April 2020
 

My husband and I had a transatlantic cruise booked from April 19 to May 2 and planned to stay in London from May 2 to 9 and have a flight back to USA. Unfortunately the cruise line moved the dates up 10 days and we cannot do those dates. Also The London hotel and flight are non refundable.(lesson learned). We are thinking of flying into Rome do sightseeing and then Paris and take the tunnel train to London.
We are traveling with 4 other couples. One couple wants to stop in Switzerland. We are looking at Air B and B and VRBO for lodging.
Is this a possible itinerary?

Moved to the Europe Forum

Is what a possible itinerary? I don't get that you even have one.

When would you fly into Rome? When would you go to Paris? How would the stop in Switzerland figure into this? Would everyone do this or just one couple?

So you are 10 people?

I would SO be disengaging from this mess before it untangled.

You have less than 3 months to pull off this circus with people who did not get into this with change in itinerary.

The first thing you have to realize is that your environment has changed from someone-else-do-all-the-planning (cruise) to you do all the planning with 4 other couples with various level of difficulty accommodating their needs and whimsical change of mind.

You have added a quantum jump in complexity to be accomplished in such a short time. Even for traveling with experienced people, less than 3 months with this many people is a near impossibility especially when you have to ask for help.

My simple recommendation follows what others said: get out of this. Let others deal with the whims of the cruise company, not you. You are unlikely to add value and incur mega headaches.

Others here may help you with only your part and perhaps one easy going couple with whom you have ALREADY traveled independently and is not a whiner complainer.

If you are still not convinced this is a bad idea, read numerous postings here detailing how people who you thought were easy going at home turn into travelazillas once abroad.

Well, April 19 to May 2 is certainly enough time to fly into Rome and then to Paris before getting to London for your reservation there. The problem is you doing arrangements for ten people. You already have only one couple who wants to add Switzerland. How many other requests are going to be added? With that many people involved, there will most likely be more.
I agree with the other posts, just make arrangements for yourself and let the others do the same. You would have trouble finding five hotel rooms at the same hotel anyway, so you would have the additional problem of trying to coordinate sightseeing from different starting points. Just meet up in London (I assume you are all at the same hotel there?)

Please clarify . . . Are the May 2-9 London portion and the flight home from London for all ten of you already set?

If so -- that is the base line. Let every couple or family group make their own decisions/plans for April 19-May 2. Some may want to cancel, some may want to visit other countries, some may not. Don't any of you have trip insurance (?) -- that should take care of the 'non-refundable' problem.

A cruise line actually changed the sailing date by 10 days??? That seems really really weird -- that would impact probably every other passenger at least as much as you 10 . . .

Go to vacationstogo.com and you will find about a dozen TA cruises departing April 18 or 19. Perhaps one of those would work for you. Personally, I would much prefer Italy in May (love the AC in May), then fly to London, but if a cruise is your preference, I think you could find one to suit. It would be easier to offer up possibilities to the others and let each do their own thing, meeting up in London.

Looks like if you left on April 19 as you originally intended you would have 13 days before you want to be in London. That's a decent amount of time to fly into Rome, spend some portion of the time in Italy and then fly to Paris and spend the rest of the time there until May 2nd and take the train to London. That would be a fine trip. It only a couple months away though so I'd book the airfares as soon as possible. In that amount of time I'd suggest max of three hotels (maybe Rome, Sorrento OR somewhere in Tuscany, and Paris).

Then tell all the other people who were going on the cruise with you what your plans are and say you'd love to have them join you for all or part of it but let them make their own arrangements.

Can a flight to Rome be linked with your unrefundable airfare? The price of a one way ticket can be shocking.

Go to vacationstogo.com and you will find about a dozen TA cruises departing April 18 or 19. Perhaps one of those would work for you. Personally, I would much prefer Italy in May (love the AC in May), then fly to London, but if a cruise is your preference, I think you could find one to suit. It would be easier to offer up possibilities to the others and let each do their own thing, meeting up in London.

Excellent suggestions.

With that many people, I'd pick three cities - Rome, Paris and London.
Book hotels for the other cities and see who wants to join you for those three cities.

I did check vacations to go and was able to book it. Thanks for the info.

Norwegian Cruise line did move the cruise to April 9 to the 23rd and moved the embarkation port from Brooklyn to Manhattan. We had trip ins for the cruise. We were staying 6 days in London before flying home and that was not covered by ins.

sgnona,

I think there have been 3 pretty good solutions suggested. If it were me, and it isn't because I am definitely NOT a cruiser, order of preference would be:
#1 book another cruise for the original time frame
#2 let everyone do their own thing then finish with a meet up in London as originally planned
#3 decide what YOU want to do, invite others to join, but everyone makes and is responsible for their own arrangements. This one would allow for independence and individual preferences/interests, but meeting up when and where as desired. No need for 5 couples to be joined at the hip and everyone dissatisfied.

Having had some experience with being responsible for domestic group travel events involving 26+ people, I would not recommend that you take that role on for short notice, change of plan, international.

I hope you reach a decision you can be happy with. Vacation is too expensive and too precious to not enjoy :cool:

Glad it worked out!

Yes glad you found an option.

Ugh, Fodor's acting up again. I clicked on the "Go to Last Unread" button and it didn't, so I obviously didn't see your successful booking post!

Buon viaggio!

Glad it worked for you. Did you book through VTG or the cruise line? If you don’t mind saying, what did you book? Is the whole group joining you?