Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schuetze

Howdy all and NEMO types,

I'd appreciate some suggestions in regards to curfew and such for 18 hour bus rides. This year's trip to Atlanta will be via bus and will be 18 hours in transit. My thoughts are to treat it like a hotel situation and have a 'curfew' at XX:xx PM with seat checks. At curfew each set of seats will be same sex. I'm even thinking that I need to section off the bus a bit and have a female and male section???

What kinds of meals do you typically serve en route? We are leaving @ 7:00 PM so I am asking students to have eaten dinner before boarding and then having snacks for them in the evening. My plan is to then have breakfast items for the AM, Sam's club stuff. We would then stop at a pizza buffet somewhere for lunch and then do dinner in Atlanta.

Besides having a collection of G and PG movies, do you provide any other type of entertainment/amusement? Are there standard bus games that teams play?

Any comments and suggestions are more than appreciated,


Thanks,

I have yet to have to supervise a bus trip (probably a good thing), but I recently tagged along with one on the way to the Florida Regional (about ten hours on the road, daytime one way and overnight the other).

Unless you have a policy that says otherwise, keeping each pair of seats to one gender during sleeping hours should be plenty. Meals are really dependent on your schedule--if you're leaving right around a meal time, it shouldn't be too hard to tell the kids to come either hungry or full. (Of course, full might mean an early pit stop somewhere. I'm sure you're aware of the unwritten rule that bus bathrooms are for absolute emergencies only.)

Other than movies (might wanna get a copy of the school policy to have handy in case the kids are demanding Terrifying Slashers From Heck VI), everyone pretty much keeps themselves entertained. It's not too hard now--if you pack an iPod and a Game Boy, you're pretty much set for whatever until your juice runs out. (Might want to encourage team members to go halfsies on a big pack of batteries nonetheless.)

If nothing else, there's always 100 Bottles of Beer Non-Alcoholic Beverage on the Wall. Happy driving!

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Though I don't agree with every aspect of your plan, I respect your reasons for following it. Allow me to make a couple of modifications as to how I would respond if I was a student in this situation.

Before I even go into specifics, I suggest you have (if you haven't arranged one already, you seem very prepared) a meeting to cover this all in detail. Even if students signed a contract, they may "forget" at this point.

I. Bus curfew / gender separation
Make sure this is understood beforehand to avoid conflicts. Choose a policy and stick with it. Instead of saying "we're going to have to all move around at dark" try and word it like this:

"OK, everyone, we'll have a pit stop before dark, and when we get back on the bus please sit "such-and-such"." That way, everyone leaves the bus, and they get back on and have to choose a new spot. It's a more concrete change than trying to move everybody at some arbitrary point. You avoid excuses like "it's not dark yet!" (I have heard this one, trust me) in favor of being able to say that "we agreed to move after the 9 o'clock pit stop".

A female and male section is probably unnecessary. You as a mentor know who your trouble makers are - most students won't really misbehave, they'll just want to sleep or chat casually.

Originally Posted by Andrew Schuetze

Howdy all and NEMO types,

I'd appreciate some suggestions in regards to curfew and such for 18 hour bus rides. This year's trip to Atlanta will be via bus and will be 18 hours in transit. My thoughts are to treat it like a hotel situation and have a 'curfew' at XX:xx PM with seat checks. At curfew each set of seats will be same sex. I'm even thinking that I need to section off the bus a bit and have a female and male section???

What kinds of meals do you typically serve en route? We are leaving @ 7:00 PM so I am asking students to have eaten dinner before boarding and then having snacks for them in the evening. My plan is to then have breakfast items for the AM, Sam's club stuff. We would then stop at a pizza buffet somewhere for lunch and then do dinner in Atlanta.

Besides having a collection of G and PG movies, do you provide any other type of entertainment/amusement? Are there standard bus games that teams play?

Any comments and suggestions are more than appreciated,


Thanks,

[MattK]

Originally Posted by Eugenia Gabrielov

A female and male section is probably unnecessary. You as a mentor know who your trouble makers are - most students won't really misbehave, they'll just want to sleep or chat casually.

I agree, if they are not old enough to be responsible on a bus ride they are definitely not responsible enough to go to Atlanta.

What exactly is the motivation behind separating the males and females?

[Andrew Schuetze]

This is by far the most replies to any of my posts on C.D.
Maybe some missed that seperating girls and boys was only during the lights out time midnight to 7 AM.

Plain and simple, I trust my team but teenagers make ill advised choices at a moments notice. I will have 32 students ranging from 9th grade to 12th grade and feel that I must provide resonable assurances to parents and school district administrators that I am being prudent.

I think my basic plan will work and did pick up some good tips such as the scheduled bathroom/stretch break just prior to lights out to facilitate the transition to gender based seating. I also liked the idea of renting a movie trilogy or complete season of a TV show. This will date me but I can watch MASH everyday two or three times in a row and never get tired of the humor. I did find the power inverter idea to run a lan party or game system interesting but I don't think I can swing that set up with the week and a half left before we depart.

Thanks for all the suggestions and we'll be seeing you in Atlanta. We will be the team with purple and yellow tie-dyes.

APS

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schuetze

Howdy all and NEMO types,

I'd appreciate some suggestions in regards to curfew and such for 18 hour bus rides. This year's trip to Atlanta will be via bus and will be 18 hours in transit. My thoughts are to treat it like a hotel situation and have a 'curfew' at XX:xx PM with seat checks. At curfew each set of seats will be same sex. I'm even thinking that I need to section off the bus a bit and have a female and male section???

