Can not speak for their trips since never went on one, but if your trip is canceled or if there are any issues you they will not refund your money. Paid for a trip to Japan, in advance, since June 2019, scheduled to occur in June 2020. Part of the payment included trip insurance.The company communicated that the trip is canceled. They offered to transfer the full amount paid to another trip next year or refund the payment made less $500 as "cancellation penalty". When contacting the company to inquire about the $500 cancellation penalty, the reason provided was that they had incurred cancellation fees on their end so could not refund all the money back. I was OK with that statement as long as they were able to provide any documentation showing loss incurred for the scheduled trip or any of the reservations they made for this trip. The plainly denied providing any information. The fact that they are willing to provide a voucher in the full amount shows they haven't incurred any losses. Also. there was trip insurance in place which they do not honor as well, leading me to believe they haven't made any payments towards the trip insurance or show when the insurance payment was made or show any insurance related policies. As a result we made payments for a whole year, the trip was canceled and now we lost $500, for no fault of our own. Be very careful when you try to purchase anything from this company. read more

We paid $2000 towards my step daughters tour to France. She couldn't go on the tour due to her father not paying the second half of the fee. EF tours would only refund $600. They claimed that the remaining money was being kept as a cancellation fee. We would not recommend this company read more

Do not book with this company, they have many hidden cancellation fees. I had a tour booked for my children for next year 7/5/17, to Europe, for 3. With all the things happening in Europe, my children are now scared of going. This trip is almost a year off and the cancellation fees for each person is $ 600.00. I know there should be a fee but, not this much, airline tickets have not been issued and it didn't cost them 600.00 to process the tour and cancel it. Airlines are changing or canceling trips to these affected areas at no charge, but this company charges, stay away. Look at other reviews, on other sites and you will see many people with same issues with this company. read more

Last week I returned from a trip with EF in Italy as a student. The entire trip was art based and incredible. The tour guide was more than willing to answer any questions that I had (I actually held off a few because I was afraid that I was going to be annoying...) and he was extremely knowledgable in almost every subject about Italy. During my time in Italy was working on a college credit through EF and the tour guide and the local guide knew of the subject after my teacher had emailed them. They included information about my subject for myself and all of the other students. As a happy student with EF let me talk about the problems people seem to be having: 1. "Bus rides are too long" For me, I found the bus rides extremely pleasant. They gave you time to conserve your energy and catch up on sleep. Throughout the trip I kept a journal and the rides gave me a chance to write or draw in it. During the bus rides I had the ability to ask the tour guide questions and he had more than enough time to give me a good answer. The bus usually took routes with beautiful scenery to enjoy and photograph. 2. "Too fast paced" The thing that people need to remember is that this is a TOUR. You are not traveling. The point to tour is to give you a taste of everything so that you know where you want to return on your own. As someone who is ADD and many of the other kids being ADD, ADHD, or they just have short attention spans the fast pace helped keep our attention. If tour guides spent too long in a certain place I would begin to get bored and zone out. It may be different for parents or teachers, but many of my friends appreciated the fast pace. 3. "EF does not care about the students" From the Italy tour it was very clear that EF cares a lot about its students. They are dedicated to giving us the best learning experience possible. EF used technology such as the Whispers to help us hear the tour guides without disturbing the peace in cities and so that everyone can hear. (A Whisper works much like a radio that you carry on a lanyard. The tour guide has a microphone that they speak into and the entire group can hear the tour guide perfectly, even if they are ten feet away.) Safety and medical help was of a biggest concern. They required for to wear seat belts on buses (which is almost unheard of) and any dietary needs were fulfilled. The EF tour guides care very much about the students in their care and are willing to do anything within their control to help the students have a better experience. 4. "The hotels are terrible and too far out of the city" The hotels are not terrible, they are simply European. There is a large difference between European and American hotels. Single beds, showers only, much smaller rooms. The hotels were very nice, the staff were pleasant (many were willing to help us with our Italian), and will fulfill the needs of the students. The beds are comfortable and they have good food. Also, not much time is spent in the hotels. If we had an hour or so before bed, my group would usually play cards or socialize in the lobby. That much time before curfew was rare. Usually everyone just crashed and slept a full ten or so hours once we got there. For the hotels being too far from the city is not true. The amount of time was at most 30 to 45 minutes, which was enough time for people to get extra sleep, journal, socialize before taking off, and for the tour guide to explain the day. This buffer of time between the main city and small village was extremely valuable when the Brussels attacks happened in March, while we were in Italy. Being in small villages meant the hotels were completely safe in case of terror attacks. The villages also meant that students could walk around in almost complete safety on well lit roads in areas of practically nonexistent crime. No doubt that EF takes this into account. 5. "To much put into one trip" For this people need to use their common sense. If you see a trip that takes you to 10 different countries in 10 days, you can probably assume that the trip will be WAY faster paced than a tour in just one country. Just because EF offers this option and you take it, does not mean that the company is terrible. If you want a slower pace and chose just one country. Again, this is an educational tour, not a vacation. 6. "They combine with different schools and there are too many people" EF only put as many schools into the trip that are need to fill a coach bus, which is around 50-55 people. This was fine for us because all of the kids were well behaved and the teachers were good at their job. The tour guide was very skilled at keeping everyone together. The combining of schools is nice because it gives you the option to make new friends for the trip and maybe get a pen pal from another state. From my point of view, the people who had a bad experience were the ones who were pessimistic and had a bad attitude the entire trip. read more

