"Overall good experience"

Our tour guide Alex was great! There were several issues with scheduling and tickets that should have been taken care of by the office prior to our trip, but otherwise amazing experience for me and my students.

"Another great adventure in Latin America"

We had great adventures and excursions throughout our trip. A great mix of volunteering, learning, fun and relaxation! We encountered some obstacles due to it being Semana Santa (Holy Week) and some rockslides that affected our itinerary, but our guide and Explorica helped out and our tour was a huge success.

"The tour guide was not a native of…"

The tour guide was not a native of Puerto Rico nor did she live there. She did not speak Spanish. More than a few times on tour we were forced to accommodate her (left her phone at the supermarket so we had to go back, we went to the airport over five hours early and she left us with the driver and went to her flight, went out of our way more than a few times for her). Bioluminescence would have been better with the swimming version rather than the kayak version. Ponce was uneventful.

"We had so much fun"

We had so much fun! The itinerary was spectacular! Every day was a win!! Belize is beautiful and the people were very kind and helpful.
We missed being able to order our own food like other tours. There were two days that we were served the exact same lunch as dinner. Also, 2 days food was served "on the go" for us to eat on the bus. We were done activities by 3 or 4 in the afternoon, by just stopping and allowing us to sit and eat at a restaurant, we still would have gotten back plenty early in the afternoon, and could have had fresher food.
Also, the second hotel, the breakfast was yummy, tons of fresh fruit, but then just a tiny bit of yogurt and toast or muffin. This was not enough to feed a lot of our kids for the big excursions we had ahead. For many of the plated meals, kids were still hungry and had to buy second dinners.

"Everything went great"

Everything went great. I was impressed with Explorica’s ability to book everything despite some challenges with the strikes in France. The buses were there when we needed them and our guide was very helpful.

"Hotels were central"

Hotels were central, our tour guide, Rainer, was amazing with the students, the food was good, and the activities were planned well. Rainer went out of his way to help plan extra activities on Sunday when everything is closed. He also made sure that our students with food restrictions / allergies got their appropriate food requests. He was the best tour guide I have had in my nine travels with students. Most importantly, my coordinator, Tommy, was accommodating, honored my requests, organized, and always responded to any questions within hours!! He is a true professional and is the reason I will travel with and highly recommend Explorica. Thank you Tommy for the best trip!!

"NYC in a Minute"

PLANNING: Made super simple, lots of support to include all that we wanted to see/do
ON THE GROUND: we enjoyed everything we did, but felt rushed at times that should not have been rushed
COMMUNICATION BETWEEN EXPLORICA & GUIDE:
Terrible...it felt like several of my conversations with Explorica were never delivered to the guide, causing incredible stress on the ground
OVERALL: Amazing trip, kids loved it, it might be my last because of the stress.

"We had a great guide who would make…"

We had a great guide who would make sure that everything that was planned was okay. She always checked in with times of when we were leaving and when we needed to be back. The hotels and places that were ate at were accommodating to those that needed accommodations, especially the new vegetarian that found out that she was vegetarian on the trip. I cannot say enough about the people that we met and the places that we saw.

"Good tour as far as sites, but chaperones had to organize and plan day-to-day when that was the tour director’s job"

Overall the tour itself was great but organization with Tour Director was frustrating and the food for dinner was sub par. The chaperones had to do a lot to organize and micromanage the Tour Director and was quite stressful. We missed one of our tours which was due to the Tour Director not building in enough time to get to the tour location. We had to meet with the Tour Director and go through the next day agenda and work through a detailed agenda. This is something that should have been planned.

"A great trip with Explorica"

There were some front end glitches with our scheduling that was beyond the control of Explorica (Covid has certainly changed things). Our tour coordinator Tommy worked with us to put together the best tour possible and customized it for us. Our tour guide Lawrence was wonderful. He was organized and constantly checked in with us about our plans for each day. When we had to take a student to the emergency room, he kept track of all of the other students and kept them on their schedule, so 2 of the chaperones could address the emergency. He was friendly with the students and made the whole trip easy for us.