I consider it more a sanity supplement .. I enjoy travelling and I enjoy meeting new people but cannot give up some alone time.. paying the SS means you can listen to the music you want to, read as long as you want or just sit and gaze at your navel..

quote:

Originally posted by Folly32a:
I consider it more a sanity supplement .. I enjoy travelling and I enjoy meeting new people but cannot give up some alone time.. paying the SS means you can listen to the music you want to, read as long as you want or just sit and gaze at your navel..

LOL Sanity supplement it is!

I would not travel solo unless I had a room to myself. I have heard too many stories of bad experiences, one in particular from a tour we took involved two solo middle aged men room sharing. One gentleman preferred to be in bed by 10pm but had no problem with the other staying out except the latecomer would arrive back in the room very, very drunk & often crash & bash his way around the room, on one occasion falling on the other chap. No thanks!

I just love reading the horror room sharing stories When I first considered travelling solo I could not really afford the "sanity suppliment" However I thought about how I would feel if I had to share a bathroom and every night with a complete stranger. Would I be free to do what I wanted, when I wanted and just to "be myself"? I decided NO and I chose to pay the extra money.

I want to say it was money wisely and well spent. In Lucern, Switzerland, I bought Heidi and I stayed awake nearly all night reading it. I don't think a room mate would have approved

I am going on my 3rd tour solo, to Scandinavia in September and the single suppliment is the first thing I request.

As Jewel said, paying the SS really is like buying insurance. I buy it and think it's a waste of money until I realize how much I needed it! I don't like it but I always pay the SS. I've gone solo five times now and only on the first one was I the only solo. On every other tour, there have been other people travelling solo and I was glad not to be sharing a room with any of them. Bottom line: I want my privacy at the end of the day and I'm willing to pay for it. I'm just not going to take the chance after paying thousands of dollars on a tour.

Having said that, I might think twice about it if I were a man. I've only seen one man travelling solo on the six tours I've been on. It's mostly women. I guess we are more adventurous.

I was quite anxious going solo on my first tour but I was hooked by day 2 and was planning my next tour before I even got home.

I am testing the waters this summer going solo on a River Cruise. We shall see how this works out.

quote:

Originally posted by Jeannie118:

I was quite anxious going solo on my first tour but I was hooked by day 2 and was planning my next tour before I even got home.

I am testing the waters this summer going solo on a River Cruise. We shall see how this works out.

I'm on the Bohemian Highlights tour right now and the only female single. I've traveled before alone and would never ever consider sharing a room with a complete stranger. You simply don't know their habits and you risk losing the enjoyment of the tour and the thousands you spent on it for the sake of saving a few hundred dollars.

And yes, I'm already planning on the Greece/7 day cruise for September. Solo again.

Oh, and I did a river cruise solo. No different than a bus tour. I did the 5 day Nile cruise in 1994 and it was great. Best part is that you don't lose days stuffed in a bus. You get to do most of the traveling at night and wake up at your destination. I am considering the Danube cruise from Vienna to the Black Sea sometime in the future. (As long as it's not a cruise where formal wear is expected - I'm jeans and t-shirts all the way!!)

On my last tour in April (to Europe) I traveled with a friend. It was no problem except that in most hotels the beds were put together (like queen size beds) and really there was no room to move them apart. So I can't imagine sleeping next to a total stranger in such close accomodations. Two ladies on the tour had to share a room and one snord badly. The other complained to the TD but he did nothing. It was a nightmare for that person and she barely slept. The last few nights she was able to get her own room but the TD was to blame. He did not try hard enough to help her swich rooms. After the tour she sent a complaint letter to Trafalgar about the incident.
I am going on a tour in August and paying supplement for single room. The only way to go.

Saki

quote:

Originally posted by Saki:
On my last tour in April (to Europe) I traveled with a friend. It was no problem except that in most hotels the beds were put together (like queen size beds) and really there was no room to move them apart. So I can't imagine sleeping next to a total stranger in such close accomodations. Two ladies on the tour had to share a room and one snord badly. The other complained to the TD but he did nothing. It was a nightmare for that person and she barely slept. The last few nights she was able to get her own room but the TD was to blame. He did not try hard enough to help her swich rooms. After the tour she sent a complaint letter to Trafalgar about the incident.
I am going on a tour in August and paying supplement for single room. The only way to go.

Saki

The problem would have two causes really - was she prepared to pay the SS?

And were there any available rooms, even if she did?

I did a tour a number of years ago where one party wanted to pay SS part way through but the hotels were fully booked and she would have to stay at a different hotel some blocks from the rest of the group on a couple of the remaining nights, which she wasn't prepared to do. The TD was already staying at other hotels due to lack of rooms in the one where we were staying. This was high summer and the hotels simply told the TD, when he rang ahead, that the rooms allocated for group tours were fully taken. She wasn't prepared to stay in a different hotel so, in order to stay with the group, had to stay in the shared room.

On my last tour there was a single woman who did not pay the supplement. What made no sense was that she was the most anti-social human I have ever met.