Do NOT book with EF unless you are 100% sure you will be going on the trip. There is a lot of fine print about getting your money back. Our travel consultant assured me that I should get all of my scouts to sign up for a trip in 2019 and if they decided not to go, would get all but their $95 non-refundable deposit back. Well, when we did have to cancel because my co-leaders daughter ended up in the PICU, only her and her daughter were able to submit a claim to get their "cancellation fee" of $300 possibly waived. I was out $550 ($95 deposit; $155 insurance and $300 fee). They were very rude. I even asked about them "holding" money for my daughter since she is planning to go on a school trip in 2020, and they said I would have to cancel anyways because it was in a different year. That's ridiculous to me!!! read more

When I had to cancel a tour, they decided to only refund me $406 out of the $1400 that I paid. They essentially stole $1000 from us. This is a terrible company that is not in the customers best interest and should be avoided at all costs. read more

I recently went on an EF Tour to Greece and Italy. I would never go again and definitly would never go on any education tour again especially EF after the experience I have had. I don't do reviews and I hate to talk bad about a company because it's biased and my experience doesn't reflects on everyone else's experience. However, if you go on EF Tour especially the one I went on I can tell you that the food sucks beyond, you wont really have much free time, and you will be on a bus all day. The food they serve you for breakfast and dinner is absolutely horrible. They take you to nice restaurants and you expect to have good Italian food, but then you get chicken that's not even on the menu there and tastes the same as the chicken you have had 3 days in a role. Your better off paying for your own dinner and breakfast. Though the thing that made me write this review more than anything was the people I was roomed with and while this isnt EF's fault I'm still beyond angry. I had to room with two girls from another group and was wrong fully accused of being drunk and trashing the place by those girls. I don't drink at all because of personal family issues and the only thing that was broke was a shower rod that broke when I put my towel on it which I reported instantly to the hotels front desk. In the end I got new roomates because the girls admitted they may have exaggerated. So yeah you might get roomates that are pathological liars that you didnt do anything to or said anything to. Overall just bad experience and wouldnt go again or suggest it to anyone, but then again that's my experience. I know some people did enjoy it because it is a unique experienc, but I rather just stick to planning my own trips and doing what I want to do. read more

Traveling has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My parents are both world travelers and have influenced me to continue this venture just as they did. Therefore, when the flyer came out about a trip to Portugal and Spain through the school, I took advantage of it. I traveled with EF Tours the summer of my junior year of high school and enjoyed my trip thoroughly. Some time after, I signed up for another EF Tours to Spain, France, Monaco, and Italy thinking the more, the better! However, this disastrous trip was less than I had ever hoped for. The trouble started far before the trip began when nearly 160 students signed up to attend this 12-day journey through 4 countries. The various issues with the trip fell were poor quality of food, disorganization, and terrible lodging. Upon arrival to Spain with no sleep and long layovers, EF Tours began right away drowning us in information. As if the jet lag wasn't bad enough, we did this in torrential downpour of filthy Madrid. After nearly being stuck by lightening, EF landed all 160 of us in a crappy restaurant that served us mush and stale bread. Though I was open to trying new foods and experience cultural differences, this was clearly a restaurant with no standards. Food provided throughout the trip was either worse or the same as the first initial meal, serving us uncooked meat, soggy vegetables, and unbelievably disgusting breakfast. To give an idea of what a typical meal looked like, we would have soggy, falling apart penne with a bright red fake tomato sauce, and if we were lucky we were served water. Because of the size of the trip, it was broken into three separate busses with three different tour directors on each one. You would think that with three directors you would be able to work together to figure out timing and scheduling. However, this was quite the opposite of what occurred. They were constantly contradicting each other and could not match up schedules or plans. This made it difficult on the student because we were being shuffled around without knowing the daily plan. Additionally, it caused travel to last much longer than anticipated. My final issue with this trip was the horrendous lodging that took place throughout our entire trip. To give a few specifics, there was mold on the sheets, leftover trash in every single hotel, and stolen items. All of the hotels were approximately 30-40 minutes outside the city so students were unable to experience the downtown of the city at night. Many of the hotels had bunk bed cots with bed bugs and sheets that resembled paper. Though there were many drawbacks to this trip, we had many fond memories in our travels. We were able to swim in the French Riviera, travel by boat through Lake Como, see royal palaces, visit museums, and take pictures in front of historic monuments. Overall, for the amount of money the tour costs, you are better off going by yourself. Our director would often disregard our specific needs or get upset when we asked questions pertaining to history or the culture. These negative qualities throughout the trip made my experience much less enjoyable. I did become closer to my friends and enjoy the architecture that Europe has to offer. However, the positive aspects of this tour were incomparable to the horrible quality of food, horrendous lodging in every city, and disorganization of the trip. read more

