1. Complete a trip application.
   You may use our pdf version, or an on-line version, but either requires you to post, fax, or e.mail a scanned original as a pdf, since we need your real signature at the end (insurance reasons — sorry!). The on-line version wipes out everything you've typed if you click thru (or back) to any other page. It is thus wise to look over the whole thing before you start to enter any info. Links to information you may need to refer to as you fill out the application are offered below.
   
   
2. Send us a “Standard Trip Deposit,” $900 US or C, or €600
   You may send us funds...
   • ...by $ or € check / cheque,
   • ...by Visa or Mastercard credit card to be debited in euros (currency converter is here, authorization form is here),
   • ...or by bank (a.k.a. “wire”) transfer.
   Details on pros and cons of different payment methods are here. In particular, you will find an explanation of how / why credit cards are charged in euros, even if your invoice is in dollars.
   
   Full payment is required if you are signing up within 40 days of your trip’s departure. You may prefer to pay in full for your trip when you sign up, so that currency shifts don't wind up increasing the cost of your vacation. See “Locking In Prices,” below.
   
   If not paid upon sign-up, the balance of the trip cost is due 35 days prior to departure. Please send this balance in a timely manner, as you are otherwise considered to have cancelled your trip (see cancellation terms, below).
   

Links to information you may need to refer to, in order to complete your application:

• Cancellations and refunds
  Terms that govern trip cancellation, and determine what you get back if you have to cancel.
• Trip Protection / Cancellation Waivers
  How to protect your trip payments, in the event you should you have to cancel your participation.
• Operator's Responsibility
  Where we explain to you that train strikes aren’t our fault.
  
  

Locking In Prices
Trip prices are only guaranteed once final payment is received.
Thus paying your trip desposit does not lock in the final price for your trip. Only paying the total cost of your trip locks in its price.

Initial 2008 prices assume a $ exchange rate of $1 to 0.72 Euros. Our exchange rate assumptions are influenced by purchasing parities, political circumstance, and wishful thinking. This combination initially keeps prices down, but they will increase as trip dates approach if our optimistic predictions are not fulfilled (increases are guaranteed not to exceed 10% as compared to the price in effect at the date of your sign-up). If your full trip payment has been posted at the time of a price increase (postmark determines payment date), you will not be subject to it.

Unless you tell us otherwise, payments you make are applied to your trip cost first, and then to ancillary arrangements (like tickets to and from the trip). Exception: if you are booking air through us, the cost of your air ticket is the first element to which any payment is applied.


Cancellations and Refunds
Cancellations of trips, private single room charges, and / or “Baggage Transfer” services are effective only when received in writing by one of our offices, or if final payment for a trip is not received at least 35 days in advance of trip departure.

If final payment is not received 35 days in advance, you are considered to have de facto canceled your participation in your trip 34 days in advance. A refund of your trip cost, less the applicable cancellation penalty, will be sent to you.

We aren’t mean, and try to give you a couple of days to sort this out if it comes up, but we have been known to apply the term strictly when a trip has a wait list. You can lose a lot of money in that case, which will make you mad. And we lose a lot of time and effort, for no happy result, which makes us sad. Please settle the balance of your trip cost on time, even if details concerning the organization or price of ancillary services are still outstanding.

For riders on our regularly-scheduled trips, costs will be refunded less the following amounts (converted to the currency of your account, if this is not euros):

• 8 weeks prior to trip departure: an administrative charge of 70€, or 25% of the cost of the service(s) being refunded, whichever is less.
  
• 35 - 55 days prior to departure: 200€, or 35% of the cost of the service(s) being refunded, whichever is less.
  
• 22 - 34 days: 500€, or 35% of the cost of the service(s) being refunded, whichever is less.
  
• 15 - 21 days: 50% of the cost of the service(s) being refunded.
  
• 8 - 14 days: 65% of the cost of the service(s) being refunded.
  
• 1 - 7 days: 80% of the cost of the service(s) being refunded.
  

No refunds can be made on or after the start date of the trip.

Notes:

• Percentages are of base trip costs, cycle rental and shipping charges, extra room charges, and / or Baggage Transfer service charges (Daily, Half or Lite).
• Refunds are made in the currency of the payment.
• Guests subscribing to two or more connecting trips are considered to travel on a single, unified trip, whose start date is the start date of the first of those trips.
• Individual travel arrangements not part of Blue Marble’s trips, including “Access Packages,” are subject to cancellation terms of the supplier(s), plus an administrative fee of $24 US or C / 15€ per transaction. All European rail tickets carry at least a 15% cancellation fee. Seat reservation charges and tickets costing 10€ or less are never refundable. Use special caution in reserving pre- and post-trip hotel nights in high-demand cities in Italy: some hotels may require up to 3 weeks’ notice for penalty-free cancellation.
• Cycle insurance cancellation is subject to a fee in the amount of half the cost of the first week's insurance.
  

