"No me ha pagado el reembolso por los…"

No me ha pagado el reembolso por los dias perdidos. Hasta cuando tendré q esperar? O ya no me van a reembolsar nada?

"Never Again"

Well, we arrived and got to each destination by bus, other than this there was not much leadership nor information from your guide. In fact at times we were given misinformation. Very little history of any region was shared by Bianca, our guide. We stayed in low end hotels and accommodations were dingy and misrepresented. For example, hotel London advertised a pool in their photos and there is no pool. The 3rd hotel which had a pool, had the pool closed by the time we arrived with very hot teenagers. Air conditioning malfunctioned, wood finishes were rotting, drain covers missing creating tripping hazards.
Our boys were packed into one room like baking sardines. This was true for every accommodation. Four twin beds were placed wall to wall with no more than 1 inch between them. The kids had to crawl over each other to get to the bathroom or out of the room. A definite fire hazard. In one room 4 students got trapped in a room by a non functioning door. My son jumped off the balcony to the ground to leave the room to come notify an adult.

We took a group of teenage students in the hopes of getting some knowledge of Greece, yet basically we were left on our own. While in the bus we passed many landmarks that the guide had no knowledge of. The entire trip with Explorica was very disappointing. We would have learned more if we organized the trip ourselves and hired tours via Trip Advisor.

"London - Soccer trip"

The tour director was great. He was knowledgeable, helpful, funny, and accommodating when he could be. The same goes for the bus drivers.

The hardest part we had was the amount of time it took to get anywhere on the bus. That isn't fully WorldStrides fault, but it did create a feeling of not having enough time at the sites because we had to quickly get on another long bus ride to the next location.

The hotel was clean and nice for the communal area. The kids had fun playing games with each other. The hotel was not in the greatest area, but we did have access to some things we haven't seen or tried before.

The majority of the travelers did not get a say in what was on the itinerary. We believe the list was sent to the trip organizer, and he picked instead of polling the group. I feel like this could've been handled a little better. Again, not fully a WorldStrides issue, but maybe take into consideration how this handled in the future.

I wouldn't advertise that the team is getting "training with a Pro Coach" and then send a 19-year-old Academy Coach of a feeder team. Saying they are getting training with a "Pro Coach" sets a much higher expectation. While some of the players did get something out of that training, but it felt more like a regular training, just with a different coach. The coach that did attend was friendly, knowledgeable, and attentive.

Overall, I recommend the experience. I would do it again with some tweaks to the itinerary.

"Explorica was a huge disappointment"

Explorica was a huge disappointment. I don't know how they are still in business. From the time we landed in Athens until the day we left, our tour guide Bianca was a compete train wreck. She was completely uninterested in our group. She barely gave us any information about all of the sites we were visiting instead relying on the local tour guides. She said several inappropriate things over the bus mic. Topics ranged from finding herself and the single chaperones on the trip men to buses crashing and students dying, She never once sat down and ate with the group at any meal. One morning when I was speaking to my son about something she had absolutely nothing to do with, she interjected to me that he was "always complaining". Completely unnecessary and untrue. It also felt like Bianca had a side hustle with many of the bus drivers, hotel restaurants, and local guides. It looked like she was on the take and getting paid to bring our group to certain places.

The day we were leaving Athens for a 3-day Aegean cruise, one of the students was not allowed to board the ship. Bianca had reassured the child's mother twice that she should keep his passport safe with her while she toured Greece on her own because the child had a US passport card. His mother had to drive 6 hours to bring the passport and a chaperone had to spend 2 days with him traveling on an overnight ferry to Crete where they slept on the floor until they reached their destination. The tour guide continuously denied that she had said the passport card would work even though there were witnesses. She took no accountability at all. The whole group wanted nothing to do with her and she was asked to keep away from our group.

The hotels were ok, but as expected. The cruise was a very fun experience for the group as a whole. There was quite a bit of bus time traveling to and from locations. The food was ok but I did not like that everything was prefix. Luckily we were able to experience Greek cuisine on our own.

My family and I will never go on a group excursion again thanks to Explorica. If it were not for the fantastic group we were with this trip would have been a bust, My recommendation is Explorica look for tour guides who care and want to engage students in the history around them. Bianca gave us basically nothing. We got better information from Wikipedia and a book I picked up at a rest stop. We spent over $22K with Explorica and could have had a far more luxurious experience without using them.

"Amazing tour guide and great…"

Amazing tour guide and great hotel/plans for touring.

"Pretty good!"

Places we went to were great. Bus in Ireland sucked. Most hotels were pretty good! Wish we would have gone to Glasgow and cliffs in Ireland too. Wish we would have trained up to Birmingham for one night then trained to Edinburgh instead of fly.

"Our guide Siria was outstanding"

Our guide Siria was outstanding. Bus drivers were fantastic.

"Our tour guide Siria was amazing"

Our tour guide Siria was amazing. She kept us all informed and was extremely helpful with local recommendations and getting us to the right places at the right times.

I will say that the second hotel was a bit disappointing from a cleanliness perspective.

The food at the hotel each night left majority of us confused as we didn’t really know what we were eating and weren’t given an option.

While I know this was a soccer tour the stadium and museum were the lowest locations on our trip and could have been left out. With us being 20 minutes from Pisa we would have much preferred to visit there than the museum.

Overall great trip and we enjoyed ourselves.