I cannot believe these people. I signed up my daughter to do a tour of Costa Rica in February, and purchased trip insurance. Due to the Department of State travel advisory, my school chose to cancel all overseas travel regardless of destination. EF refuses to give is a refund on the travel, instead offering us a trip in July. July in Costa Rica? yeah right. Can you say 'class action lawsuit'?? read more

I was a teacher here, and I really don't recommend it for children. I don't think they supervised them enough for a start and staff were going out and getting drunk and missing excursions the next morning which meant less staff than expected would be supervising the trip! Also a lot of weird stuff going on between some staff so they lose sight of the most important reason they are there and don't focus on the young people enough. read more

This company does no stand by their product. My daughter is currently in Athens on day 5 with out luggage and friends. Due to the numerous mistakes made by EF and their so called travel expertise her group of 34 has been broken up at times 5 different ways. And the most concerning some have been with 16 kids to one chaperone. On two occasions now these kids have been sent to airports WITHOUT flight reservations and my daughter had to call me at 1:30 am as she was stuck in Amsterdam with NO connection to Rome. Not good business. How does a company with 22,000 employees worldwide make such mistakes?!!! She signed up and PAID 4100.00 for the trip of a lifetime and so far has only paid 4100.00 and counting for the disappoint of a lifetime. She texts everyday for me to "get her out of here." EF's response... fill out this form Mrs. Bosser because you bought the insurance. Really!!!! My kid has no suitcase and her two best friends are not even with her as they have not been successful at a reunion. She is being forced to sleep in a room with kids she does not know!!!! Here is what I can tell you. If you want to experience a high level of stress, weight loss, loss of sleep and anxiety, simply book a tour with EF satisfaction guaranteed! read more

First off my group paid $4,000 for a London/ Scotland health science tour just to stay an hour away from the city in what was arguably the worst part of London. Our hotel had no AC and was definitely the cheapest option for ef our motel in Scotland had a rat in it. Second our tour guide was complete garbage!! (Denise) she was rude and impatient.For example she would often talk about how Europeans are much smarter than Americans and she told our group we were the worst group she's ever had. some people in our group got lost because she would often walk too fast and leave people behind when they attempted to take pictures. She gave no direction and never told us much about the city. The only meal they truly provided was dinner and almost every single meal was terrible and at a cheap restaurant. They said they would provide us with breakfast AND dinner but considering hotel meals are free which is what they "provided" they really only provided one meal which was dinner. there was no way they even spent $2,000 on our trip. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS GOD AWFUL COMPANY. read more

Enrolled in a tour for summer of 2016 in summer of 2015. Not enough signed up and when it was determined it wasn't going to run, in November of 2015, they still kept, $550 from each person. Perhaps a total of $3,300 in all. All they did was produce a pre-made web page for the tour and set up direct deposits for the few enrolled, nothing else. Yes, this is the policy, but very poor customer service. When we told them that we were very disappointed in their stubbornness and that we would push our child's school, who has sponsored EF trips for over a decade, not to use them, they told us "that is very disrespectful". Unbelievable. Also, they never allowed us to speak to a manger. As it turns out the school had already decided (as they gave the teacher the complete run around too) not to use them again and they have 5 set tours over the next two years. This is a well off suburb, foolish people. As to the insurance, what a rip off, I usually get insurance on my own and that is not possible, you have to purchase the insurance (that is at least how I had to sign up). How can you keep insurance for a trip not taken. There is no ability to perform on the contract. Penny wise and pound foolish. Avoid, avoid, avoid. read more

