Team 2021 Tour

This is a Parent Run Private Guided Tour

From Washington, D.C.  to Williamsburg VA

Discover the history and culture of both cities with our award winning Classical Educational Tour!

Welcome!

We are very excited you have joined us. 

Please email, text, or call us anytime if you have any questions regarding this tour. 

Lorna Holland will be your Tour Guide and will remain with the group at all times.  You can reach her at: +1 571 239 3889 or +1 703 209 0669

Safety:

Please know that safety is our number one concern when we are on Tour.  Please Know that every step has been carefully made to ensure your child has the best time while he or she is with us.

Travel Health and Safety Guidelines:

While group leaders, parents, and travel partners continue to navigate the uncertainty regarding COVID-19 and its disruption to education and travel, we at TourDCwithUS have been working hard to develop new protocols around health and safety on our student tours.

Whenever you're ready to plan your next custom-tailored student travel experience, we'll be standing by to guide your every step.

Our new approach includes:

• Providing personal protective equipment (PPE) for all participants.
• Updated guidelines for motor coach, hotel, and restaurant safety.
• Revising itineraries to adhere to new requirements at each destination.

 At The Airport:

• Each airport, and airline, will have its own rules regarding your flight travel, and we recommend you check the website of your airport and carrier now, and at least 72 hours before departing. Temperature checks and face coverings will very likely be a requirement at the airport and on the plane.
• Some destinations may require health forms or additional testing/screening prior to arrival, including requirements based on your home state or city. We will make every effort to communicate these requirements in advance. 
• TourDCwithUS will provide disposable face masks for participants traveling in Fall 2020.
• Many airport restaurants may not be open, and in-flight food service will not be available, so we recommend packing a meal and snacks for your journey if you are traveling by air.
• TSA will allow you to bring hand sanitizer in a container up to 12 ounces in your carry-on.

Your Tour Director:

• Your group will be met by a dedicated Tour Director who has been specially trained in specific protocols to help keep the group safe. 
• Your Tour Director(s) will provide a safety briefing specific to your group to help set expectations for your travel experience.

On the Motor Coach:

• We will work with each group and each motor coach company to establish specific loading and unloading procedures to minimize unnecessary touching and passing. Masks will be required while seated in the bus.
• The motor coach will be cleaned frequently.
• Other changes you might see include plexiglass or empty rows around the motor coach drivers and drivers may be wearing masks.
• Hand sanitizer will also be available on the motor coach.

At the Hotel:

• Our check-in process will be modified to limit interaction with other guests at the hotel. This may mean private entrances, fewer people in the lobby, and fewer people in the elevator.
• We’ve worked with our hotel partners to ensure the highest standards in cleanliness in the hotels prior to your arrival, which will include disinfection of surfaces inside rooms and extra cleaning on high contact areas such as light switches, doorknobs, and TV remotes. Once the room has been expertly cleaned, hotel staff will not enter unless specifically requested.
• Hotel guests should expect limited food and beverage options inside the hotel and limited or no property amenities (e.g. pools, gyms, etc.).
• TourDCwithUS will offer upgrades related to room occupancy. We will also work with families traveling together to encourage rooms based on family units, and limit roommate switching on programs that travel between cities.

New Itineraries:

• Our team is working closely with our contacts at museums, landmarks, and other sites we visit.  Together, we will define specific (and evolving) protocols for groups to make sure the experience is both safe and fun.
• Based on what we learn, we may make changes to your itinerary to ensure we have plenty of time to accommodate the new way of doing things. We will also make sure to focus your time on places where you have the most freedom to explore.
• We will take plenty of breaks for washing hands.
• Many of the sites we visit will require face coverings and have new rules for security and group management. You should be prepared to follow the instructions of your Tour Director and staff at all locations you visit. We recommend you bring a clear purse or backpack or a gallon-sized ziploc bag, as some sites will not allow traditional bags.

Welcome Letter:

Dear Parents,

We here at TourDCwithUs are excited for another great educational trip! We have decades of combined experience in student travel, and this year, more than ever, we will be using all of our experience and knowledge when planning your tour.

Together with your help, we have decided to plan the 2021 trip to Washington, DC and Williamsburg, VA. This 5 day trip will be action packed, and will be full of American History from the Colonial period to the present day. 

