1. If one of our regular routes suits you, add a departure date to those already scheduled.
   You must generally be at least 6 “Founding Members” in order to do this. 
   
   We add the trip to our departure schedule, at our risk.  If no one else joins, it will run for your group.  If others climb aboard, you meet new, interesting people, hopefully cootie-free.
   
   
2. If you prefer a private trip, either because you need some modifications in route or comfort level from our usual offerings, or because you want to avoid cooties, please see our page on “Charter Trips.”
   
   

Adding a Departure Date on One of our Regular Routes

• You must generally be at least 6 “Founding Members” to add a trip to the schedule.
  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 passerby.  You can schedule a trip for as few as 4 people if you do so by November 1st of the prior year. 
  
  
• We can add new departures of trips to our schedule so long as operating constraints permit.
  In other words, hotel rooms, bikes and personnel must be available to operate the trip.
  
  
• We generally need a 4-month lead time to schedule a new trip departure (1 month for a Day Trip), to give us time to attract additional riders.
  Given the time needed to negotiate the process and get the “Founding Member” applications and deposits in, this means you have to be pretty well set in your plans by about 5 months prior, obviously less for a Day Trip).
  
  
• The trip should be scheduled to start on the same day of the week as that route’s regularly-scheduled trips.
  This condition can be waived for a minimum of 8 riders, but it is not wise to do so, for several reasons:
  - Our route sheets make reference to opening hours and train schedules which vary with the day of the week.  They will not be as reliable on other days of the week.
  - Operating the trip on the “regular” days of the week improves the chances of getting hotel space in our first choice hotels.
  - Certain operational concerns are best addressed as part of our regular service pattern (for instance, we do things like scheduling our passage through a market town... on market day).
  - 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.
  Day Trips should generally not be scheduled for Fridays or Saturdays.
  
  
• We will not generally add trips within two weeks of existing departures on the same itinerary, unless the existing departure is full or very close to it.

Once you tell us your dates, and we confirm the trip (generally within 48 hours), each “Founding Member” has 15 days to send in the standard trip deposit, along with a trip application.

If six applications and deposits are received by the cutoff date, the trip is scheduled (only 4 are needed if the cutoff date is at the latest November 1st of the prior year).  If fewer are received, either...

• ...each individual deposit is refunded, less an administrative charge.
  This charge corresponds to half of that normally assessed when participation in one of our regularly-scheduled trips is canceled 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.
Conversely, commercial discounts do not generally apply to Guest-Initiated Trips, except as specified in the description of the discount.


Signing Up, Canceling

The standard trip deposits required to schedule Guest-Initiated Trips are nonrefundable (except through our cancellation waivers — see below). Otherwise, usual payment (and cancellation) terms apply.
A Day Trip scheduled at guest initiative is subject to a 60€ / person cancellation fee, or to its usual cancellation charge, whichever is higher.  Hotel cancellation charges, if any, additionally apply.

Cancellation waivers, if desired, must be subscribed when the deposit is made.  They cover cancellation in the usual conditions (including refund of the “nonrefundable” trip deposit, if applicable).

Should a Founding Member of the trip prove unable to travel, payments made 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, to someone who has been previously registered to the trip and has cancelled, nor to someone travelling on another trip.
• The newly registering traveller must be someone found by the efforts of the canceling traveller, directly or indirectly.  The deposit will not be applied to people unknown to the traveller, subscribing to the trip through Blue Marble.
• An administrative charge is withheld from the transferred amount.  This charge will correspond to the charge normally assessed when participation in one of our regularly-scheduled trips is canceled 8 or more weeks in advance.
• Only payments are transferred, not prices or other conditions.  For instance, the fact that a payment is transferred does not in any way influence the trip price paid by the newly-subscribing rider.  If the price in effect when the new rider joins is different (higher or lower) than the price in effect when the Founding Member registered for the trip, the new price applies.

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


Photos:
Philadelphia friends in the Basque Country (top)
Detroy / Zavitz pod in Provence (bottom)