My son just finished 2 weeks in Barcelona on arrival he went to the 1st host family who spoke no English and he spoke no Spanish .The student that was already there could speak Spanish but was leaving the next day and told my son the hosts were unfriendly and unhelpful and partied with loud music until 3am with people coming and going until the early hours .. he was very uncomfortable with this home and so after messaging me he left for a hostel . We contacted EF and was told that he should have called the emergency number but he had no phone minutes and it was a Sunday and holiday Monday so school was closed . I tried to call and went to voicemail !!! He was then instructed to bring his stuff to school Tuesday from my emails with the office in Boston and he would be rehoused ....so he took a taxi more expense for us... He was housed with a single guy and his two roommates in a dirty apartment -the host told him he didn't cook ( breakfast and dinner included in price haha ) the shower flooded the floor and there was no toilet paper .The student roommate came home and was vomiting in the bathroom all night so my son asked to be moved into a dorm he was told he was too picky ....By this point it was Wednesday he had not eaten or showered and was told he would get a refund for accommodation turns out that is $85 for 2 weeks accommodation and meals in Barcelona. Hence to say I have not seen the insulting refund and on contacting EF in Boston they increased it to $200 again I'm waiting for the money . Feel completely scammed and this really took away from the cultural experience . By the way all the activities they say they offer are an extra cost!! read more

Parents , stay away from EF travel unless you want your child to be unfed, unsupervised and loose their self-esteem during this trip. We purchased EF summer camp in lovely south of France town for 4 weeks and had to withdraw after 1 (!) week. While the sea and activities were nice, the poor accommodation conditions were the main problem : EF provides bedrooms size of a closet and sometimes a plain matress to sleep on the floor. The house key was not provided resulting in multiple lock outs for our child and the meals contained no meat, so our child basically had to buy food in supermarkets. The host avoided answering our initial emails and provided a photo of the living room not the bedroom , and later refused to provide a house key to each student. The school emergency phone number only takes voice mail and will not resque your child in case of life threatening situation. For all your inquiries and complaints EF replies that it's a part of "learning experience " - take a note: it's a program for 13 year-old ones . Parents, don't believe those positive reviews left by children who just liked being unsupervised so they can try alcohol or drugs at early age and described these trips as a "life-changing adventure" !! If your child doesn't drink ,smoke and is a virgin at the age of 13 , she/he will be undoubtedly traumatized in these dehumanizing conditions. I have so many screen shots of my daughter's classmates complaining about unbearable conditions in their host family in St.Raphael, France but none of them had admitted this to their parents until later . Unless you hate your child , please don't send them with EF travel - it will destroy their self-esteem. read more

DO NOT use this travel agency! 0 star. We had so many issues on our trip that was supposed to be a trip of a lifetime for my boyfriend and I. All started as soon as we landed in London, and the agency was 4 and half hour late to pick us up. They never answered calls while we sat there waiting and even there "emergency" line went to voicemail. It was impossible to get ahold of them to find out when or if we were getting picked up from airport like supposed to. We were told unlimited usage with cards for subway system at each location. That was untrue, we had to put our own money on subway cards after only riding on the subway a couple of times. The hostels are nowhere near the action/touristy places. Windows that do not open, no AC. The so called extra "excursions" to pay for you can do yourself for half the price. I calculated out the cost of everything the trip pays for and compared it to what we paid for trip and they have an outrageously greedy profit margin. Use a local travel agent in your town and pay 100 dollars to set everything up for you. You are getting completely ripped off by this company that is supposed to cater towards young adults. Their "tours" of the city they will tell you are 4 or such hours long when in reality each of our tours were 1.5 hours. After getting back from trip I called the company to talk about how disappointed we were, and were completely talked down to, each personnel would take shots at our intelligence, condescending and blowing off our concerns entirely. It took an entire week for me to get a call back from them to talk about a resolution to all the things that went wrong. Their answers to the huge airport was that it was our fault, I actually had a panic attack at the airport which I told them and they responded with " well alot of people have panic attacks and did you take your medication" . We had several long distance international calls that added up to over 50 dollars because we were trying to get ahold of them while being forgotten in foreign country. They denied every single we brought to their attention. And after that we were offered a measly 26 dollar refund. And this post has only touched the surface of all the issues with the trip and with the contacting of EF and how they treated us. We are so disappointed and upset that we went through this company for our trip and used a company that disregards mental health and a company that has ZERO care for any of its clients. read more