Refund conditons for participants in Guest-Initiated or Charter trips differ. For details, please follow these links:
Guest-Initiated Trips
Charter Trips



Trip Protection (Cancellation Waivers)

Three different cancellation waivers are available. All three...

• ...cover Blue Marble’s “base” trips, extra “base” trip accommodation charges, cycle rental and shipping required by the trip’s usual itinerary, “Access Packages,” and / or “Baggage Transfer” services.
• Their cost is a percentage of the cost of whichever services are subscribed.
• Waivers for our regularly-scheduled trips may be subscribed until 35 days prior to trip start (or at time of sign-up if you join within this period, and send full payment with your application).
• Waivers for guests on charter or guest-initiated trips must be subscribed at the time of sign-up.
• Waivers are not refundable within 8 weeks of trip start.
  Prior to that, they are refundable less an 18€ (or the equivalent in your currency) administrative charge.
• Should you cancel your trip at the latest on the day prior to its departure, for a reason covered by your waiver, protected payments are refunded less a 90€ deductible (or the equivalent in your currency).
  This deductible is doubled if the waiver is subscribed within 56 days of trip departure.
• If you leave a trip in progress for a covered reason, a pro-rated refund will be made, less the deductible. You are considered to have been with your trip on the day on which you leave it, or on the first day of your trip should you not join your trip without having cancelled. For the purposes of calculation, trip days are defined as the overnight stay, and the day which follows it.
• Should you decide to leave a trip of 20 or more nights for any reason (such as “I feel like it”), and provide 5 days’ notice of departure, all waivers are valid for a refund of the difference in price between the trip to which you subscribed, and the shortest trip or combination of trips in our catalogue which include all days effectively travelled.
  This term is intended to protect you should you risk a long trip and then not like it. This has never happened. Ever.
• These waivers do not cover (nor apply to) air or rail tickets or pre- or post-trip hotel reservations not included in our “Base Trips” or “Access Packages,” nor to any other travel arrangements or services not part of Blue Marble’s package trips, whether or not we assist you in making such arrangements. Nor do they apply to cycle insurance, but which is refundable less a fee.
  

They differ as follows:

• Medical Cancellation Waiver.
  Valid for medical reasons only (self, immediate family, or cohabitant). Proof of a medical obstacle to making or completing your trip is necessary to claim a refund. Cost is 4%. General conditions, applying to all waivers, are above.
  
  
• Job Crisis / Medical Cancellation Waiver.
  Additionally valid if professional obligations prevent you from making or completing your trip. Available to full-time employees only. A (very brief) form must be jointly completed by subscriber and by job supervisor prior to trip departure. Cost is 10%. General conditions, applying to all waivers, are above.
  
  
• “No Questions Asked” Waiver.
  Valid for any reason at all, including, but not limited to, ill pets, misalignment of planets, residual Y2k worries, or whatever colo(u)r terror alert the Scare-of-the-Month Club has come up with. Cost is 18%.
  
  This “No Questions Asked” waiver is the only protection we offer against what we will prudishly refer to as “global unrest.” Believe us, it was not easy to find. We have neither the financial stature to assume responsibility for geopoliticial phenomena vastly larger than we, nor a lobbying group to win government bail-outs. But we understand that you may wish to protect yourself, and this is the best option we have found to assist you with that objective.... General conditions, applying to all waivers, are above.
  

Operator’s Responsibility

Blue Marble Travel, the operator, as well as our agents (including, but not limited to, our marketing representatives in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and Australia), act only as agent for the traveller. We accept no responsibility for the service of any hotel or transportation company used in connection with these trips. Nor for any delay, loss, or accident to travellers or baggage occasioned by such services from whatsoever cause.

Passengers assume all risks associated with these trips, and accept and understand dangers inherent in cycling and in travel more generally. Risks include traffic accidents, which can result in injury or death. In subscribing to our trips, passengers certify that they are proficient in the use of the type of cycle they have requested (in all types, if no type is requested).

Passengers who choose to bring their own cycles assume all risks associated with their shipment before, during or after our trips. These risks include late delivery of, loss of, and / or damage to the cycle.

Should it become necessary for the comfort or well-being of passengers to alter the itinerary or arrangements, changes may be made without penalty to the operator. Conversely, refunds will be made if savings are effected thereby. We reserve the right to cancel any tour, and to decline to accept any person as a member of a tour, for any reason. Also to suspend anyone from a tour at any time if we deem that the group’s interest is thus served, for whatever reason. A pro-rated refund of trip cost will be made in this case.