Our Tour Hotels & Rooming Policies

What are your hotels like?

Often quaint (sometimes creaky), and full of personality, our hotels are run by Europeans who are also our friends. "Shared facilities" have all but disappeared from European hotels, so there's about a 98% chance your room will include a private bath, but it is possible on some tours that for one or two nights your bathroom may be down the hall. To review which tours have the possibility of shared facilities, please see the Activity Level page for each of our European Tours. There will still be stairs — hundreds of them. Many of our hotels don't have elevators...one more reason to pack light, and many have no (or weak) air conditioning. We stay in mostly two- and three-star hotels. If you prefer to stay in four- and five-star hotels, you may be more comfortable with an alternate tour company. Read what our tour members are saying about our hotels.

What types of rooms are available?

Solo travelers: If you're traveling solo, you don't have to pay the mandatory "single supplement" required by other tour companies. Instead, you can choose to share a room with another tour member of the same gender. When there are multiple solo travelers, we rotate roommates throughout the tour. If there are only two solo travelers of the same gender, you will room together for the entire tour and there will be no roommate rotation. On our 7-day city tours there is just one hotel, so there is no roommate rotation. Your guide will do his or her best to make the room assignments as fair as possible. If you'd prefer to guarantee a private room, we offer a limited number of private rooms on all tours for an additional fee.

Private Room: To guarantee a private room, you will need to purchase a single supplement for an additional fee. While a single supplement guarantees you a private room, it does not guarantee you a larger or "nicer" room. European single-bed rooms are generally the smallest and most basic rooms the hotels have to offer. If you want to guarantee a private room on one of our tours, please indicate that preference and pay the single supplement fee with your tour reservation. (Please refer to individual tour itineraries for the most up-to-date tour and single supplement prices.) If you prefer to mail your tour deposit and single supplement payment, please send a check or money order payable to "Rick Steves Europe" in US dollars with your tour application to:

Rick Steves' ETBD
Attention: Tour Department
P.O. Box 2009
Edmonds, WA 98020

If a single room is not available, we will contact you immediately. In order to maintain our travel philosophy of staying in small, family-owned, centrally-located hotels, we are only able to offer a limited number of single supplements on each of our tours.

Couples: Two people traveling together as a couple will usually share a room with one double bed (Queen and King-size beds are uncommon in Europe). If you prefer separate beds you may request them, but due to a limited number of twin-bedded rooms, priority is given to solo travelers rooming together.

Two friends traveling together: Two friends or siblings traveling together will be roomed together with two beds in a twin room. Note: some European twin beds share one headboard but they will always have separate sheets.

Triple room: A typical triple room will be one double bed and one single bed, rollaway or cot. For this reason, we do not recommend triple rooms for three adults.

Families: If you are traveling together with more than one family member, please note that the hotels will make every effort to accommodate your rooming requests and room families near each other, but occasionally rooms can be on different floors.

Special circumstances: If you have any special needs or requests regarding tour hotel rooms, please contact the Tour Department prior to booking your tour. Email tour@ricksteves.com or call 425/608-4217.

Can I request a non-smoking room?

Many European hotels classify "no smoking" rooms as a room that you are not smoking in. This means the previous guest may have smoked in your room and there is an ashtray provided. While this has not been a problem for most of our travelers, those with heightened sensitivity to cigarette smoke should know that we cannot guarantee a smoke-free room.

We have a "no smoking" policy on our tours. While we do sometimes have smokers join our tours, they are not allowed to smoke at group events, on the bus or in their room if they are sharing a hotel room with another tour member.

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