She stayed on the bus at all stops, did not do one optional and would not eat meals with the rest of us.

She went as far as to tell us that she was better than this, than us. She could not understand why we would do a group tour.

Why she did the tour will always be a mystery to me but I could have cared less about her. You want to be such a prima donna fine but for heaven sakes get your own room!

I felt so so so bad for the woman that had to share with her. This piece of work would not even talk to her except to complain!

Time to travel, you have said what I have told people as a solo traveller your ability to make friends does not rely on your fellow travellers but the single themselves.

I cannot believe this lady would not pay the suppliment if she was such a "prima donna" Sounds to me like she thought the world owed her everything.

I think we should write a travel book on the tips to enjoying an organised tour, I know I would get a laugh out of it

quote:

Originally posted by timetotravel:
On my last tour there was a single woman who did not pay the supplement. What made no sense was that she was the most anti-social human I have ever met.

She stayed on the bus at all stops, did not do one optional and would not eat meals with the rest of us.

She went as far as to tell us that she was better than this, than us. She could not understand why we would do a group tour.

Why she did the tour will always be a mystery to me but I could have cared less about her. You want to be such a prima donna fine but for heaven sakes get your own room!

I felt so so so bad for the woman that had to share with her. This piece of work would not even talk to her except to complain!

She reminds me of the elderly lady who had to share with the 20 something party animal.

She too thought she was better that rest of us particularly as she had paid for the tour in Canadian dollars and the rest of the tour in Australia dollars (tour of 38 with one Canadian and 37 Aussies and it was great).

She also believed that she was entitled to the front seat because she was the first one on the coach the first day.

The younger crowd made it a point of honour to upset her, by taking the front seat, at least once a week over the 36 day tour although generally they preferred to stay at the back of the coach.

Hi ChrisMorrow,
Keep the stories coming I am enjoying the reading and having a laugh Fancy thinking you get the front seat because you are first on the bus, that really takes the cake

I really don't think that the TD is to blame if your roommate snores loudly and he/she can't find you another room. That is a gamble that you take when doing room share.

My first tour I did room share and there were 3 single ladies. I was 30, another one was about 35 and the last one was late 50's early 60's. Since there were 3 of us we rotated who got the single room. We each got the single room on a 2 night stay and on a 1 night stay. The 35 year old liked to go to bed pretty early so I just put some headphones in my iPod and watched tv shows on it until I was ready for sleep. It wasn't a bad experience, but I always longed for my time for the single room.

This May I did my 2nd tour as a solo traveler. I opted to pay for the SS this time, as it was financially feasible and I wanted my privacy. I'm SO GLAD that I did. There 4 of us solo ladies and 2 of us paid the SS. The last pair was a woman from Wales who is a retired school teacher. The other woman was over 70, lives in NZ but is from some Asian country. The Asian woman would stay up all hours of the night saying because she was so old she didn't need much sleep. She would use that time to very loudly pack up for the next day. She would also get up very very early. It finally came to a head when we were out on an optional evening, got back quite late, and the Asian woman had locked the door with the bar thing so that the key card alone would not open the door. Luckily, perhaps because it was May, the hotels had enough rooms and the Welsh woman chose to pay the SS for the rest of the tour. This happened about halfway through a 15 day tour.

I will always pay the SS from now on, even if it means having to take a few less optionals.

Oh I almost forgot! The only time we were ever delayed from leaving someplace was because the Asian woman was late. We waited for 10 minutes and she still wasn't there at the bus. We were in Sinnai in Romania and had visited a monastery and then drove up to visit Peles Castle. The TD finally went on foot to try to find her. After about a half hour the TD called our driver and told him to meet her at the monastery, which the Asian woman had somehow managed to walk back down to. After that the Asian woman started asking people to look out for her. No one took her up on it, afterall we are not her babysitters. She would often come up to people and ask them where they were going during free time, all of us just started going "Oh we haven't decided yet" because we didn't want to have to be responsible for her.

I have enjoyed reading all the tales about solo travelling and the single supplement however I am getting quite nervous.

I am starting a tour on 5 July for 21 days and have not paid the single supplement as I am used to sharing small rooms with 4 - 6 girls for weekends and thought sharing with one would be easy.

I hope I don't add to the horror stories when the tour finishes.

Please advise if there are any good stories about not paying the SS and sharing.

Hi SharronT,
Sharing a room with a complete stranger is very different from sharing with girls you know. The person you share with could be the complete opposite to you.

Someone called the single suppliment the "sanity suppliment" and I agree. You spend all day on the bus together and it is very nice when you arrive at your accommodation to have the room to yourself.

It is possible of course, that you will be paired with someone great or as happened to me on one tour, I was the only single anyway. But how do you know? So that is why I pay the single suppliment, I would rather have peace of mind.

Sharron, my daughter didn't pay the SS when she took a TT to Italy.

She shared a room with a lady in her 50's (daughter was 30). They became firm friends and have kept in contact since. My daughter said it was never a problem.

Go, have fun and take ear plugs just to make sure.