but I am optimistic that we will travel again! 😢💙

"It would be beautiful of RS would find a charity or two in each of the countries he operates in and offers to redirect some or all of his refunds to that charity in your name."

Thanks for this, James. This is a beautiful idea, but know that we are required by law to return the funds from a cancelled tour to the purchaser within two weeks. There's not a whole lot of wiggle room with that. :/

I run a business too, and have to deal with a lot of the same. So I understand completely. I found one in each of the places I plan to visit this year and as each trip gets rescheduled, I send them a contribution

Kim,
I am sooo sorry about your trip. I hope you get a refund on your plane ticket. I'm scheduled on the June 29 villages of South England Tour. It hasn't been cancelled yet, but since Wimbledon has, I'm not hopeful. Fortunately, I hadn't purchased a plane ticket yet because my passport had an error. I was so upset about the passport at first, now I'm thankful because it probably saved me a huge headache. I totally understand how you feel. This would have been my first trip to Europe and I was so excited. Now, I find it hard to even watch a show about England without crying. To make things even worse, I got my tour kit in the mail two weeks ago. Kinda like rubbing salt in the wound.
Best of luck to all who are in a travel funk!!

Kim, so very sorry about your trip getting cancelled. I feel your pain. We had a trip to England planned for May. Yes, sad, mad, and all the other feelings that go with a big disappointment!
Pam is right; all that planning is not wasted. You will make new plans, maybe for this fall, maybe for next spring. Keep the notes handy and keep researching favorite restaurants in London or something, just to stay sane.
We are all in this together.
Stay safe, and again I am so sorry about this huge disappointment for you.

Thanks for the support all. Unfortunately, all of us are in the same situation. It is just frustrating that things you have planned for like our travel trips, concerts, shows, music, short trips, 5k runs, etc. All my activities have been cancelled, now hopefully we will be available when all is better. I was going to do a 5k with my grand daughter, we had orchestra tickets for star wars, and more.

Yes I know my research was not wasted. I have saved my all my needed paperwork to go back to refer and plan this trip at a later date. It is tucked away in my travel bin.

Ann- I thought about your trip too, since we were wanting to get together but our schedules did not click. I have to contact you later about scrapbooking. HA I get my books out and look at them alot.

Judy B - boy sure hope your Poland trip works out. Hopefully, fingers crossed that September will be OK. Next year 2021, We were wanting to go back to Scotland and do a tour with our guide James in the Hebrides and maybe go back to Shetland also.
My poor Scandinavian tour keeps getting pushed back. LOL

We have been hunkered up at home (except I still can go to my part time job. We are closed to the public and can do shipping.)
other than that, we are home and OK, now I am getting bored. Had not been in the mood to do anything lately. But I did get up today and started cleaning. Started to work on my house windows. Have way too many.... I got 6 done today.

My goofy husband said we could stay up over 24 hours on May 23 since that is what we were to do. Then I said we could drive to the airport and see planes take off. Just trying to have some humor around here.

All is fine. This too will pass.

“My goofy husband said we could stay up over 24 hours on May 23 since that is what we were to do. Then I said we could drive to the airport and see planes take off. Just trying to have some humor around here.”

Kim!! That is hilarious. You can duct tape 2 lawn chairs together and then maybe jam them behind your living room sofa for a more authentic experience. You’ll have to wall off your bathroom to get it small enough. Food? El cheapo frozen dinners in the microwave? You are allowed to have wine...

Pam - that is too funny.! And maybe add ... watching Airplane for our movie feature!!!

Now that is the spirit — love the idea of cramming in the chairs and eating crap food!! Of course your bathrooms at home are way too clean for you to get the full experience.

As for going out to the airport to watch the planes taking off - I don’t know if you saw this NYT article that was illustrated by a photograph of American Airlines planes from all over the country grounded / parked at TUL . . .

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/business/coronavirus-american-airlines.amp.html

“Leaving” for Portugal tomorrow—or we were supposed to. Plan on marking the occasion with a glass of wine. Hopefully next year we can celebrate in Lisbon.
One thing that helped me was realizing I would not be adding stress to their health care system.
Stay home and stay safe.

Yes KIm -Paris

A few weeks ago before we were told to shelter in place. My husband , sil, and I went to the airport . Think it was a Sunday. We drove all around the airport. Boy lots of planes parked wherever they could find a safe spot out of the way. My sil had not been to airport in years years and more years. I was a You had to been there joke . ... we drove where you drop people off and I said “ this is where you would drop us off by United if we were leaving on May 24.” Then drove by cell phone lot and pick up. I said “ this is where you wait in the cell lot until we call and this is where you come pick us up when we would have gotten back on June 15. “ We had a good chuckle.

Boy was the airport a ghost town and the overnight parking was quite empty

Both Kims: Stan saw that story about the AA planes at TUL and wants to go see them. We have to go to Tulsa Saturday to pick up veggies from our now "Virtual" farmers market (order on-line, pick up in a church parking lot, don't get out of your car!), so he wants to take a long detour to swing by the airport. Don't know if we'll be able to see the planes though.

But when he mentioned that, my mind leaped back over 50 years ago - 54 maybe? - when he and I were first dating. He took me out to the airport to watch the planes take off and land. High times in Oklahoma in 1966!

Kim,
I'm so sorry about your trip cancellation. I had a trip planned to Germany to see the Oberammergau Passion Play in September. The play was cancelled in mid March. They have moved the date of the play to 2022. Who knows what I'll be doing in 2 years? In the meantime, I've been working on my hard scrapbook of my trip to Ireland, Scotland and London. It has been so much fun re-living my trip while I work on the scrapbook. So, far I've done about 60 pages front and back (120 total). So, it will fill up 3 books. It's been great to have something to do as we "shelter in place". I have about 10-12 more pages and I'll be done. I would plan some more travel, but I don't know where to start. I hope you get your next tour lined up.

Sorry your trip is now canceled, Kim. I remember you visiting our travel group and talking about this trip. Who would have thought then that we would be here now in this situation. Looking forward to the day when we can all travel again, and even to the day we can all have travel group meetings again.

Karen - thanks. My family are having baseball withdrawals. Hubs and son(family) are huge cards fan. Don’t even know if baseball will have a season. My DIL posted on FB a video of our grandson(1yr) putting his baseball on a t and getting a bat to hit it (doing this as a lefty). Future pitcher! Ha. What joy to watch during our stay home orders.

We will have to cancel our meeting too. We met in a open area park last month. Well not now. I will miss it. I feel that Jane and I are soul travel susters😊

Happy travels soon!

Same here, kim. I don't know how we're going to get through the month with no travel group meeting.

my mind leaped back over 50 years ago - 54 maybe? - when he and I were first dating. He took me out to the airport to watch the planes take off and land. High times in Oklahoma in 1966!

Jane!! The romance !!

Update: we got our RS tour cancelled today. So everything had been cancelled, some with deposits made , hotels no deposits were made.

All have been submitted. I looked at my cc tonight and saw one village tour refunded except for a small fee which was excellent and fast. I cancelled our flights last Friday via phone call with United. Great news! Got back all our miles already back on our account. $$$ we paid on taxes and extra leg room will be refunded in about 7/10 business days per the airline guy. Very cooperative and nice.

Fingers crossed on our next life event.... son is scheduled to get married July 3.

Kim

Added: I had emailed my past 7 or so guides to check on them. Heard back from 3. They are doing well , hanging in there. They all miss guiding tours !