<p>Thanks for the input! Much appreciated. </p>
<p>I am not really interested in planning/coordinating details myself. But I do have concerns myself about some of the points you listed. In general I like the idea of staying in a city 2 or 3 nights… and this tour has some 1 night stays.</p>
<p>The tour is actually well balanced. It should be possible to add a few days at the start or at the end.</p>
<p>xiggi,</p>
<p>I loooked for that very thing, but couldn’t see any such offers. Perhaps I missed them.</p>
<p>I was at a party last night and met another traveler with enthusiastic feedback on his Rick Steves tour. (I think they went to Turkey).</p>
<p>Doesn’t seem to mention anything about the possibility of arriving early or leaving late regarding the Trafalgar tour. If you like the pace, it would be worthwhile contacting the company to determine if there is pre/post tour extension available.</p>
<p>The Rick Steves tours generally require the travelers to be prepared to do considerable walking. May consider going on one someday.</p>
<p>Rick Steves site said the sale has been briefly extended.</p>
<p>It’s time to get back to planning our Europe trip. Work schedules have been tricky to predict, but it seems like late April could work. Do you think we have a chance at getting United Frequent Flier mile tickets / tour (probably Med cruise) at this late date?</p>
<p>Don’t know where you are originating from but I am seeing frequent flier miles availability as an example on May 23/24/25 from Chicago (ORD) to London (LHR) another is Naples Italy (NAP). Make sure when you check online to click the maximum stops to (2) as this will give you more options.
Last summer we used United Airline points and flew from Washington DC (IAD) to Munich (MUC) and stayed one week and then flew onward to Athens (ATH) all on the same award.
The year before that we flew (IAD) to Paris (CDG) where we stayed one week and then flew onward to Naples Italy (NAP). On the return we flew from Rome (FCO) back to (IAD). This all with 55,000 per ticket during the summer.
Personally do not enjoy cruises nor travel with tour companies. We enjoy staying a little longer and enjoy not only the sights but the culture which cannot be done on fast paced bus tours.</p>
<p>Thanks km. We’ll start in DEN. Wow, 55,000 points sounds good… sometimes United wants almost that much for US flights. </p>
<p>Tonight I saw late April flights to Paris (110,000 miles each). Also Barcelona, starting point for some of the cruises we’ve checked (60,000 miles…liked that). Eventually DH and I would like to do a non-tour kind of trip to Europe, but I’ve never been… and I’m afraid we’ll never do our long overdue anniversary trip done if we don’t just book it soon.</p>
<p>Another Rick Steves fan here we spent two weeks on our own using Rick Steves books as our guide. Using an American Express Travel Agent for our flight, hotel, car, and train reservations, we spent 3 nights in Paris, including a day trip to Versaille, then an overnight train to Venice. 3 nights in Venice with a trip to Lido Beach, then rented a car and drove to Florence for 3 nights. From Florence, drove to Siene for day trip, then on to Rome, where we dropped off the car, took the train into Rome, and spent 3 nights. We did not stay in any Rick Steves suggested hotels, but instead used Tripadvisor suggestions. But we DID use every one of Rick Steves tips for blending in with the locals, visiting local restaurants, and making advance reservations for museums, Vatican City, etc. His tips saved us hours and hours of waiting in lines, primarily at Versaille, the Louvre, and Vatican City. At the beginning of the trip, my teenagers kept mocking me with what does Rick Steves say? By the end of the trip, they were grateful for his suggestions, especially at Vatican City, where the line was wrapped around the block and we walked right in! We LOVE Rick Steves!</p>
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<p>We love Rick Steves walking tours of museums, churches, etc…always some humor thrown in. Sure, an art history class or serious art lovers wouldn’t rely his tours, but when you’re trying to take elementary school aged kids to the Louvre with the goal of having them love it rather than hate it, Rick Steves is the way to go. Of course, when we went to NYC and were touring museums there, the family was rather upset that there was no Rick Steves tour to follow.</p>
<p>Thanks Anne33 - those were good tips. If we get brave… we may do some of our own arrangements for mainland, with a Med cruise in the middle of the trip. Could you tell me more about the train between Paris and Venice? One of the cruises starts in Barcelona and ends in Venice.</p>
<p>One of our ideas is this Royal Carribean cruise, Barcelona to Venice
[Cruise</a> Details - Royal Caribbean International](<a href=“Royal Caribbean Cruises”>Royal Caribbean Cruises)</p>
<p>Any thoughts? The land excursions look more reasonably priced than some other lines. </p>
<p>Norwegian cruises 7-day Med tour / Barcelona (RT) looks nice too, but excursions can add several hundred dollars per person per excursion -
<a href=“http://www2.ncl.com/cruise-destination/europe/vacations#tab_detail[/url]”>http://www2.ncl.com/cruise-destination/europe/vacations#tab_detail</a></p>
<p>I’ve been driving myself nuts reading cruise reviews today. Ha, like college research there can be a lot of variation of opinion from family to family. On the plus side … once we decide we can book if there is availability - no need to do application and essays ;)</p>
<p>I may start a specific thread just for Med cruises. Parent Cafe has become my research hub - in some ways it’s better than Consumer Reports.</p>
<p>Personally, I’m not a big cruise fan. BUT…if you’re the type who likes decisions made for you but still like the flexibility once a ship gets to port, then it could be for you. Just not Costa in light of the recent development… :)</p>
<p>I had never been to Europe but in '10 wife & I decided to do Italy for our 30th anniversary. Friends had done a tour but I was of a mind–as mentioned upthread–that it’s best to stay in a certain place for 2-3 days anyway, to get the flavor, rather than be running around all the time. And we had 9 days, not a lot of time to my way of thinking. </p>
