The LA/Grand Canyon tour was excellent. Each day was filled with a new adventure and our group was extremely sad when the trip came to an end. show less

I am an experienced EF Group Leader but this was my first domestic trip with Smithsonian and I was thoroughly impressed. I was confident from the start because SST is run by EF and I was not disappointed. I lead trips every other year and was honestly drawn to SST because of financial reasons. In these tough economic times trips to Europe had gotten pricey - the reduced cost was attractive. The savings of not having to buy a passport and the comfort of not going out of the country had parents pleased as well. The Los Angeles & Grand Canyon tour was the perfect mix of trendy, fun Hollywood things and the amazing vistas of the Grand Canyon. Similar to EF, a lot is squeezed into one week but that is what I like - I want to be able to offer my students the most for their money. The only drawback is not the fault of anything but geography. Long bus rides are required between LA and Las Vegas and between the Grand Canyon and Phoenix but the rest was welcomed by my tired teens. I would suggest opting for the show in Las Vegas because it will give you something to do that night - obviously much of what Vegas has to offer is not an option for teenagers. We saw the Blue Man Group and our tickets were in the first three rows - it was an awesome show and several of my students were actually in the show! After the show we broke into smaller groups (with an adult in each) and walked the Strip for a few hours to see the Fountains at Bellagio and ride the roller coaster at New York, New York. The river float trip down the Colorado was a very relaxing (not white water, literally floating) and the views of the Hoover Dam and mountains were great. On our way from the Grand Canyon to Phoenix we stopped in Sedona and I would recommend anyone taking this tour ask their Tour Director - the Red Rocks are a sight to see for sure. Overall this was a great trip for my 22 high school students. show less

The days were packed with things to do, and we hit all the major attractions. It was well organized, and the director was awesome. show less

I loved this trip i am going to go the next one! Highly recommend this trip show less

Had a fun school trip. EF was very flexible and our group worked very well together. show less

The trip was great! I had a lot of fun! Everything we saw and did was super cool! Although, one thing I didn't like very much was that we didn't get to do a fair amount of things on the original itinerary and we werent given a lot of time in certain places. Our tour guide seemed as though they were planning things based on what they wanted to do and not on what the whole group wanted to do. They also seemed to dislike our group a lot compared to the other group we were traveling with. However, the overall trip was fantastic....the tour guide was just okay.... show less

I loved this tour... it was a lot of fun. It was so cool to experience these places in real life. My tour guide was quite negative and favored the other group traveling with us a little bit more. But that didn't stop us from having a wonderful time. show less

The sites were amazing! All of the iconic places that we only get to see in the movies were right there in front of my face. What was really neat is that we just happened to be on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the same night they were setting up for the Magic Mike movie premiere. It was the coolest thing ever. We saw everything you could imagine in this 8 day trip. Hollywood Walk of Fame, Dolby Theater, Griffith Observatory, Rodeo Drive, Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach, Las Vegas, and The Grand Canyon. Our tour guide was wonderful. The only thing I didn't like was the choice of dinner restaurants. The kids didn't like them either. We always felt like we were "starving" because hardly any of us would eat the food at dinner time. This also caused us to spend more of our spending money on lunch and snacks in order to compensate for not eating dinner. The restaurant choices were just a whole lot of weird salads and sandwiches, and then pizza two days in a row. But, we lived and we had a good time. show less

A couple of the hotels were kind of seedy. The food choices for dinner were awful. The sites were fantastic! show less

Fantastic trip. Knowledgeable tour director. Evening meals were not the greatest. Would do this trip again, or at least go back and visit some of the places we went. show less