Itinerary Revision – Hopefully The Last – No Guarantee!

Well, we lied. We thought we had this trip all planned out until we started reading about some of the weather in Switzerland in October. There seems to be a high likelihood that the weather would be more marginal in October, with the increased possibility of rain, thereby increasing the odds that we would not see as much of the clear mountain views these areas are known for.

So, we basically moved the trip start date up by an entire week, with our departure now being September 13, 2012. In addition, we have moved the Switzerland portion of the trip itinerary to take place right after Paris, France, which puts us in Switzerland about 18 days earlier than on the previous itinerary.

Of course, all of the hotel reservations needed to be changed, and luckily (and thankfully) most all of the hotels had availability for the revised dates. The only casualty being Munich, where we had to go with a different hotel, which actually ended up having better reviews, and was a little cheaper.

We are also staying in a different hotel in Paris, having already decided to go back to stay in the same hotel we used when we were in Paris in 2009, the Hotel Agora Saint Germain. The Hotel Atlantis we originally reserved was not available, so fate helped us to confirm the decision to change to the Agora anyway.

Probably the most disappointing change is that we will not be going on the Night Train from Paris to Munich since the revised route now is Paris, France to Lucerne, Switzerland. The duration of the train ride to Lucerne is about five hours, so it is not long enough for night train service. We are trading that treat for another night in Lucerne, staying in a River View room at the Hotel Des Alpes. These changes are probably about the same cost, and we will be able to see more of the sights in and around Lucerne instead.

Below is the revised routing map for the trip. We are going from west to east now, and will end up flying home out of Frankfurt, Germany, instead of Zurich, Switzerland. Since we flew out of Frankfurt in 2010,  we are familiar with the hotels near the airport, and the airport itself. It is just a good thing we had not purchased the airline tickets yet, and therefore, do not have to pay for any changes to them. I think we will let this revised itinerary soak in a little, making sure this is the best route for what we want to see. Of course, once we actually make flight reservations, we still have the ability to make additional changes, but for a substantial international flight change fee if we change flight destinations. The flights reservations, once made, will certainly lock us in to our planned itinerary, and we hope to purchase them soon.

Note:  The cities in Italics are the cities we were scheduled to visit on the 2010 trip that was cut short.

Revised Route Map

Revised Itinerary