<p>So…I started researching online & eventually made reservations myself for Taormina (Sicily), Florence & Rome. Air, hotel, transport, cooking classes, daytour guides, the works. All online. And doing this was surprisingly easy, as long as I kept track of who I EMailed & got confirmation with. A little translation problem here & there, but not bad. Paying attention to detail and planning this out was half the fun of it, believe me!</p>
<p>It ended up being perfect. We flew Chicago to Catania (Sicily) via Rome, then took a private transport 30 km to Taormina, which was on the Ionian Sea. 3 days there, just enough to capture the essence of this spectacular Mediterranean island. Then a flight to Florence, again via Rome. 4 days there, which definitely was NOT enough–I was just starting to groove on the vibe of Florence & the Chianti foothills when it was time to leave. We took the ‘Fresciarossa’ train, 2 hours to Rome–VERY cool, quiet & quick. Only 2 days in Roma, just enough time to see the Vatican & take the wonderful ‘Hop-On-Hop-Off’ buses to a bunch of the sights, a great deal at 18 Euro. Stayed in the Campo de’ Fiori district, pricey but it was walking distance to the Tiber River and Trastevere.</p>
<p>But we never felt rushed, which is my point here. I feel that although getting from Point A to Point B is part of the adventure, one should do it as little as possible if the vacation time is limited, like 9 days for us. I dream of having 3 weeks or a month sometime–THAT would be easy to plan–it’s the shorter trips that require complex thought!</p>
<p>FYI…next trip (whenever that is, sometime after the London 2012 Olympics) is being roughly planned, and will include Florence (again) and a place that has intrigued me for a while, the island of Sardinia. Happy planning, colorado_mom!</p>
<p>Excellent points, jnm. Thanks for the post! One of the tradeoffs for doing cruise plan is that we’d only get a day in cities like Florence. It’s meant to be a “sampler” trip, but we may get frustrated at the limited samples. </p>
<p>We’ve done the on/off trolley tours in DC and San Diego and liked them. Coincidentally I learned on another website yesterday of “Hop-On-Hop-Off” (HoHo) tours in Europe. Barcelona, possibly our base city for a cruise, has one that is supposed to be good too.</p>
<p>I envy you colorado_mom. It has now been 5 years since our last trip to Europe and it looks like it will be 5 more years (after the last college tuition has been paid) before we return. I’m getting some vicarious pleasure planning a trip to Ireland and the UK for my two daughters this coming summer as a joint graduation gift (one from HS, one from college). They plan to cram an awful lot in over the course of 11 1/2 days and will be on the run more than I’d care to at my age but that’s one of the benefits of youth.</p>
<p>hv - Don’t envy me unless we actually get a trip planned 
I’m glad you are getting to plan the Ireland trip… sounds fun! That’s the only place that I’ve been in Europe, and we loved it. Our trip was only 5 nights, but lovely - a generous aunt took our whole family.</p>
<p>The Norwegian Epic is a phenomenal boat, beautiful, very new, top of the line, SO much entertainment. Dueling pianos, Second City Comedy Troupe, Blue Man group, all for free. You don’t even need to get off the boat, though with those destinations you will. We loved our cruise so much on it last year, we’re going again next month. Loved the freestyle eating arrangements where you eat whenever you want. It has an additional night in your itinerary, with another port stop too, and may be cheaper to fly in and out of the same airport.</p>
<p>Now, Splendour of the Seas, is a vision class boat. Much older, we’ve cruised on Vision of the Seas, same class, not too impressed. But if you haven’t cruised much before, you might not care or notice. Not much on the entertainment, have the same seating arrangements every night. But the fare might be cheaper. Another positive is that it ends up in Venice, where I have never gone to, but have heard it is just amazing. Usually shore excursions on different boats are very comparable in price. Are these different/shorter excursions, or is it just a better deal?</p>
<p>We have cruised alot, but always with kids or teenagers. It probably wouldn’t matter that much as far as the entertainment goes if it was just us. In fact, we might care more about the ports and price if it we didn’t have to worry about kids being entertained. But it is hard going from a really nice new boat to an older one…though if you haven’t cruised before, you’ll like anything. Just stay away from Costa cruises (and I say that because of smoking, not the terribly sad event that happened yesterday). And we really didn’t like eating with a group of people we didn’t know on RCCL, but you guys may be more social. Truthfully, you can’t go wrong with either of these choices.</p>
<p>But if was to be even more truthful, I wouldn’t consider any other boat if the Epic was a choice. Unless it was alot cheaper, and the destinations were way better.</p>
<p>Heck, haven’t been to Europe since 1995–our sole trip there. Am thinking of planning another one to celebrate several milestones, maybe in 2013. We’ll see. 
That trip I planned with H’s input. We landed in Frankfurt, caught the train to Rottenberg, went to Munich, then Venice, Rome, Paris, London and Bath. It was lovely but the time just flew by and we need to get back to Europe soon.</p>
<p>I’m with you there, HImom. Reading this thread is making me ancy to go back. I’ve traveled alot (job related, so I was always tired and didn’t have enough time), but a Rick Steves trip we went on to Italy last summer was probably the funnest thing I’ve ever done…in my life. I could just go do those endlessly, I think, but my husband wouldn’t go for it. I think I might start a thread for ideas to entice him onto our next trip. Last kid starting college soon, have to do something right away in September so we don’t mourn.</p>