What kinds of meals do you typically serve en route? We are leaving @ 7:00 PM so I am asking students to have eaten dinner before boarding and then having snacks for them in the evening. My plan is to then have breakfast items for the AM, Sam's club stuff. We would then stop at a pizza buffet somewhere for lunch and then do dinner in Atlanta.

Besides having a collection of G and PG movies, do you provide any other type of entertainment/amusement? Are there standard bus games that teams play?

Any comments and suggestions are more than appreciated,


Thanks,

Over the past few years 384 has delt with many situations on the bus, many which I don't wish repeating for the sake of RVA team unity. But, here's what I've found.

-Clean up is key. Do a spot check of the bus and make kids throw off trash at every stop.
-We had a "lights out" policy at midnight, basically, no bus lighting, no movies, no loud stuff, but kids could still watch movies on laptops and play games.
-Food, we were told to eat beforehand, and then we did breakfast in the morning. This was for a 10 hour trip. I'd set up a lunch & dinner stop too, snacks can only go so far.
-It's sometimes mandatory to stop every few hours to let the driver take a pee/drink/cig break. Use this time to let the kids run around, get somehting to drink, and just stretch the legs.
-Don't be affraid to have parents "switch" seats with bad kids to break up loud groups.
-Generally, we had movies that both the parents and kids wanted to see, although we wern't allowed Disney movies for some odd reason. I'd recomend TV shows myself, since they tend to work better on the road. Get someone who has the DVD sets of Family Guy, The Simpsons, etc.

Oh, make sure to agree on everything before hand, such as movies and things. Pack more entertainment than you'll need, people like movies, just not the whole bloody trip

[Dan Petrovic]

We haven't been on an 18 hour bus trip but Telephone can be pretty entertaining for a while.

If you haven't played it's best at a dinner table with a ton of people. One person whisperes something to the person next to him, and then that person passes on the message but changes one thing.

We did this at a restaurant after one of our competitions and we eventually had 4 or 5 messages running around the table at once.

[JaneYoung]

Our team dietary needs/preferences are diverse and complicated during travel. We make it work with a combination of
Miss Information's suggestions
Rick Tyler's Scout system
and placing some of the responsibility on the person that has special needs.

If a traveling team member has to eat every 2 hours, then they have to make arrangements/provide the snacks/food that will keep them healthy until we stop for the next meal.
So it works. Even though we are from Texas, barbecue is not at the top of our list for places to eat at - we try to find restaurants or areas that provide a large variety to select from. When our parents provide sandwiches and breakfast foods, they are careful to fit the team's dietary needs and are way cool for doing so. It gets us through.

Side note: we like the bus. The team grows very close during this special time together - baked beans or no.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Speaking as somebody who has fairly rigid dietary requirements - please, please have at least some choice.

Also, I don't think anybody has mentioned this...

but if you can, avoid places with lots of smoke. I know in some states smoking in restaurants is entirely illegal. This is not the case for every state. No matter what your opinion is on smoke in public places, please understand that it is a painful thing to deal with (the smell) on a crowded bus.

[VEN]

here's an idea, everyone bring a laptop, download track mania nations onto it (free 260mb racing game) and that should keep us occupied you'd be amazed how fun that game is considering its free

i think my team is traveling with 1305 Ice Cubed

[RoboMom]

My 16 year old just returned last night from a band trip to Chicago. 15 hours. Each way. He recommends "Dodgeball" and "Anchorman." (Personally I would second the "Apollo 13" recommendation) (I remember being on a trip where the team was reduced to watching Ashley and Mary Kate movies due to the lack of advance planning...) I sent him with a warehouse box of prezels in bags. He actually returned with most of them saying "they didn't like prezels." His pillow and blanket were in great demand. He had a blast and promised that he would write the teacher an apology note for....
oh never mind.

[VEN]

I got a laugh out of full metal jacket but that's around 2000 swear words too much...it's one of those movies you watch once and yeah...dodgeball was a fun movie

[Koko Ed]

C'mon you guys you're all inventors. You guys should be making a portable cryogenic sleep chambers for those long bus trips! You got two weeks before you have to go. Get cracking!

[Not2B]

I have only had to endure a few bus rides... But movies help out alot.

Just remember, If you put in "The Right Stuff" and the 80's band "The New Kids on the Block" show up, you got the wrong one.

By the way, the students on my team decided, on their own free will, to watch all 6 star wars movies in a row when Episode III came out. Yes... after school on Friday they went to someone's house and watched I and II, then went the the theater and watched III, came back to the person's house and watched IV, V, and VI, then had waffles for breakfast.

IF you do watch all 6, the recommended order, according to most of 862, is to watch 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6. Why?
4 - Oh nice. A space movie.
5 - Wow... this is also nic.... WHAT!?! DARTH VADER IS LUKE'S FATHER - WHAT ARE YOU DOING, LUCAS? HOW DID THAT HAPPEN??? TELL ME NOW!
1 - It's a kid.
2- Uh oh... I see where this is going
3 - Dude! Anikan just flipped out. OK, I see how it happened. That stupid old dude is mean. Thanks for explaining, Lucas.
6 - Yeah - Stupid Old Sith guy is going to get his. HA! It's all full circle. And Ewoks. They would make a good Christmas special...

Also, not very proud of this, but our bus is split male/female like this. Males anywhere on the bus. Female section is where the 2 of them sit.

[sanddrag]

I think karaeoke on the bus would be a grand idea.

[VEN]

lol true that...except I won't be putting anyone to sleep with MY voice