Group travel will look different in 2021, and we wanted to take the time to go over some points with you. There are 6 months until the tour, and hopefully many aspects will change for the better, but this is what we anticipate for now: 

We will be using 2 hotels, one in Washington, DC, and one in Williamsburg, and 2 students will share each room, as opposed to 4 sharing one room in the past. This helps to limit contact between students in the hotel rooms. For now, breakfast buffets are not up and running, but the hotels do have plans in place to provide a hot meal to groups, so the students have a great start to their days.

Our motorcoach operator has always taken great care in cleaning and maintaining the motorcoach. We will have hand sanitizer for each passenger before they enter the bus, and we will provide cleaning wipes throughout the day for passengers to wipe down their seating areas, as well as their phones and anything else that may have been in high contact at the last stop.

Weather permitting, we will have as many activities as possible outside to minimize risk and to keep us separated from other groups and tourists. This doesn’t really change our itinerary much, as many of the locations for this tour are already outside.  When possible, we will also have meals outside, so that the students can spread out and enjoy the fresh air.

Chaperones have always been great about keeping the students together, and not letting students wander off on their own. This year, we will be enforcing this practice, to minimize contact with surfaces and with other guests. Bathroom breaks, gift shops, and museum visits will all be in chaperone groups.

Several museums have begun their reopening processes in DC and Williamsburg. Several of them are restricting the number of people who can enter the building at a time, in a measure to keep visitors safely distanced from one another. If it becomes necessary, we may need to split the group so that different chaperone groups enter at different times. Every effort will be made so that all students enjoy the same experiences, even if they are not together at the same time. As we continue with the booking process, you can check the TourDCwithUs website at any time to see an updated version of the itinerary as it unfolds.

Unfortunately, we still have some venues that have not reopened to visitors, or that have restrictions in place. Ideally, between now and April, there will be a way to safely return to all of the venues we know and love. The US Capitol, the Library of Congress, some Smithsonian Museums, and the Kennedy Center all remain closed for now. Arlington Cemetery did reopen to visitors, but they have not yet opened the viewing area for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and no date has been released so far. The itinerary as it stands is already packed with activities, so rest assured your students will still be busy the whole time!

An important area of concern for us is meal planning. We may be restricted by local DC and Virginia regulations as far as group size and timing. We will work to get as many meals as possible seated in restaurants. Because of the size of the group and because we want to keep the itinerary moving as much as possible, we may have several boxed meals and may do a pizza night at the hotel. Rest assured, food is very important to us, and we will do our best to provide delicious and nutritious quality meals, not just a soggy sandwich. We are waiting until the Spring to make final food vendor choices, but we will deliver as much variety as possible given the reality. We will try to have all food vendors in place by March, so that any food restrictions and allergies can be planned for in plenty of time.

COVID-19 has added a new layer of concern for you, and attention to detail for us, than ever before. We will update you with all of the rules and regulations for every aspect of the tour, from the airplane to the motorcoach, to places we visit. We are bound to follow the local rules and regulations. These may vary from what students are used to at home and at school, and may even be different in DC vs. in Virginia. We will create a sort of “Code of Conduct” document in the Spring for the students to follow so that they can be prepared before the start of the trip.

On the same token, there are more obvious risks to travel and even to our daily lives right now. Each family will be required to sign an acknowledgement and waiver, listing not only our responsibility to you, but also your responsibility to the group as a whole regarding health and safety. It is impossible for us to say that there are no risks to travel in 2021. In all actuality, there have always been risks. What we can promise, however, is that we here at TourDCwithUs are working closely with all of our vendors and local health officials to keep all of our groups as healthy, safe, and excited as possible through every moment of their trip.

For payments, you will receive the link to register your student for the trip. Please be sure to enter your student’s information and your own information in the correct spaces, as this has actually been a problem in the past! As soon as we receive your registration and deposit, we will immediately purchase a CFAR Cancel for Any Reason travel insurance policy for your traveler.

This is the same type of policy that all groups have used in the past. It allows you to cancel the trip at any time for a variety of listed reasons, and provides you with money back should the trip need to be cancelled, for WHATEVER reason. The typical refund for this type of insurance is 75% of what you paid in to the trip as of the date of cancellation. You will be able to either make payments monthly once you have paid your deposit, or pay for the trip in full right away through a secure credit or debit card payment. We normally would require that all payments are made by March, but because of the craziness of this year we are extending the final payment to April. 

More information can be found on our website, and you can call or email us any time.

Thank you for choosing TourDCwithUs as your educational travel company. We are available by phone, email, or video conference if you ever need to speak with us directly.  We can’t wait to meet you all! Thanks for watching!

More information  can be views at TourDCwithUS.com

Thank you for choosing TourDCwithUS, a family Tour Company!