High school art trip Our daughter and her classmates had a fantastic experience in Italy! The trip was fun, flawless, and educational! We travel often and this was a perfectly executed art trip with an extra large group of high school students. Wonderful opportunity for those who wouldn’t otherwise travel. She is looking forward to next years trip!

Costa Rica with Gustavo! I joined my daughter, her teacher, and other students on the Costa Rica trip. We LOVED it! It's a beautiful country and the locals were just lovely and very welcoming. The experiences we had were amazing and we learned SO much from our guide Gustavo. He was there every step of the way. We were very active on this trip - lots of challenging hiking, zip lining (it was awesome), and snorkeling/swimming. We saw and learned about so many birds and animals, and we hiked a volcano. It was surreal. The hotels and bus were comfortable. Our favorite hotel was the Buena Vista Lodge-the sunsets were breathtaking! Our only disappointment is that it was advertised as a week-long trip. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon and our flights home were early morning the following Friday, so we felt like we were robbed of an entire day. We should have traveled home the following Saturday. We also had a very long layover (6 hours) between flights which was daunting, but we made the best of it as we had all bonded during this wonderful trip. I would absolutely recommend EF Tours, Gustavo, and Costa Rica. It's the most gorgeous place. Pura Vida!

Japan was an amazing experience! Japan was an amazing experience for both myself and my daughter. EF tours packed a lot into our itinerary and we felt like we had a great sampling of what Japan has to offer and we both want to return one day to experience some of the sites we saw more in depth and to see new ones that time did not allow on this trip. Spring is a great time to visit and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom while we were there! Our tour director in Japan was full of great information, patient and kind. She worked hard to make sure we all had a wonderful trip and went above and beyond what was expected.

The tour guide for our students was… The tour guide for our students was fantastic. The hotel accommodations where decent. The only big change I would suggest is letting the families know of the change in return travel documents that EF requires with the hard deadlines in order for families to pick up there students and travel after the school trip is complete. I would also let school or students know ahead of time that the student is responsible for purchasing lunch daily. We did not know that we had to purchase lunch ever day making the cash brought on the trip a bit different for our student.

Caveat Emptor Our daughter enjoyed the itinerary and the country of Belize. However, the fact that we could not use a credit card to make payments as we had to initiate a bank draft of provide a debit card is ridiculous. Especially considering that the trip was greater than $4,000 and EF tours accepted our money for 2-years prior to the departure. Then the first flight departed at zero-dark-thirty from 110-miles from home when there is an airport 3-miles from home was also frustrating. Because we needed to arrive no later than 4am to the airport we opted for a $200 hotel room the prior night. We incurred a hotel night or leave would have had to leave the house @2am. Then a 6-hour layover, probably to save more money, really was upsetting. We were then told to provide $125/pp in cash tips for the guides just prior to departing for the trip which was also frustrating. So >$600/day for a vacation package from Expedia was far more reasonable for $1,253 versus ~$4,525 should make you think twice about this company and their super inflated travel packages.