explorica trip

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Fieldtrips Chatboard

explorica trip

by Middle school mom

Apr 17, 2009

I am not a teacher. I am a parent that recently attended an Explorica tour with 3 Spanish language middle school teachers, my daughter and 13 school mates. The trip was 1 week: Madrid, Mallorca and Barcelona. (I have traveled to Barcelona twice in recent years and to Madrid many years ago.) This was my first "tour" experience so I did not have much in the way of preconceptions. Flights to Madrid via Paris and back to Philly we fine. Madrid hotel was a Holiday Inn Express that, while clean and perfectly acceptable, was located in a miserable area off the expressway on the outskirts of Madrid. 1 very treacherous(pedestrian) mile to the subway and 3 trains into the city center. There were no shops or markets near the hotel. We were surrounded by car dealerships and acres and acres of macadam. Hotel in Mallorca was a resort and a short bus ride from the main town of Palma. Even though it was off season, this was our nicest accommodation and by far the best tour food. Barcelona hotel was a ...See MoreI am not a teacher. I am a parent that recently attended an Explorica tour with 3 Spanish language middle school teachers, my daughter and 13 school mates. The trip was 1 week: Madrid, Mallorca and Barcelona. (I have traveled to Barcelona twice in recent years and to Madrid many years ago.) This was my first "tour" experience so I did not have much in the way of preconceptions. Flights to Madrid via Paris and back to Philly we fine. Madrid hotel was a Holiday Inn Express that, while clean and perfectly acceptable, was located in a miserable area off the expressway on the outskirts of Madrid. 1 very treacherous(pedestrian) mile to the subway and 3 trains into the city center. There were no shops or markets near the hotel. We were surrounded by car dealerships and acres and acres of macadam. Hotel in Mallorca was a resort and a short bus ride from the main town of Palma. Even though it was off season, this was our nicest accommodation and by far the best tour food. Barcelona hotel was a Travelodge and located in a desolate warehouse and convention center area. I did not see one pedestrian there - very apocalyptic! At both the Madrid hotel and the one in Barcelona we were isolated and had to rely on the Explorica provided bus or the metro. And we found out that you cannot count on getting bus transportation from Explorica. Our first day in Madrid, the bus picked us up at the airport transported us to our hotel and then that was it! We hoofed it all day to/ from the city center via metro and you can imagine what it looked like as all 18 of us were walking back to the hotel from the metro station at 10PM after being up 36 hours straight. It would have been very nice to have had a bus ride then! I think Explorica gives you a bus when you have baggage and when they are giving you a "city tour". My daughter and I were able to avoid the worst of Explorica's planning. The day before departure, our teachers were notified of an important detail, one that they had been trying to clear up for weeks - the ferry ride from Mallorca to Barcelona. Sounds lovely right? Not when it is an 8 HOUR FERRY RIDE! There is a 4 hour, high speed ferry but that was more expensive. So Explorica put our group on the slow boat with all the long-haul tractor trailers and trucks. Because I get dramatically seasick my husband bought my daughter and I plane tickets ($150/ea at the last minute). Our flight lasted 30 minutes! We actually had the Barcelona "free time" mentioned in our itinerary while our travel companions didn't arrive in port until about 8:30PM - no Barcelona free time for them and all were seasick, some drastically, due to a hail storm at sea with high winds and terrible waves. This tour was poorly organized. We often did not know from one day to the next what was happening due to "last minute" changes. There is more but basically the message is: FIND ANOTHER TOUR COMPANY.

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