Diverse School Travel

A well-organised trip with a good UK-based contact who responded well to our requests

The trip was, on the whole, a great success. Rich's attention to detail and flexibility in the planning process was helpful and enabled us to make changes to the itinerary, including removing the History museum on the first day and adding in a visit to the Templo de Debod. The vast majority of the trip was well planned. Students thoroughly enjoyed visits to the Bernanbeu and Cooking Class in particular. Credit must go to the cooking class staff, who were excellent teachers and very positive with our groups. Students also loved having time to explore the Parque del Retiro. Our in-house scavenger hunt was an enormous success here and had students speaking plenty of Spanish, as did our other self-planned activity at San Miguel Market. The visit to the Museo del Traje was less positive - the museum is fairly difficult to reach and is less engaging than the other stops. I would not reccommend that other groups visit. Churros at San Ginés was a popular stop, but it should be raised that the 'cellar' area where groups are sat gets incredibly hot - groups should be advised of this to make sure they ensure students are dressed appropriately. Unfortunately, we encountered a significant issue with our accommodation (Room00 Gran Vía). The bathrooms were listed in the pack as 'shared', which we interpreted as shared between students in each dorm (as opposed to the en-suite ones offered to staff). Unfortunately, these transpired to be public bathrooms, shared with the adults staying in the hostel. There was no way to reserve space for our students to shower or use the toilet and this posed a significant safety risk. We informed Diverse's out-of-hours team about this on Sunday and whilst a solution was looked for, nothing changed - no alternative accommodation was offered and there was no change to the situation at our hostel. The hostel reception also insisted no one had spoken to them. Whilst I understand this was not for lack of trying, this meant our students were left in an unsafe position and I would insist that this particular hostel is not suitable for school trips due to this. The hostel even said that they do not accept under-18s except for school groups as they do not want under 18s sharing bathrooms with adults, which shows that they are aware that the situation is not workable. We managed this as a staff team to the best of our ability to safeguard our young people, but do not feel that the accommodation offered was acceptable. The food options were good. Breakfast at the hostel was varied and provided everything students (and staff) could want, and the buffet for dinner was an excellent option for a school group as, alongside some Spanish dishes for the more adventurous participants, there was plenty of pizza, a salad bar, vegetables and a dessert station for those less keen to try new things. The cooking class - a highlight of the trip - provided a good meal which students enjoyed and catered to all dietary requirements. Both drivers from Rambler were excellent, on-time and polite. Óscar, our pick-up driver from Najera communicated really well and drove well, including navigating the Desfile del Día de la Hispanidad to help us get as close as possible to our accommodation. On the whole, we are evry staisfied with the trip - students had a very positive experience, spoke lots of Spanish and engaged with culinary, artistic, sporting and historical culture and heritage. Were alternative accommodation provided, it would be difficult to find fault with the visit at all.

Richard, our travel consultant at Diverse School Travel, was brilliant and we had a brilliant visit down to his amazing organisation, communication and hard work.

Geneva is a fantastic, safe and interesting city, throughly recommend a trip here

Great trip - smoothly organised