East Coast Trip - Money and our next student lunch meeting

Parents of students going on the East Coast trip often ask, “How much money does my child need to bring with them on the trip?”  The short answer, technically, is “none.”  Your child won’t like me telling you that, but all necessities are covered on the trip.  All meals are paid for, drinking fountains are fairly common in most of the places we’re going, all admissions to all museums, events, and attractions are included, so your child doesn’t need to bring any money.  Technically.

OK, seriously now.  Your child is probably going to want a bottle of water here and there, perhaps an ice cream cone, or a bag of sweets.  So he or she may want a little extra spending money for snacks and beverages beyond mealtimes (about $3-$5 per day).  Then there are souvenirs.  I’ve seen kids buy a couple small tchotchkes for family, and spend little more than $15 on souvenirs for the whole trip.  For other kids, if shopping were an Olympic sport, they could medal several times over.  You know your child and his/her shopping habits best.   Clothing is usually the most expensive item kids buy on this trip, and one sweatshirt in one “I LOVE NY” gift shop can go for $40-50, easy.  Overall, average souvenir purchases are about $10-$20 per day.

As many of you may remember from the parent information meeting a few months ago, I do respectfully request a little tip money ($15 total) in advance from each student:  $5 for our coach driver, $5 for our tour guide, and $1 per night ($5 total) for housekeeping.  Naturally, tipping is optional, but in our country it is customary and a nice courtesy, especially for a job well done.  All other tips are included in the cost of the tour.  I will collect the coach driver and tour guide tip money ($10) at the Pre-Departure Meeting on March 22.  The hotel tip money should be gathered up by the room leader and left in the room at the conclusion of our stay in each hotel.  We’ll assign room leaders at one of our upcoming student meetings.

On a related note, parents also ask:  “Debit/prepaid card or cash?”  There are advantages to both.  Depending on the type of card and the issuing bank, parents can control the amount of spending per day and/or add value to the card if needed; this is a good security feature if the card is lost, and is also helpful in limiting teen spending.  Talk to your bank now about your options.  Cash is accepted everywhere, but once lost is almost certainly gone for good.  As for VISA, MasterCard, or American Express gift cards, most of them don’t have a name on them, don’t require ID, and their value could be gone if they’re lost, so be careful with this option.  Talk to your child and find out what you think will work best.  Finally, don’t bother with travelers’ checks.  They might be good for overseas travel, but not many places here in the United States even know what to do with them.

Our next student meeting is this Tuesday, March 1, at lunch in my classroom.  I had originally scheduled it for Monday, but I had forgotten about the Student of the Month luncheon tomorrow.  For the Tuesday meeting, I will provide PIZZA.  We need to finalize roommates and discuss which chaperone you will be with on the trip, so it’s important that you arrive as soon as possible.

Once again, if you are a student, I look forward to seeing you Tuesday at lunch.  If you are a parent, I look forward to seeing you on March 22, at 7:00 p.m. for our pre-departure meeting.  Our East Coast adventure is only 33 days away.  As always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to e-mail me at rippolito@gmail.com or text me at (661) 347-4990.

Cheers,

Mr. Ippolito

East Coast Trip – When we’re flying and why you should be walking

We have all been waiting to find out exactly when we're flying, and I recently received tentative flight information from USA Student Travel.  We are scheduled to fly JetBlue non-stop both ways, departing Long Beach on a red-eye flight on Friday, April 1, and returning home on Thursday, April 7.  Here is our schedule at this time:

1-Apr          Depart Long Beach 913PM          Arrive New York-JFK 521AM (2-Apr)

7-Apr          Depart Washington-Dulles 545PM         Arrive Long Beach 821PM

Of course, flight information is subject to change, and we won't know our exact itinerary, flight times, and flight numbers for sure until our pre-departure meeting on March 22.  As more information comes in, or if anything changes, I will keep you posted.

Our East Coast Trip is now 40 days away and it's a good time to get out and stretch those legs. We walk an average of seven miles each day in this trip--through museums, up and down the National Mall in DC, along the battlefields of Gettysburg, and through the big-city streets of Philadelphia and New York City. Even the most physically-active students can get worn out by the amount of walking in our trip.  I'm over twice the age and over twice the weight of just about every student on this trip, and I will probably end up walking faster than any student.  Yes, consider that a challenge.  :-)

I encourage all our East Coast Trip families to take a family walk two or three days a week. If you really feel the need to get a special new pair of shoes for the trip, get them now and start breaking them in.  On every trip I've done, there's always one student asking for band-aids to patch up blistered heels from a new pair of shoes.  Don't let it be you!