Dear .... thanks for your quick reply!! My daughter A. is currently in ....Utah as an exchange student from Germany through the organization EF Education First. She will come back to Germany in the next days due to her supposed bad, disrespectful behavior, three bad grades in school, not taking part at the family's life and for using her mobile all the time. On 17 August 2016 she flew from Frankfurt to New York, to attend the "Welcome Days". The days went up on with boring school lessings, sightseeing of New York, food was bad and cheap, the accomodation was cheap. Just as information, the exchange year cost me about 15.000 Euros. Days later on 20 August 2016 A. then flew to ...Utah to her host family ... At that time, the host mother was 24 years old, the host father 28, no children. First I was a bit skeptical, because there was no experience with children, but ok. There she had her own room with bath. The first days went very well... After a short time, there were problems with the food, since the family cooked only chicken every day, not often went for shopping, and there was no bread at home and so on. Also my daughter told me, it was dirty and disgusting in the kitchen. She always needed to clean everything before she was able to cook or eat. At the first days she got help from the parents, afterwards she was usually left to herself. The host family did four month nothing with my daughter except "Pokemon hunting", sometimes eat outside at a restaurant and visiting the cinema . They were just lazy and spent most of the time in their bedroom. Some time later a room in the house was rent to a young teacher, Mrs....24 years old. The family hadn't informed EF about this. Normally every roommate must be checked by the EF organization first. She had an extra room, but used the same bathroom as A. . It became complicated very quickly since Mrs.... was really dirty and disgusting. She has always left the bathroom in a state that can hardly be called here. My daughter has taken several fotos. On September 25th I contacted the IEC of Utah, Mrs...and told her about the situation in the family. I also went to the EF office in Germany and told them about it. The German office told me that I should not contact the American EF. I didn't knew that and from that moment on I only contacted the German office. There were discussions with the caretakers in Utah, A. and the guest family. After that, a short improvement and then again the same as before. The host family came home after work in the evening, were mostly tired and stayed in their bedroom except for a few evenings... From time to time they played together, usually computer or mobile phones and rarely other games. My daughter participated at all events except going to church (the host family were Mormons). She also often asked wether something can be done together - no reaction or they answered "maybe later"...later happened nothing. Meanwhile, I received an oral warning from EF Germany, that my daughter would have been disrepectful to here hostfamily and the grades would not be good. Apart from this, my daughter would only play with her mobile phone and her computer. I told them, that nobody was busy with my daughter and the hostparents would be constantly in the bedroom or were tired. What alternative was there for my daughter except games oder television?? The host parents didn't even wanted to drive A. anywhere by car so that she was able do something by herself. There was no bus connection, only School bus in the morning and after school. After four long month and countless conversation with the EF office in Germany and EF Utah my daughter was called from EF Utah on December 08, 2016, and picked up on December 9th and sent to an IEC of EF (Mr an Mrs...) in ...Utah, until a new hostfamily are found. In ...my daughter could not attend the High School and sat with another exchange student about a week at the house, the family was working the whole day, she could do nothing. On December 15th 2016 a call by the program manager Mrs... from EF received A. who told her that they had a new hostfamily (Mr and Mrs...from ...Utah). A. was very enthusiastic about the new family, as they were very committed, have done a lot. She was also invited to fly to Florida in February. On December 22 th of 2016, my daughter had a long talk with the host mother to reflect her own behavior. The host mother told her, she is respectful and very friendly, all is okay!! On December 23th 2016 I got a call in the morning by the EF Germany, my daughter would behave disrepectfully at the new hostfamily, would not participate in anything and would have been unkind to one of the daughters... Also, my daughter got a call from The EF program manager, who claimed the same. A. cried very much, because she liked her new host family very much and could read more

My daughters went with EF to Spain in March of this year. I went as a Chaperon...What I can say is thank God I went because my children would have starved on this trip. The food given to the kids was horrible...plates were left untouched and those who ate got sick. It cost me 9 thousand dollars for the trip and I spend more money buying food for my kids as well as the ones I was responsible for...I could not stand seeing them so hungry because they would not eat the food served., I felt so bad for the other kids that were alone... Some of the Hotels were clean ( the last one the toilet was disgusting and the food in general was HORRIBLE. I understand its an experience for the children to taste new foods...but they should make accommodations for those that have religious restrictions. I had 2 Jewish kids with me and I had to buy food for them making sure it was kosher or not pig.... My recommendation is if you send your kids make sure to pack snacks because they will go hungry. I took plenty and had to ration them so all of the kids I was chaperoning could eat something. They were surviving on bread and water. The trip was educational but pretty expensive. :) read more

