Suggestions From Last Year's Trip

Before the trip-
I'd like each student's email address, and cell phone number. Safeway and Von's are nicer grocery stores than Albertson's. Remember to find out food allergies and preferences the first night. Bring along 2 decent kitchen knifes. Cheap serving dishes, a cutting board, and bowls can be bought the first day at a dollar store.
Day 1-I'd like an estimated arrival time/airline for each student.
Day 2-Hampton hotel breakfast is good. My itinerary said the bus was leaving at 8:00am. The bus driver said she was supposed to be at the hotel at 8:30am. I'd like the 'real' itinerary for times. Roomie and I thought 4 hours at the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair was too long, but NONE of the kids agreed with us. Some of them didn't even make it through the entire fair. The Chinese dinner wasn't that great. I remembered it as being a wonderful banquet, and this wasn't it. It seemed like there weren't as many courses. Several of the items weren't eaten. Too fancy? Too many ingredients? Too greasy?
Day 3-No one ended up biking. They were a group of shoppers this year. They didn't want to spend $15.00 on bike rental, but would spend that amount on lunch or clothes. Several stopped to watch a soccer match on tv. The kids seemed fine with Chili's, and no one but Chaperone went over $12.00pp. There is a mall nearby, and I could find a better place for next year quite easily.
Day 4-The kayak guy sent us down the street to a public park to eat lunch before the kids kayaked instead of letting them take lunch on the water to the beach. Von's lunch-sandwiches were small, seemed to be on dinner rolls. The kids didn't eat the macaroni or potato salads. We would've been better off just buying lunchmeat, cheeses, and rolls, and doing them on our own. Rusty's Pizza-overpriced at $20.00 per pizza, and not heavenly. The pizzas had too many toppings on them-one meat plus one or two toppings is sufficient, there weren't any 'plain' pizzas, or any without meat. The kids don't like black olives, don't get them with anything. This would've been a good night to give them all $10.00 and turned them loose on Santa Barbara.
Day 5-Remember to ask Universal when the park closes, and what time the rides/attractions close.
Day 6/7-Target less than 2 miles on the same street as the hotel. Go out of the hotel and turn right. There's a bus stop nearby, and one right in front of Target. -
Day 8-Finally, David is our driver. He was great. He was also a better, more concerned chaperone than Chaperone. He was very helpful to Roomie and me. I again had the wrong bus time. The bus was terrible. I hope they gave you a partial refund.Fashion Outlet Mall was a good stop. Kids loved it. Boulder City has 2 Rotary clubs. I'd ask if they would be interested in doing more with the kids.
Remember to ask the police chief, about getting the Hoover Dam chief to waive the parking fee. Roomie wasn't that impressed with the Boulder City hospital. The closest all night pharmacy is in Henderson. The chief drove her to the hospital, Walgreen's, and back to the hotel. He went above and beyond.
Day 9-It worked out well to give the kids $7.00pp for dinner, and let them wander around Boulder City on their own. Roomie and I walked a few blocks into downtown for dinner at a Wine bar/outside cafe. rafting- Chaperone typed in everyone's name, and asked the students to sign the waiver at breakfast. He didn't tell them what they were signing. When we asked him and the kids, he started to tell them it was so they didn't sue if they did something stupid on the trip and silly stuff. I read the entire waiver aloud on the bus to the kids so they all knew what they signed, and told them they didn't have to go if they didn't want to.
Day 10-The hotel wasn't accomodating. One of the reasons they gave for not being able to give us early rooms was that all the rooms had to be in a group. The rooms were on 2 different floors, and in 2 different wings. I stayed in the one room they gave us for the sick girls all afternoon-even the girls went out and wandered around. I didn't handle the room keys correctly. over 10 of the kids decided not to pick up their keys until after the show, and I sat and waited. Key pickup should be clarified for next year. Duh, me. All the kids fit into one limo-well, 32 of them. The other 11 were 'grounded' for making us late to Blue Man Group. We took the grounded ones in the bus to Fremont Street so they could see the lightshow and Vegas at night.I had the wrong time for the limo. We had a half hour that the kids could've bought souvenirs and looked around the Venetian instead of hustling to meet the limo.
Day 11-our driving forever day. The Sierra Nevada didn't realize we were coming until almost before we arrived. But the hotel is sold, and will be torn down in the next year. It was great having a kitchen to work in.
Day 12-Breakfast burritos-overpriced meal, and many went to waste. There is a 'Pita Palace' right next to the hotel, and a Von's up the street. Just buy cereal, yogurt, fruit, and 1/2 gallons of milk and juice.Skip's Rotary club doesn't even know he meets the bus. He does it on his own. He mentioned that the club used to host the trip's kids in their homes for a night, and it was fun for the club. Maybe look into it since the Sierra Nevada will be gone?
Day 13-Safeway about 2 miles up the road in 'downtown' Zephyr Cove, great place to get lunch-will make food to order pp. Zephyr Cove also has grills if you want to cook out. The sailing trip wasn't on the itinerary this year. Was it planned or a surprise? IMHO, a lot of money was wasted on the Farewell party. It's a 2 hour party fairly late at night. Money spent on shrimp platters, cheese trays, sandwich rolls, and the like could've been spent earlier in the day by paying for lunch or dinner for everyone. I arrived at the party at 12:30am, and and there were platters full of food everywhere. The hospital nearby was great to Vinicius. They fast-tracked us and we were in and out in less than 2 hours. They did a good job of keeping him away from the weirdos. Chaperone-X Chaperone2-just a sweetheart. Not much of a chaperone, but she was a great grandma figure for the kids. She'd advocate for them if she thought I was being mean.Roomie-love her! She's even keeled, practical, gracious, patient, and thoughtful. Bus Co. said they only have 2 busses, and contracted out for our group. The bus we used is going to be retired next month, and a new one is taking it's place. Personally, I'd follow David to where he worked, and deal with him. His room was near the kids' rooms, he helped chaperone, he volunteered to run to the grocery or drug store any time of the day or night, he had a huge cooler filled with ice he let us use for the entire trip, he offered to pay if it looked like we didn't have enough money-like for Vinicius' $84.00 prescription. He came and picked us up at the all-night drugstore, and was 'mad' I took a taxi to the hospital and to Walgreen's. He was aghast when I told him Jesse had bought the kids' alcohol and seemed to smell like alcohol before.