Royal Oak High School Band and Orchestra’s Chicago Trip 2026
.The Royal Oak High School Band and Orchestra program has been going on overnight trips for many years, with two alternating locations: Chicago and Disney World. While most students will only be able to go on two of these trips across high school, my class of 2026 has been able to experience 3 due to COVID resetting the bi-annual count. As a result, this was not my first band trip to Chicago- but it was certainly my favorite.
Friday, February 13th – First Day
The trip started with all of the students and chaperones meeting at our high school at 5:30 A.M. While there, we were given some final rules and safety information, loaded the buses with our luggage and made sure our Trip Account App worked on our phones. The Trip Account App contained a digital copy of the itinerary, information on bus and chaperone groups, as well as group chats to directly communicate with both chaperone groups and the entire group of attendees as a whole. It was a little buggy at times, but as a whole it worked well and was very useful. Before leaving we were also introduced to our Bennett Travel Trip Director, Tracey, and our bus drivers. The only thing that delayed our launch was a late student. After a few minutes’ wait, we were on the road to Chicago.
A moment of gratitude is definitely deserved for our tour director, Tracey. Throughout the course of our stay, she made sure everything ran on schedule, students were accounted for and that our experience as a whole was one of the best Bennett Travel could offer. She was consistently funny and approachable, which are important characteristics for someone who regularly interacts with teenagers. She routinely integrated herself into the activities and never made herself seem distant from the rest of us. As someone who sat at the front of the bus near the adults, I can tell you that she also became fast friends with the band directors and chaperones. Tracey brought our trip to the highest level it could be. We have much to thank her for.
“I thought Tracey was fabulous,” said Kyrstin Jensen, Royal Oak High School’s band director. “She did a very, very nice job of leading the group so that there was no question with what we were doing, at no point did we have to wonder what was going on. She was also a blast to hang out with and had a wealth of information.”
Ms. Jensen also commented that she hopes Tracey will continue to be the tour director for the band’s next trip to Disney World: “I’m gonna request her for Disney. I’m gonna request her- I don’t know if they’ll give her to me, but I hope we will have her again.”
Our bus drivers, Mr. L.A. and Ms. Sugarfoot, were also fantastic. Both were incredibly skilled at their jobs, weaving through the congested, big-city traffic as if they were driving Honda Civics instead of giant tour buses. We made it to each location with plenty of time to spare. On top of their motor skills, both Mr. L.A. and Ms. Sugarfoot were kind, friendly and brought a lot of laughs during the long rides. Ms. Jensen, who was on Mr. L.A’s bus, had a glowing review for them as well: “Mr. L.A. was one of the best drivers I’ve ever worked with. Some of the driving in Chicago was really scary, and he approached it with a confidence that was really appreciated. I thought he did a great job, I felt safe the whole time and I knew we were gonna get where we needed to go on time.”
After around four hours of driving, we arrived at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. Before we were let loose on the museum, we were told to always keep our complimentary Bennett Travel bags on at all times and were given the location for attendance in two hours. Students were allowed to go anywhere so long as they had one other person accompanying them (or a “buddy”). Many of us spent the first 30 minutes wandering the main hall of the museum before grabbing lunch at the food court as soon as it opened. Throughout the trip, we used our Jazzby cards to purchase food. These Jazzby cards were pre-loaded with $20 each morning to ensure we had sufficient funds for the entire trip. Tracey told us that any extra money we had left was ours to spend! I personally used the rest of the funds on mine a few days after the trip to go shopping with my friend.
Students finished lunch and spent the rest of our time perusing the exhibits in the museums. Some favorites were the U-505 Submarine, the Flight and Motion Simulators and Crafting Character: The Costumes of Paul Tazewell.
“I love getting lost in museums,” said freshman Ezra Navin. “It’s my favorite part- and that’s a museum you can really get lost in. Especially when you discover exhibits you never knew were there. Like, we went into this exhibit of costumes… and we got to see all of the costumes from Hamilton on Broadway and the most recent Wicked movie. It was really cool.”
We met back at the entrance for attendance before boarding the buses and taking a short drive to the Shedd Aquarium. Entering the building was a crowded process due to security procedures, so we had a little under an hour to explore. A group of us spent that time watching the beluga whales in the amphitheater as they performed small tricks with trainers, while others took a quick lap across the building. Almost everyone went to the gift shop, which was conveniently located next to our attendance meeting spot.
The next item on the itinerary was checking in at our hotel, the Embassy Suites in Deerfield, IL. It was a brilliant idea to head to the hotel early. In our previous two band trips, we waited until the very end of our first day before heading to the hotel. Many of us were exhausted after a full day of walking around Chicago and Disney World, so unloading the bus and checking in was a slow and tedious process. This time, things went much smoother. Some of us were short of some keycards, but the hotel staff managed those issues very quickly.
The hotel itself was very comfortable. The inner courtyard design was perfect for a group as large as ours (around 110 people) because you could very easily see both floors of students. Our rooms were spacious and fit five of us very comfortably, with two beds and one pull-out couch. Everything was clean and I had no worries about sanitation. The breakfasts the hotel provided were pretty good, with a fair amount of cereals, yogurts and side dishes to choose from. All in all, the hotel was fantastic.
We ate dinner at Medieval Times on our first night. This was a new restaurant that none of us seniors had visited on the band’s previous trip to Chicago, so we were excited about what it could be. We arrived quite early and waited for 45 minutes in the crowded lobby. I was lucky enough to have eaten a light snack on the bus before we left, but even I was starving by the time the doors to the show opened.