I wish I could give this place a negative rating. My daughter wanted to go with members of her class on this great trip with EF tours. She signed up October 1 and we had to cancel Oct 14 due to conflicts with my work schedule. however, in the 2 weeks that we were enrolled we had made payments amounted to $800. Per the cancellation policy, there is a $95 non-refundable charge and a $300 cancellation fee. While not happy with that amount I understood. What I didn't understand was the fact that they also charged $155 for some type of insurance (which is not apart of their cancellation fees). So talking to the customer service representative, I asked how if we hadn't paid so much into the trip that they would be receiving that much back in fees. I was told that they only charge whats been deposited. Not only did I make a complaint to the Better Business Bureau but I also requested that a manager call me and I have yet to hear from anyone. Yet I received a check in the mail for $300 before I could talk to someone. read more

Be very careful when working with this company. Suggest you make alternate arrangements. Beautiful & exciting brochures. Awful and sneaky customer service. Misrepresent their services and the value of their offered insurances. When our trip was cancelled due to terrorist threats, they kept 30% of our money and made their profit margin anyway. We lost $ 650.00 of hard earned educational money! read more

Theses people will not give refunds,read every detail because they have a fee for every thing you can think of . I booked over year ago thinking this was something i had time to change my mind about . nope! if you pay them 1 cent you will never see it again so make sure that you don't have any life events or anything that may stop you from going ! because you are not getting your money back ever ! after i realized i was out 600 plus dollars just a few months after booking i just let it go ,until they had the never to call me and ask to set up payments again or cancel ( I canceled months ago) and told if i hadn't waited so long that maybe they could have helped me when i was told no i wouldn't get any thing back months ago anyways ! the only service they did for me was take my money ! nothing booked, no plane tickets they did help me set up a web page to take donations from family and friends!!!! read more

I have NEVER written a review until I became infuriated having to deal with their 'costumer service' ( in fact if this site would let me I'd wouldn't be posting any stars at all): I found a site that is much cheaper than EF so naturally I contacted them because they have a better price guarantee. Huge mistake. You see that message got lost in space somehow so I had to write another message. My first message was so detailed and I assumed they wouldn't contact me so for my second message I just wrote some minor little words and sent it off. I understand they can get busy but not responding in days in ridiculous. Anyways, to my suprise my second message got answered quickly. That in its self is beyond baffling due to the fact that a cryptic message gets answered before a detailed message. Of course I was asked to give the details that I left out and what I get back is a few short words saying: is there a phone number I contact you at to discuss this information. Could have said that to begin with so I wouldn't have had to restate everything. If I called them I would be asked to restate it all again, so at this point I just gave up. SUMMARY: EF is a HOAX, you can go to other sites that are affordable and without the hassale. I honestly doubt they would have gone through with their guarantee. Do your self a favor and AVOID EF. read more

I wouldn't recommend taking a trip with EF. I came here with my school hoping to make memories on my high school trip, but left not being able to remember what we did this morning. We only got an hour or less when it came to important sights we were trying to experience. For example, when we arrived to the Statue of Liberty we only had 25 minutes to spend, which kind of took the magic of New York away. At one point my grandma thought we were still in our hometown, because we were constantly being rushed and had not enough time to enjoy New York. Also we walked about 8 miles a day even though we had a bus driver. The bus driver mostly just drove us to New York and back. Our meeting spot to get on the bus to drive back at night was sketchy. I had an experience with one woman who was very dangerous and almost got her hands on me. The trip wasn't what I expected , but our tour guide was very nice & friendly to everyone. read more

