Chicago Class Trips and Educational Tours with Winged Victory USA

WV USA- 2004-2005
Chicago Student Field Trip Itinerary

Click here for a printable PDF of the Chicago 3-day General Education Itinerary.
Day 1
7:00 AM	Depart school on a deluxe, climate-controlled and restroom-equipped motorcoach.
12:00 PM	Arrive at Navy Pier in downtown Chicago and meet your Winged Victory USA tour guide. Navy Pier is- one of Chicago's most popular year-round tourist attractions which has more than 50 acres of parks, gardens, shops, and restaurants extending almost a mile into Lake Michigan. There you will find a food court, dozens of retail stores and a magnificent view of the Chicago skyline. You will have lunch at your own expense and then be free for about 1/2 hour to look for a Chicago souvenir in one of the dozens of gift shops at Navy Pier.
1:15 PM	Meet your bus and begin a city site-seeing tour that will bring you by: The John Hancock Building, The Sears Tower, and down the Magnificent Mile, to name just a few of Chicago's famous landmarks.
3:00 PM	The tour will end at The Clarion Barceló Hotel: the area's "best kept secret". A charming property with wood and marble decor it provides the most value for your dollar. Check in and quickly freshen up for dinner.
4:00 PM	Reassemble in the lobby, then board your bus and depart for dinner in Chicago's River North Neighborhood.
5:00 PM	Enjoy a memorable dinner at the original Ed Debevik's, a Chicago institution well known for it's home-style food and and irreverent service. You'll have an All-American dinner in the fabulous 1950's atmosphere...complete with juke boxes, leatherette booths, sassy service and best of all---the servers sing and dance on the diner counter!
6:15 PM	While at Navy Pier, you will view a 7:30pm showing of an unforgettable IMAX theatre film.
8:30 PM	Meet the bus and return to the hotel.
9:00 PM	Overnight security begins.
Day 2
8:15 AM	Full Breakfast Buffet in the hotel, which will include: Fluffy Scrambled Eggs, Crispy Bacon, Sausage Links, or Baked Ham, Seasoned Breakfast Potatoes, Chilled Orange Juice, Assorted Breakfast Breads, Butter, Jelly, and Marmalade, Fresh Brewed Coffee, Decaf and a Selection of Hot Teas.
9:15 AM	Reassemble in the lobby, meet your guide, and depart for shores of Lake Michigan where you will spend the morning at the aquarium.
10:00 AM	Begin your visit at the John G. Shedd Aquarium, where your first stop at "The Big Blue", is likely to be the 90,000 gallon tank containing 350 species of tropical fish, but the principal attraction is the spectacular Oceanarium. There, in a painstakingly recreated Pacific Northwest ecosystem, you can watch dolphins, penguins and Beluga whales frolic above and below the surface from literally inches away. Don't miss the dolphin show at 12:00pm; it's going to be one of the highlights of your entire trip.
12:30 PM	Meet the bus and depart for the River North neighborhood (just west of the Magnificent Mile) for lunch at your own expense at your choice of the Rock and Roll McDonald's or the Rainforest Café. After lunch, you'll have a few minutes to browse for souvenirs.
2:00 PM	Meet the bus and depart for the Art Institute of Chicago.
2:30 PM	Arrive at the Art Institute of Chicago - which houses more than 300,000 works of art within it's 10 curatorial departments. After viewing the works of Goya, Zurbaran, El Greco and Velázquez you can walk to the Contemporary Wing to consider some of the amazing works of Spain's famous modern artists Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. Before you leave you'll be free for a few minutes to shop for books and postcards in the Museum's expansive book store.
4:00 PM	Meet the bus and return to the hotel to freshen up for dinner.
6:00 PM	Reassemble in the lobby, then board your bus and depart for Medieval Times.
6:30 PM	Arrive at Medieval Times and check in for an evening of sorcery, pageantry and horsemanship at Medieval Times.
