Let me start by saying it was a good learning experience, & we made the best of it all in order to make long lasting, great memories with our kids & families. We are choosing to focus on the positive from our trip. However, EF was a big disappointment. We spent lots of time & money preparing & ensuring to travel light by having 1 carry-on & 1 backpack, but EF booked with Air Canada, who unknown to us, actually required smaller carry-ons on smaller planes with smaller seats, than the other airlines, so all carry-ons had to be checked, wasting valuable time, not to mention, we could have packed more belongings & not packed quite so lightly. I am guessing Air Canada rates are cheaper. The meals, included in our high total price, were shameful at best, bowls of unrecognizable slop & crackerlike “pizza” with a little bit of cheese & onions, that had nothing to do with the culture that we hoped to experience, all served with room temperature to warm tap water only, no ice, & no AC in the restaurants, which were located in the slummy areas of town. Come to find out, while staying in our final hotel, our hotel breakfasts were only for us EF travelers, the other guests were served the good stuff in a totally different dining room. Two of the three hotels were dumps, no AC, poor air flow, old fans that didn’t work properly, windows that wouldn’t open or only open a few inches, showers that wouldn’t drain, “double or queen bed” that was really a single pull out couch with a thin crappy mattress, very cramped, no elevators, & lots of bugs & spiders. These hotels were located far away from London or Paris, requiring long bus rides, wasting more precious time. EF was so unorganized in the itinerary, had it been organized, we could have done a lot more, visited a lot more, had more free time, & more rest/down time. One of our guests was left behind at the hotel, knowingly, which I feel was the wrong choice. Our full time guide was from another country, not from London or Paris. The guide was helpful & nice, but would have been really nice to have someone as our full time guide from the actual city visiting who would have been more knowledgeable. We were told itinerary at the last minute with little to no time to prepare what we needed to bring for the day. Come to find out, many places we visited were not paid for by EF, because they are FREE to the public…I feel scammed. Our group leader & friend was not to blame at all & was unaware of most all of these circumstances. Many in our group would like to know where all of our money went. We suffered, we cried, we were frustrated, we were hot, we were exhausted, we were sleep deprived, I do not recommend EF ever for anyone.
