Horrible EF Experience!
Overall, we consistently had to push to provide the kids bathroom breaks, the organization for the trip was extremely lacking, the leadership was short with children and kept them from various experiences. The educational aspect of this trip was not a large focus on this trip. The activities we participated in could have been far more educational, if we are going to call this a STEM trip. The most concerning aspect was the lack of concern for the children's safety. The tour director and teacher in charge should have these kids' safety at the top of their priority list. Their rooms at all hotels should have been together, with security that actually monitored the halls. The kids also shouldn't have been wandering an outdoor mall in a lightning storm. The tour director was not qualified to run this tour as he had not visited most of the locations we went and was not prepared with accurate information for many activities. The adult travelers were told that we were not required to watch the kids, as this was just as much our trip as theirs because we paid for the trip, but he did not; but the teacher was not as attentive to the kids as he should have been in public situations where he was responsible for 12 year olds. On multiple occasions, several children were chastised for behavior and then group leaders and the tour director proceeded to do the same action (i.e walking while looking at a phone, not looking both directions before crossing the road, not talking while other adults are presenting). We spent 42.3% of the trip driving. The weather was not taken into consideration before going to activities and no alternative plans were put in place if the weather looked questionable. The other children traveling with our group from other states were all going into high school. Any time kids were allowed to wander (i.e. malls, target, beaches) our group leader would not stay with kids unless forced by the adult travelers to take a group. He spent his time wandering with his parents (who were the other chaperones). He told the children he would play music and allow them to guess the song during the long bus rides, but he only played it once and then told the kids when he was asked later in the trip that he would not play songs and they could learn to sit in silence on the long bus rides; most of the bus rides were at least 1 hour long, if not more. The leader of our group had to be reminded on multiple occasions throughout the tour by his parents and the tour director that he needed to do a head count for our group before leaving places. My daughter stated she did have some fun, made a couple new friends, but would have enjoyed learning more things since that was the trip was all about. She stated she constantly felt rushed. During specific times the children did not get a chance to fully eat their lunches, and my daughter experienced almost not getting lunch before being ushered back to the bus. It wasn't until I demanded that her lunch order be remade since the place had "lost" her order, but then was required to eat her lunch on bus on the way to the next location. This caused her to have a lot of anxiety and stress which should not be experienced if things were planned out better.