Does this itinerary make sense for May 2015?
 

Paris 3 nights (fly to Amsterdam)
Amsterdam 2 nights (fly? to Berlin )
Prauge 2 nights (? to Vienna)
Vienna 2 nights (? to Budapest)
Budapest 2 nights (to USA)

Any thoughts/suggestions? We are planning on doing this in May with our two adult children (21 and 24).

Thanks

no, not really, but if that is what you want to do...

2 nights makes for one day. Deduct travelling time booking in and out of hotels and eating, you are not going to see much of your destinations. No matter what time of year you go.

Pick 2 cities and you'll see more, do more and be happier.

I really recommend making a really vivid graphic, by drawing a string of large boxes (by hand, or making a table in a Word program) representing each day, from ~8am till sleepybye.

First, at the bottom of each box, put the city where you will sleep that night, where you will have your hotel.

Then, fill up spaces in each box with the representative travel time that you will need getting from city to city (if it takes from 11am till 5pm to leave the hotel, go to the airport, get the flight, get a shuttle, and get to the hotel in the next city fill up the corresponding white space in each box with that travel time.

Then see what you have left over as "free" time. If there is precious little white space left in the grids, then you might be better off dropping a destination (or two).

Paris and Amsterdam are so close together by train it doesn't make sense to fly between them.

Are you going to Berlin?

Vienna is a particularly difficult city to enjoy in a brief visit. It has huge sights that can feel overwhelming.

Just about the only reason to hop around Europe like that is because members of your family cry much want to see a very specific sight in each city, so for all of you it would be worth all the hassle and expense of getting to all these place because it would mean so much to somebody to finally see this thing they have always dreamed of seeing.

But otherwise it will just be confusing to be Amsterdam for less then 24 hours, then Prague for less than 24 hours, then Budapest or Vienna, etc. Nothing will make any sense and you'll be tired all the time.

as others have said two nights somewhere is just one day. Not enough time for more than a glimpse of any of your proposed destinations. You have a total of 10 nights which is the perfect amount of time for two cities.

I would do Paris 7 nights and Amsterdam 4 nights (you can take a couple day trips from Paris in this case). Train is 5 hours between them, so flying or train is a wash, taken from city center to city center.

OR

Paris 5 nights, Brussels 2 nights, Amsterdam 4 nights (you can take the train from city center to city center, saving a lot of travel time)

OR

Prague/Vienna/Budapest 4, 4 and 3 nights (train or car between each) allocated as you see fit.

In your current itinerary you will be on a plane 6 times in 12 days. All you are going to remember is airports.

Agree wha tyou have is a quite extensive tour of the airports and train staions of europe.

With the limited time you have I would do either 2 major destinations (Paris and Vienna or Prague).

The more places you go the less you see in each place - and you have cut back so far that you have practically no time anywhere.

If you just want to check boxes - go ahead with this. If you want to actually see much and get even a beginning of a feel for nay of these cities - cut way back.

Thank all of you. I will definitely take all of the advise provided and reduce the number of cities.

Erasmoi,

I hope you won't just reduce the number of cities, but also pick cities that are logically close to each other. In other words, decide to concentrate on either Western Europe or Central Europe. That way the train trip from city to city won't be so long, and you won't "lose" any days.

Also, planes in Europe should be avoided if the trip can be made by train in eight or fewer hours. It takes a long time to travel to and from airports, and planes tend to be expensive, and very, very cramped and uncomfortable. To go from Spain to Copenhagen or Rome, by all means take a plane. But from Paris to Amsterdam, never.