Come on Your Own.
You Will Not Eat a Single Meal Alone.

The answer to this question is a little complicated. Simply put, however: We are happy to try. Read further to see how we handle these requests for a complete understanding:

When you place a reservation with us as a solo traveler, you will encounter a page that explains the single supplement for your vacation. On that page, you will have two options:

• I am not willing to share a room with another traveler
• I would like to share the room with another traveler.

If you choose that you would consider sharing with someone else, a note will be made of your desire in our system, and your name will be on a list of people seeking to share. If another person reserves for the same week as you did, and they also request to share with someone, we will put you in contact with one another via e-mail. This allows the two of you to decide if you would like to share.

If both of you contact us and let us know that you have decided to share, we will merge your reservations into one room or home that is big enough for both of you. We will then remove the single supplement from both of your reservations.

How the Single Supplement is Removed:

When you reserve your space for one of our vacations as a solo, have a look at the deposit amount and the balance amount. You will see that the 20% deposit is calculated on the double occupancy rate, and the single supplement is not factored into it. Instead, the supplement is added to the final balance alone. The reason we do this is that it is extremely common for people to initially book as singles, but someone else joins them in the same room or home at some point before the trip. This way, when that happens, rather than refunding the paid supplement, we simply remove it from the final balance as though it never existed in the first place.

Should someone join you and share a room after you have paid the final balance, we will credit the supplement back to your credit card as long as the balance was paid less than 50 days prior. Otherwise, we will send you a check to reimburse you for the supplement we charged.

We are motivated to make this happen if it is your desire

Some people have asked us if we really go through all of this trouble to help them avoid paying the supplement. Yes, we do. We are motivated for two reasons. For one, we want the vacation to be exactly what you want, and if you want to save the supplement, we want to help make that happen. The other reason is that we are financially motivated ourselves. The single supplement is a passthrough cost for us, meaning that we simply charge our extra costs for not having two people in a room or home, but there is also an opportunity cost for us that we absorb, and is difficult to quantify. Suppose we have ten rooms available at a location, and we have space for 18 people on a trip. In order for us to fill the trip, we would need at least eight of the rooms to have 2 people in them. But if 5 people were coming as singles on a given week, we would be full with 15 people, so we would lose the opportunity of having 3 more people that week. If 2 of those singles decided to share, it opens up another room for us, giving us the opportunity to have 1 or 2 more people on the trip.

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Most of our cooking vacations have a soft maximum of 14 people total for the week. This is called a "Soft Maximum" because our limitations are not so much based on the number of people, but the availability of accommodations.

Because of this, if we have more solo travelers in one week than normal, we may close the week to new reservations with fewer than 14 people.

Similarly, on occasions, we may have slightly more than 14 people. Our hard "Never Exceed" maximum is 18 people on most vacations. For example, if you are booked on a week that has reached its maximum of 14, and you call us asking if your friend can join; As long as we have accommodations available, we won't deny your friend. However, a new reservation unrelated to anyone in the group may not be allowed to join.

Another time we will sometimes raise the maximum is with non-cooking participants. If a person is coming but absolutely will not be in the kitchen for the cooking classes, we will sometimes raise the maximum to accommodate.

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Most people see our trips as adult-oriented vacations, so our policy is that unless you are organizing a private group for one of our vacations, in which only members of your group are on the trip with us, the minimum age is 18.

Exceptions for Private Groups

If you are planning a group large enough that we are able to close off the trip to people outside of your group (family vacations, reunions, school groups, clubs, etc.), this rule does not apply, and we will happily accept guests of any age.

Family Weeks

Occasionally we put a "Family Week" on our calendar. When this is the case, it will specifically say that it is a Family Week in the name of the itinerary. In these cases, the minimum age is seven years old.

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