On July 5th, 2016, I embarked on an EF tours to England, Wales, Ireland and Paris. I had paid a total of $4,343.00 for 11 days, but noticed that I did not receive the value of what I had paid the company, and my life was at risk on one of the excursions of the trip. On July 8th from our first trip in Killarney, Ireland to Dublin, Ireland, we taken to a boarding school dormitory for our lodging. This was in a remote area, the campus of this facility and dormitory looked like an insane asylum, and was not fit for paying a 4,343.00 on a tour. There no necessities such as a TV and the trash was never emptied. The second offense occurred on 7/11/2016. In route to Birmingham, England in a couch on the NEC Junction Tunnel (8-45, M42) we were left stranded on an intersection of the highway for over two hours. We learned that the driver had less than a 1/4 of fuel and the fuel gage was broken. This was so up hauling with children on board not knowing what steps to take or if a vehicle would crash into us as we waited. The tour guide finally made the decision to have groups of taxi back to the Coventry, England hotel paying our way; only to be reimbursed later. Finally, in Dublin, Ireland for dinner at O'briens, our meals were extremely late and we were told not to accept our deserts, which were given with all meals. The hindrance appeared to be the settlement of our expenses, and the restaurant had refused to serve as planned. When the meal did arrive it was sloppy, messy and undesirable for eating, and practically thrown across the table. In some instances, the meals were not even eaten by the children on the tour. Overall, value received for the 4,343.00 dollars paid was never delivered in limited meals, transport and accommodations. read more

DO NOT BOOK WITH EF! My friends and I booked a trip after looking at reviews on EF's website. A few weeks later we checked back to other sites (like yelp, trip advisor, etc) and saw the absolute worst reviews. After reading probably 100 bad reviews, we decided to cancel. Long story short - when you try to cancel, your travel agent (within EF) will NOT help you (mine somehow blocked my number when I tried calling to cancel) and after multiple attempts to call the corporation itself, I finally got a call back. The man who helped me cancel was friendly, but honestly could care less about me or my situation and kept pressuring me to book a different trip or a different week. After multiple attempts of telling him NO, he finally gave in. They kept $600 and refunded me the rest of my money. All EF cares about is money. Customer Service is below par and the company itself is NOT one I would recommend booking with. read more

I want to start off by saying that ef tours is a scam for parents. I was sending my son on one of their trips during the summer of 2014. while at the conference for the trip of how everything works, it sounded great, actually to good to be true, especially the travel insurance, if for any reason you must cancel if you purchased there insurance you will receive your money back, at least that's what was told at my meeting. well circumstances happened in my household and I had to cancel my sons trip, starting in January of 2014 plenty of time to cancel with ef tours. and my situation was considered one of their guarantee refund policy. the first time it was submitted it was declined, because the represented put the information in the system wrong so it had to be redone, that was in April. 4 months after my original claim, so I had to start all over and resubmit everything again, about a month after that the insurance company needed more proof of why I was canceling, so I got them more information of what they needed. about a month later there still working on my claim. I had to contact BBB on ef tours and within 48 hours my claim was approved because it was well over there 30 days that they said it takes to review my claim and 7 months since I reported it. so fast forward to today by passing the very many phone calls to ef tours insurance company that they use, and im still waiting for my refund and it's now been 9 months. my refund check was supposedly issues on july 30th. when I called august 20th they said that I had to wait 30 days before reporting the check wasn't delivered. but if I was to receive it I should've had it by now so they were going to over ride the system and do a check status and I should receive the check within 10 days, so I called today sept. 2, 2014 and they couldn't submit the claim until exactly 30 days which fell on a Saturday and they don't work on the weekends so there going to do a stop payment which should take about a week and then reissue another check, so by the second week of September sometime I should have it. this has been going on since January of 2014 it's now September 2014. after dealing with ef tours I will never ever send my child on a trip that is sponsored by this company ever, the representatives are uneducated in there job rolls and the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. and I personally wouldn't buy or recommend the insurance because they make you fight hoping that you forget about the money so they can move on to the next soul that is willing to buy the insurance and get scammed.. if I could give this company no stars I would read more

We agreed to host an exchange student for a year. EF has ruined our Christmas and destroyed our relationship with our host daughter. Everything about our host went well up until about two weeks ago when our exchange daughter was really feeling homesick and the blues. She and I got into a disagreement over appropriate attire for a function (a very typical teenage/mother/daughter thing) that got blown completely out of proportion. Our host daughter sobbed to Mom in the Netherlands, Mom sobbed to EF and EF rips the daughter from our house and investigates us for abuse. The unfortunate timing of Christmas meant that our exchange daughter was bounced around, we were left with a big part of our plans missing and an ugly taste in our mouth for EF. Once Christmas was over even more assumptions and lies were made. Long story short from poor counseling by EF our exchange daughter decided this entire ordeal could not be resolved. I hate EF for what they did to our exchange daughter, my family and our exchange daughter's family. read more