While on the subject of footwear, we will have one special "dress-up" day in New York City when we see our Broadway show. Again, consider a nice, but sensible pair of shoes for this event. If you wear cute little strappy high-heels, it's likely your feet will be both cold and in pain by the time the walk is over. If you're looking for a more complete list of suggested items to pack, you can check out my Suggested Packing List here:  http://j.mp/ectpack.  You can also find this same Suggested Packing List on http://ipptrip.blogspot.com listed under Helpful Links and Downloads.  In the meantime, get out there and start walking!

--
Ron Ippolito • Teacher/Yearbook Adviser, Rio Norte JHS
rippolito@gmail.com • mrippolito.com • call/text: (661) 347-4990

East Coast Trip 2011 - Welcome Aboard!

Dear East Coast trip family,

In less than two months, we will depart for our big adventure to New York City, Philadelphia, Gettysburg, and Washington, DC.  I love historical travel and I'm very excited to see some of our nation’s historical landmarks and greatest treasures.  I am especially excited to share these treasures with your son or daughter this April.

As I indicated to many families at the end of last school year, I spent a lot of time from last spring until now NOT communicating with you.  This is because I wanted to wait until we were 100% certain of everyone going on our trip.  I didn't want to start sending out e-mails, getting kids excited, and signing up roommates while our roster was still in flux.  We literally had last-minute roster changes up to and including last week, but the good news is we now know FOR CERTAIN who is going on our exciting adventure, so it's now time for me to let you know about two important dates:

Wednesday, February 23, lunch, my classroom (D-6) – ROOMMATE meeting

This is what so many students have been waiting for!  Bring your lunch, and meet everyone who is going on the trip.  We have 26 girls going on the trip (five rooms of four; two rooms of three) and 12 boys (exactly three rooms of four).  We will start with an icebreaker to get to know everyone, and then we’ll get down to the business of choosing roommates.  You bring your lunch; I’ll provide dessert.  Please arrive by 11:50 a.m.

Tuesday, March 22, 7:00pm, Rio Norte Library – Pre-Departure Meeting

Organized by USA Student Travel, and hosted by both myself and our tour company rep, this meeting will go over the specifics of the trip.  We finally get to see our exact itinerary, hotel and flight information.  Now that we know for sure everyone who is going on the trip, our tour company is working hard right now to get us the very best flights and hotels possible.  This meeting is MANDATORY for the traveling student and at least one parent/guardian to attend.

Here is my very IMPORTANT request right now:  please e-mail me back just to simply say, “Yes, you have the right e-mail address, Mr. Ippolito.”  I will be using e-mail quite a bit from this point on, not only to share important trip information with you, but also to share photos and trip updates with parents while we’re back East.  It’s very important that I have an e-mail address that your family checks regularly.  Also, please let me know if you like to add an additional e-mail address (other parent, child going on trip) to get all this information as well.

If you ever miss one of these e-mails, it gets accidentally deleted, or you wonder if maybe you missed one, you can see an archive of every message on my East Coast Trip website, http://ipptrip.blogspot.com/.  In the coming weeks, this website will be full of other great resources, too, including trip photos and real-time trip updates.  You can also stay connected to the trip on Twitter and Facebook.  You can "Like" our trip page at http://www.facebook.com/IppTrip or follow on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/IppTrip.  Finally, you can get updates sent to you as a text message on your cell phone by texting the words follow ipptrip to 40404.

 

This is a big trip, and you are placing your child into my care for a week.  Please feel free to e-mail me at rippolito@gmail.com (this is the e-mail address I check wherever I go) or call or text message me directly at (661) 347-4990 if you ever have any questions about the trip.

 

Cheers,

Ron Ippolito

Space is available if you're still interested - MUST ACT FAST!

There is now limited space available for the Spring Break East Coast trip!  We had a couple students cancel in January, so we have some availability, but you must act quickly.  Please contact Mr. Ippolito at rippolito@gmail.com if you're interested in this opportunity.