Group Travel

[magenta321]

Have any of you ever planned a group trip?

My travel agent is talking to me about organizing a group to go on a cruise.

Am I getting myself in over my head? Do any of you have experience with this?

I'm thinking about a seven-day cruise to Italy, Croatia, Crete, Turkey, and Greece in October of 2009. I figured it gives a long time to save money, and a very interesting itinerary. Plus it shouldn't be too hot.

I wanted to do the Canary Islands/Morocco cruise but I think I'll wait til Morocco is more stable before I take that one. I'll save my dreams for another day, yet again. I've only been trying to get to Maroc since college!

[Helen_B[$]]

It's a lot of work, and then it's a lot of fun, if you can cruise with friends. I've always wanted to do that!

[MrsNormanMaine[$]]

We did it this past winter with a group of friends and acquaintances to London. It keeps the costs down to go with a group. The key was to balance a few group activities so that people felt like part of a group with lots of unstructured time so that those with different interests could migrate their own way and make new friends/travel buddies. It ended up working quite well. In the week, we had one half day tour, two theatre evenings and one fancy dinner as a group - the rest was up to us. We'll do it again.

MNM

[theworm[$]]

I think it would be great fun, but if you're going to organize anything, don't put yourself in a position to need to collect of follow up with people about money. I've heard horror stories about people organizing trips and getting stuck paying big bucks when friends backed out.

[Helen_B[$]]

Don't get stuck driving the rental car, on days when you're off the ship. You don't get to see much, that way.