Back in 1984, when I graduated high school, the powers that be in our class decided that the entire senior class (45 people) should go to an amusement park (Worlds of Fun in KC, MO) as our senior class trip. I don’t know if it really qualifies as a senior trip, since it was only 100 miles from our small town.
My mother told me that her class trip was to Washington D.C. (a 1000 mile trek from our town) back in the early 60’s. She said that a girl and guy in her class “hooked up” while in the hotel room and the girl wound up pregnant. Supposedly, overnight trips were banned forever because of that incident.
Do schools still do the senior trip thing? Did you go on a senior trip? If so, where?
Special circumstances her: I left my public HS to attend a school for disabled “students”. Our senior trip was to Orlando. About 12 students (on avg.)+their PCA’s (personal Care Attendents. (at one time it was to DC)
I went on a Senior Trip–this was a major one, and we only had 30 students out of a graduating class of about 500 go. It was a 5-week long trip of Europe and (some) of the Middle East; we went to France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, and Israel. I worked part-time through my senior year (missing out on things like Prom) to pay for the trip, and honestly, I think it was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself.
Oh, there was a more local Senior trip, which was on the night of our graduation, which was the Disneyland-sponsored Grad Night party. That was one of the Senior things I did go to, and that was so much fun, running around Disneyland until dawn.
I went on a Senior Trip. About 70 of us went to Cocoa Beach, Florida. It was a supervised trip and we went to Disney, Epcot, Kennedy Space Center, Daytona Beach, Busch Gardens, and… somewhere else. It was fun, even though it was supervised - nobody got pregnant but a couple people did get in trouble for getting piercings and tattoos.
Wow JavaMaven1, that’s one heck of a senior trip. When I graduated in 1999, our senior trip was a week long foray into Cancun, Mexico. Overall, it was an interesting experience but never again will I subject myself to the torture of being in another country with a group of 30 18 year olds who only wish to get wasted and hit every club in the city.
We even went on a thing called a “Booze Cruise”. Not my idea of fun.
All 6 of us in my senior class (small school) went to Myrtle Beach. Kinda frustrating because we were so damn well chaperoned that there wasn’t any chance to get laid with the school girls or random girls.
Though Shelly, the most bitchin’ looking girl in our class did flash me her tits while we were sunbathing. That made up for a lot, I admit.
As much fun as I had, I certainly would not want ever to be in another group of teenagers in a foreign country where drinking is legal. I know I did my share of drinking, but it was in the way of being able to have a glass of wine or a beer with a meal, which was nice. Luckily, I had a friend who was of the same frame of mind as I was–we’d wake up a few hours before everyone else (hungover and lagging from the night before) and go walking through whatever town we were staying in, and those mornings are some of my fondest memories of the trip. Particularly the morning we got lost in Paris, then later realizing we had been walking in circles only a quarter mile from our hotel. :smack:
No senior trip, but when I was a freshman (1978), the school band went on a tour of the northeast US, playing concerts at West Point (our director was an alumnus) and the Pentagon.
While in DC, we stayed in one floor of a midrise hotel that had fairly wide window ledges that ran all the way round the building. Of course, once the lights went out, various band members used this architectural feature to move undetected from one room to another – presumably there was some co-ed extracurricular activity going on. However, being an extremely geeky freshman, I didn’t participate, not that I would had been invited.
I went to France and Switzerland in 1999 with about 30 people from my school. It wasn’t restricted to seniors though. It was 10 days total, 6 days were spent in a tiny town in France on the borders of France, Switzerland and Germany. We spent a couple of of those days in the Swiss Alps. We spent our last 3 days in Paris.
It was awesome. And to think I almost didn’t go. The entire trip was only $2000 (CDN) and it’s the best money I ever spent.
Somehow I managed to be the sober one in the group. It’s amazing how silly people will act when they are pumped full of alcohol and in a another country. I can vividly remember getting dirty looks from the waitstaff for ordering a plain Coke while on the Booze Cruise*.
The best part of the whole trip, for me, was waking up way before my hungover classmates and taking long walks on the beach just looking at the water. Of course I did a little drinking of my own, but after waking up the first morning with a headache that would have made having my leg chewed off by rabid chinchillas seem like a more pleasant option, I decided that I would much rather enjoy my trip alcohol free.
I do remember hearing rumors after we returned home about certain individuals who engaged in activities of a sexual nature after nights of heavy drinking. I don’t think anybody got pregnant, but I haven’t really heard much about the parties involved since then. Based on my experiences, I wouldn’t recommend an unchaperoned trip with a bunch of teenagers. It was fun at the time, but don’t think I could deal with it now.
*Let me explain. The Booze Cruise was a boat that the owners packed full of every kind of alcohol imaginable and then shoved tons of teenagers on afterwards. The boat and its cargo were taken to an island where there was a stage, speakers, and various stands where you could order more booze. The boat left and returned 4 hours later to pick up its inebriated passengers and deposited us back at the dock, where we had to find taxis and try to remember what hotel we were at. I managed to stay sober on that excursion as well.
It looks like class trips are a dying idea. The little town where I grew up in Logan County, Ohio, had a senior trip–the whole class of 50 maximum plus as many teacher and parent chaperones in a yellow school bus for a week to Washington, D.C., New York City and, hold on to your hats, kids, Gettysburg, PA. We started raising money for the thing in the first grade–bake sales, car washes, distributing advertising flyers, begging a few bushels of wheat or corn from the local farmers, selling candy bars and pop corn, pancake dinners, soup suppers, and God knows what else. Then at the beginning of my Junior year I transferred to a highly self aware and oh so sophisticated city high school in a Midwestern university town. No class trip. My friends in Ohio had their trip. I figure I paid for about 1.6% of their trip. That was more than 40 years ago and I’m still sore about it.
On a practical level, taking 50 kids on a one week trip is a far different proposition that taking 200 or 300 of the hormone crazed little darlings. Thinking about it, even taking 50 innocent, rural and completely subdued teenagers on a bus trip is pretty scary.
I think the main reason why class trips in HS are becoming rarer is that class sizes are getting bigger (at least in public schools) and the blame of something going wrong becomes the school’s fault (which is bad in this oh so litigious society of ours). Personally, in a senior class of about 500, there was no planned senior trip. That said, i’m sure some groups of people went somewhere at sometime. Hehe.
In 1993 my senior class went skiing, I think there was about 150 of us. As far as I know, no one got pregant, but most of us got good and drunk and/or stoned, which, not surprisingly, didn’t go over too well with the teachers/chaperones. There was no trip the following year, but I think they may have reinstated them for a little while.
Two weeks ago, my class and I went to Alton Towers, a theme park about a hundred miles away. I’m not exactly sure how old seniors are in high school, so I may be off the mark, but it’s a little evidence to show this kind of thing is not a dying tradition.
