• If the nature and route followed by one of our regular trips suits you, you may simply add a departure date to those already scheduled.
  
  At least 6 travellers must generally commit to the trip in order to do this. Perhaps you can scare up that many friends, but if not, consider posting a note in your gym, or your language class, or kidnapping a passer-by.
  
  Once 6 people are aboard, we will add the trip to our departure schedule, at our risk. If no one else joins, it will run for your 6. If others climb aboard, you meet new, interesting people, hopefully cootie-free.
  
  
• If, on the contrary, you prefer a private trip, either because you want to avoid cooties, or because you need some modifications in route or comfort level from our usual offerings, please see our page on “Charter Trips.”
  

Scheduling a New Departure of a “Regular” Trip

We can add new departures of trips to our schedule if our operating constraints permit. Hotel rooms and personnel must (obviously) be available to operate the trip.

We generally need a 4-month lead time to schedule a new trip departure, to give us time to attract additional riders. Given the time needed to negotiate the process and get the applications and deposits in, this means you have to be pretty well set in your plans by about 5 months prior.

We recommend that you schedule the trip departure on the “usual” day of the week, if at all possible, for several reasons:

• Our route sheets make reference to opening hours and train schedules that vary with the day of the week. They will not be as reliable on other days of the week.
• Doing so improves the chances of getting hotel space.
• Certain operational concerns are best addressed as part of our regular service pattern.
• We are more likely to be able to schedule a Trip Coordinator for your trip if it only occupies one of his work weeks, rather than straddling two.

Once you tell us your dates, and we confirm the trip (which we generally do within 48 hours), each member of your group then has 15 days to send in our standard trip deposit, along with a trip application.

If six deposits are received by the cut-off date, the trip is scheduled. If fewer than six deposits are received within the two weeks, either...

• ...each individual deposit is refunded, less an administrative charge.
  This charge corresponds to that normally assessed when participation in one of our regularly-scheduled trips is cancelled 8 or more weeks in advance. See here for charges.
  Or (at our discretion)...
• ...the trip is confirmed and operated for the number of people who have joined, without additional charge.
  

Prices

There is no surcharge for guest-initiated trips, unless such a surcharge is negotiated for a trip scheduled by fewer than six guests.


Signing Up, Cancelling

The standard trip deposits required to schedule the trip are non-refundable (except through our cancellation waivers -- see below). Otherwise, usual payment (and cancellation) terms apply.

Cancellation waivers, if desired, must be subscribed when the deposit is made. They cover cancellation in the usual conditions (including refund of the otherwise non-refundable standard trip deposit, if applicable).

Should a member of the “initiating group” not be able to make the trip, all but an administrative charge (corresponding to the charge normally assessed when participation in one of our regularly-scheduled trips is cancelled 8 or more weeks in advance) can be transferred to any other person of his or her choosing, by simple written instruction, under the following conditions.

• Transferred payments can only serve as a payment for a newly-registering traveller, travelling on the same trip. They cannot be transferred to someone already registered for the trip, or to someone who has been previously registered to the trip, and has cancelled.
  
• The newly registering traveller must be someone found by the efforts of the cancelling traveller, directly or indirectly. The deposit will not be applied to people unknown to the traveller, subscribing to the trip through Blue Marble.
  

Follow this link to information on private (charter) trips.