7:00 PM	Begin your evening at the Spanish castle of Count Don Raimundo II. Upon arrival, you will take a journey back to 11th Century Spain, in the time of El Cid, where chivalry and knights in shining armor still exist. The evening will begin in the Grand Arena where you will be served a four-course dinner, as eight rare Andalusian stallions perform military drills with rigorous precision. Eventually, your knight will compete on horseback with five other knights from the various regions of Spain in medieval games of skill and accuracy. The games will end with a real jousting tournament, in which all the spectacularly costumed knights compete (at full gallop) to unhorse each other for the right to choose the Queen of Love and Beauty.
9:00 PM	Meet the bus and return to the hotel.
10:00 PM	Overnight security begins. EVENING OPTION #2: (approx $34 more/person than Medieval) Enjoy dinner at the Hard Rock Café. After dinner, transfer to the Briar Street Theater for an amazing performance of physical stunts, visual gags, art commentary, and audience participation that you will never, ever forget by the Blue Man Group. During the 80-minute performance, you will see, among many other things, three robotic, bulletheaded, blue-colored actors move about the stage, banging away on kettle drums, squeezing paint on the drumheads, and creating volcanic eruptions of color, and you'll see a member of the audience (maybe one of your teachers or classmates) taken back stage and having his or her head encased in a mold of orange Jell-O. Be sure to volunteer! By the end of the evening, with strobe lights flashing, and electronic music pulsing, you will be engulfed by a tidal wave of crepe paper streaming from the balcony in an all-out sensory assault. (Don't try to understand it.) EVENING OPTION #3: (approx. $42 more/person than Medieval): Enjoy a 3 hour buffet dinner and DJ dance cruise on the Spirit of Chicago.
Day 3
8:00 AM	Full Breakfast Buffet in the hotel, which will include: Fluffy Scrambled Eggs, Crispy Bacon, Sausage Links, or Baked Ham, Seasoned Breakfast Potatoes, Chilled Orange Juice, Assorted Breakfast Breads, Butter, Jelly, and Marmalade, Fresh Brewed Coffee, Decaf and a Selection of Hot Teas.
9:00 AM	Check out of your rooms, place your bags on the bus, meet your guide and depart for your group picture.
9:45 AM	Arrive at the Loop, the home of Joan Miro's "Chicago" and Pablo Picasso's "Head of a Woman" that scandalized the entire Midwest when it was dedicated in 1967. Here, you will take a group photo at the Picasso Sculpture.
10:00 AM	Depart for the remarkable Field Museum.
10:15 AM	Arrive at The Field Museum , one of the largest public museums in the United States, and one of the foremost museums of its kind anywhere. Your visit to the Field Museum will begin with a brief orientation tour presented by your tour guide, then you'll be free to explore the museum's nine acres of exhibits that include Sue, the world’s largest and most famous Tyrannosaurus Rex, and an Egyptian tomb (with 14 mummies). Before you leave, be sure to visit the Life over Time exhibit that will take you on a high tech voyage through 3.8 billion years of the history of life on earth.
12:00 PM	Here you will eat lunch at your own expense.
12:45 PM	Depart for the incomparable Museum of Science and Industry, one of the most visited museums in the world.
1:15 PM	Arrive at the museum and begin your visit with a short orientation tour. You will then be free to choose between more than 800 interactive exhibits that make complex scientific principals understandable. Among other things, for example, you can climb aboard a United Airlines 727 jet, or walk through a captured German World War II submarine, and you can get a close-up view of the actual Apollo 8 command module that circled the moon in 1968. While you are here, you will also have lunch at your own expense in the museum's cafeteria.
3:30 PM	Meet the bus and depart for home, exhausted yet forever enriched.
Your trip also includes:
A customized, keepsake DVD for each student and group leader, made from photographs taken with a camera that we will loan you for your trip. The images are downloaded, set to music, and then mailed back to you on a DVD to enjoy for years to come! A comprehensive Travel Protection Plan, underwritten by Stonebridge Casualty Insurance Company and administered by Trip Mate, Inc. is included in the price of the trip. This Plan provides benefits such as Pre-Departure Trip Cancellation, Medical Expense Emergency Assistance, Travel Delay, Baggage and Baggage Delay. A Travel Insurance Certificate will be provided to your child’s teacher for each child on the trip. Liability Insurance - WINGED VICTORY USA carries $2,000,000 in Professional Liability and Errors and Omissions insurance.