Do not book a tour with EF. I took students on a Spring Break trip to Thailand and I was incredibly disappointed by it. They basically just handed us off to other tour group in Thailand called Destination Asia who had planned the absolute cheapest and worst trip possible. Dirty, cheap hotels in bad parts of town, most of the time spent on the bus, uneatable buffets with bugs in the food...really horrible! The hotel in Bangkok was right in the middle of the red light district and the bus was basically knocking women selling their bodies out of the way in order to drive up to the front of the hotel. The street was littered with women and lady boys selling their services, pimps, clients, and people trying to sell drugs so we couldn't even walk to a convenient store to buy water without feeling unsafe. We stayed at another "hotel" in Kanchanaburi which was really just a summer camp that wasn't currently in use, the quality was about one star! The doors to the rooms had all been left open when we got there and they were filled with cockroaches, spiders, lizards, mosquitos, bed bugs, and everything else you can image. The rooms were grimy and the students were all covered in bug bites after the first night. There was no escaping the bugs though because they were in all of the rooms! They also kept taking us to places like an "umbrella factory", a "jade factory" and a "silver factory" where all there was to do was buy things...clearly the tour director is a getting a kick back by taking a bunch of tourists there. The students wanted to be outside doing things instead of inside of factories continually, but our tour director wouldn't let us skip these or leave early even with all of asking to do something else. I can't believe the students paid so much money for this trip- this was not good value for their money at all. When we called EF to get help with this during the trip, they said they didn't even have our tour director's phone number so they couldn't contact him. They didn't even seem to know who was leading our tour! How can a company function like this? Save your students and yourself and head on over to another company to book a tour where the leaders and the company will actually genuinely care about the students and want them to get the best value for their money. EF is just trying to make a quick buck off of them, they don't care rather the tour is good or not. read more

it wasn't horrible, honestly, they're just incredibly cheap. staying at low-budget accommodations might be fine if they were one of those companies that truly cared about getting in touch with local people and having their clients experience more of a local culture in each place, but they are not one of those ethical / sustainable travel -type companies. they are strictly for tourism. They do not give back to the local communities. It's sightseeing, it's not truly getting to know any culture. if sight-seeing like a group of old white people is what the average middle -american is into, then i suppose it's okay. but as far as the younger generation, i think we are more interconnected globally and want more out of a company these days than simply seeing some sights. if you want to be a true traveler, this is not the company for you. read more

Be aware that in addition to non-refundable registration and insurance fees, there is also a $300 cancellation fee, even more than a year out from the travel date! There was no EFT rep at our school's parent's meeting, and the website is very difficult to navigate/search for important info, although the marketing is slick. An email to them has remained unanswered. Trying to through by phone is nearly impossible. I finally gave up my entire lunch break at work on hold waiting to be connected to a rep who fed me the scripted company lines about a cancellation process and fees. I have to wait another month and a half for him to call me back to discuss how much I might get back. I have my doubts I will actually hear from him and get a refund. Why couldn't he just refund it immediately? This trip is expensive, but my son was excited about going with his teacher and fellow students, until the Paris bombings made him too anxious about group travel. We can both have an enriching trip for the same price if I plan it myself (yes, I have the travel experience to do so) and he feels safer with that. After these experiences with [lack of] customer service, so do I. read more

I really wish I would have done more research or my daughters school would have before we got involved with EF Tours. It all began with a meeting at my daughters school where we got sold the dream a 4K dream of a trip of a lifetime. So we went home and signed up. Bought the trip insurance for "just in case". Started fundraising and doing some independent fundraising. My daughter even gave up Christmas so her family could help pay for her trip. I'm on a very limited income. When I went with my daughter we were saddened to find out that I'm unable to get her a passport because both parents have to attend in person to get a minor a passport. We don't know where her father is unfortunately. My daughter was devastated. I contacted the insurance company who was very nice but stated that its not in their policy to refund for passports it only covers for illnesses etc. Then I attempted to contact EF Tours. WHAT A JOKE!!! I was on hold for over 30 minutes when I was told to press 1 and someone would call me back. I was called back 45 minutes later by the rudest most inconsiderate girl. She told me as a courtesy she would give me the $100 that is on my donations page?!!! That's a courtesy? The trip is a year away how can you not refund my money that my daughter and myself have worked so hard to pay. Where is that money going to???She spent her Saturdays washing cars and selling candy bars to go on this trip. It's not her fault that she can't get a passport. This is horrible business practice. Your representative was so rude and disrespectful. I asked her if I needed to call anyone to verify my cancellation or if anything else needed to be done and she just said, NO. I asked if I would get confirmation and she said I would get an email and then hung up on me. I still have not received an email. To anyone out there, I strongly advise not using EF Tours for their lack of customer service and humanity. SHame on you EF Tours. Disgusting!!! read more