Anticipation and Excitement... Three days until liftoff!

Pura Vida!

With just three days until our amazing adventure to Costa Rica, our students and staff chaperones could not be more excited. This blog will serve as your regular source of updates on our party of hearty travelers. The goal is to post daily, but the realities of internet availability may cause a delay in some posts. Our blog will be full of fun pictures, updates, and stories and we hope that you enjoy the vicarious journey. If you are interested, feel free to explore our blogs from previous years (2018, 2017, 2019, 2020) or some of our trip videos (2015, 2016).

As your child packs and prepares, please...

• Know your airport and arrive 3 hours early,
• Notify Ms. Cuffee (Dealspanishcass@gmail.com) of any medications or allergies before departure,
• Give Ms. Cuffee and our chaperones a heartfelt thank you for their time and energy,
• Read Ms. Cuffee's FAQ (listed at the end of this post for your convenience) and visit the EF Tours Website for more information.

Thank you for your incredible support as we count down the days to our trip. Go ahead and bookmark this page and we look forward to sharing our adventure with you!

With anticipation of a safe, fun journey,

Patrick Rottman
8th Grade Assistant Principal

Below are some important updates from Ms. Cuffee:

FLIGHTS/BAGGAGE INFORMATION:

Flight information is IN! Please check carefully to ensure that you know where you and your student traveler(s) need to be and when. Baggage information is also included with flight itineraries at the end of the attached document.

THREE (3) HOURS BEFORE MEANS EXACTLY THAT…THREE HOURS BEFORE DEPARTURE!!! (NOT TWO HOURS. NOT ONE HOUR.) NO EXCEPTIONS!!!

EF TOURS BOOKBAGS:

Some student scholars have already started to swing by RG15 and pick up their bookbags and bracelets. Please come by RG15to pick up your bag ASAP.  As suggested in the FAQ document, student travelers are encouraged to either use this bag as their carry-on or pack it in their checked baggage and use it once we are on tour. Student travelers should feel free to personalize and/or decorate their bags. These bags will also be available for pick up at the final informational meeting on Wednesday, April 3rd at 6:30 pm (but I would love for them all to be retreived by then as it will be one less thing to lug to the auditorium.)

 

REMINDERS:

- Have students sign their passports. (Since student travelers are minors, their parent(s)/guardian(s) may sign it for them.)  Also, don't forget to place a piece of duct tape on the outside of the back cover with your student traveler's name written in a permanent marker.

- When submitting documentation/paperwork, please refrain from submitting items that were not requested. Some of these extraneous items include copies of travelers’ global entry cards, PayPal/Venmo/CashApp payment confirmation emails, and travelers’ health plans. I do not need these items. Since all items must be scanned, it is very helpful if they are not stapled. A paperclip works just fine. 

- All travelers and their families are responsible for getting themselves to and from the airport. There is no shuttle from Deal.

GROUP 1 - APRIL 11th– APRIL 19th

DEPARTURE:  BWI - Southwest Airlines – Thursday, April 11th at 10:20 AM.

DEPARTURE:
AIRPORT ARRIVAL TIME: 7:20 AM

RETURN:  BWI - Southwest Airlines – Friday, April 19th at 8:20 PM.

Chaperones (8): Cuffee (FLIGHT LEAD) – Donaldson – Anderson – Conway – Gibson – Rottman – Sun – Garcia

Students (66):

Layla Adams

L. Lenora Allika

Asher Baer

Noah Baer

Harper Barlow

Thomas Belete

Charlotte Blumenthal

Noa Brotzman

Kaden Brown

Charles Brylawski

Sydney Buck

Shane Caldwell

Sabrina Campbell

Leonardo Carey

Razvan Ciobanu

Maura Cohen

Emily Coile

Felix Damgaard

Sidney Deem

Kieran Dockett-Gilbert

Judah Edmonds-Hall

Samuel Eriksson

Alexandra Ezrow

Zoey Fedele

Nora Freed

Jason Gilbert

Jonah Ginsberg

Madeleine Goldberg

Brendan Green

Max Greene

Venya Gulati

Bayla Halper

Oliver Henderson

Leo Janssen

Parry Johnson

William Jones

Jocelyn Josephs

Nora Kaprowski

Semai Kebede

Safiya Khan-Goldstein

Kaitlin Kilgore

Abigail King

Adeline King

Mollie Lauter

Hannah Liburd

Olivia Liebert

Cassius Lloyd

Ai-Quynh Matsudaira

Maya Matthews

Nima Mehrdad

Ivan Mikhailiv

Sophie Miller

Elise Monte

Bennett Nawrocki

Thatcher Norton

Lila Noti

Finn O’Neil

Eleanor Olesh

Thompson Parker

Leo Peil

Genevieve Pezalla-Werth

Micah Pizer

Hailey Quijada

Daphne Raviv

Zoe Robinson

Solaya Rutledge

GROUP 2 - APRIL 11th– APRIL 19th

DEPARTURE:  Dulles - United Airlines – Thursday, April 11^th at 6:25 AM.

DEPARTURE:
AIRPORT ARRIVAL TIME: 3:25 AM

RETURN:  Dulles - United Airlines – Friday, April 19th at 10:34 PM.

Chaperones (4): Wesselhoft (FLIGHT LEAD) - Bowles – Lenhardt – Moseh

Students (26):

Amir Butler

Emma Canedo

Richard Ezeh

James Fowles

Nadia Hughes

Siena Lenerz

Dylan Madden

Malcolm McIntyre

Christopher Mendoza-Lazo

Blake Neal

Adric Perez, Jr.

Silas Perry

Samuel Schauer

Gabriel Schon

John Searby

Ronan Shah

Eloise Smith

Jael Smith

Sascha Szebrat

Lucas Trotman

Dayton Turano

James Walker III

Elizabeth Widor

Carter Williams

Henry Wood

Simone Zayets