The tournament show made up for any complaints caused by the wait. As a stage manager in my school’s drama club, I had fun paying attention to the incredible technical elements. The lights were amazing, the mics worked flawlessly and each stunt was precisely executed. It ran for about 2 hours and followed a jousting tournament from the different courts that represent The Alliance, who are led by one king and queen. The seating is sectioned off to make up the different courts, thus giving the audience a designated knight to cheer for based on where they’re sitting. I was impressed at the show’s ability to quickly radicalize most of the audience. The knights were all great at drawing cheers from their section of the crowd and the hand-to-hand combat was riveting to watch. It was astonishing to see how a group of high schoolers could go from impatiently hungry to riotously patriotic for a cast of knights and a king of a fake kingdom.
However, the food, in my opinion, was mediocre. The garlic bread that came with the tomato soup was clearly a frozen brand, the chicken was over-seasoned and the dessert was also obviously boughten. We ate with our hands, but it was less messy than I expected; each table was well-stocked with napkins and wet wipes. The food wasn’t the best, but it served its purpose while we all watched the show. We had been fully immersed in the world Medieval Times had created. All anyone could talk about was the heroism of the Red Knight (the knight we all cheered for) and the debauchery of the Yellow & Red Knight (the knight who slayed the Red Knight) by the time we boarded our buses.
I was very grateful to be able to walk directly from the bus into my hotel room at the end of the night. The full day of activities had left me very tired. Some students, however, had more energy. They spent the few minutes we had before curfew exploring the hotel, visiting each others’ rooms and hosting a ping-pong game. There were whispers of students hoping to swim in the pool (I even brought my swimsuit, just in case), but unfortunately there wasn’t enough time before curfew to attempt it. My group got comfortable in our room and went to sleep fairly early.
Saturday, February 14th – 2nd Day
In the morning everyone woke up, got ready and ate breakfast in the central courtyard. Like I said earlier, the hotel breakfast was decent. We had plenty of time to eat and hang out before boarding the buses for the next day of activities.
After around a 40 minute bus ride, we made it to downtown Chicago for the Field Museum. In the two hours we were given, my group was able to walk through the Ancient Egyptian and Native American exhibits, speedwalk through the dinosaur area with Sue the T-Rex and quickly glance at the Grainger Hall of Gems. Other groups looked at the Cyrus Tang Hall of China, and Sue was a big hit among all of us. The museum has so many different activities and exhibits that it could’ve taken an entire day to fully experience it. “Field Museum had SO much to see, and I had no clue what to expect going in, but I was blown away.” said Emma Jarrait, a freshman. “The museum had such a calming energy, and we had just enough time to see everything. I don’t even really know how to describe what we did there, but everything was awesome, and I wish I could go back.”
We drove a short way down Lake Shore Drive to stop at Navy Pier for lunch. This marked the fourth time I’ve been to Navy Pier, so I found the two hours we spent there to be a bit boring. There’s a light amount of shopping, but most of the activities were either not for teenagers (such as the Children’s Museum and the carnival rides) or were ticketed. The pier is much livelier in the summer. It does, however, have plenty of different meal options. After a quick lunch, me and my friend walked up and down the interior of the pier until we reached the Sable hotel near the very end. Then we walked back and waited outside for the buses. I could tell a lot of other students had run out of things to do as well, because most of us were around 15 minutes early for attendance. “The Navy Pier would have been more fun if it wasn’t under maintenance,” said Emerson Murphy, sophomore. “The food was alright, and it wasn’t very interactive. The best thing I did was sit with Kennedy and Oscar on the steps and talk because it was beautiful outside.”
Honestly, the most fun I had at Navy Pier was the time we spent outside of it waiting for the bus. Our large clump of high schoolers was divided into two groups, and a natural tunnel formed in between us as we fanned out into lines. After Ms. Jensen joked about it being similar to the cheer tunnels at our football games, we began cheering for anyone who decided to walk through it, including random visitors. It was very wholesome to see each of their reactions; some ate up the attention, some quickly ran with shy smiles and some seemed incredibly happy. We all had a blast, and we definitely made some people’s days. It was such a shame when the buses arrived. We could’ve continued clapping for hours! “The thrill of Navy Pier is mostly lost on me, but I did love the impromptu ‘hype tunnel’ that the kids whipped up, first for fellow RO people & then for unsuspecting tourists,” said Albin Rose, orchestra director. “That was totally cool- it made me think of that bumper sticker about committing ‘random acts of senseless kindness.’ The RO Performing Arts kids are awesome, & this is evidence why.”
Our bus drivers deftly navigated the bumper-to-bumper traffic of downtown Chicago to drop us off on the corner of Chicago and Michigan Avenue for our shopping. All of us were required to be in a chaperone group, but we were allowed to wander wherever we wanted so long as our group stayed together. Some popular stores were the Harry Potter Store, the Nike Store, the Lego Store and the North Bridge mall.
The adults did a diligent head count before we drove to the Giorando’s on Franklin Street and Jackson Boulevard for dinner. In past visits to Chicago, I’ve found Giordano’s to be a crowded place with a long wait for some decently good pizza. Going into the dinner, I expected to wait quite awhile before we ate. I was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case. It was clear that Tracey and the Bennett Travel team had made sure Giordano’s was aware of our group size and had plenty of time to prepare for us. We were immediately seated when we arrived, with salads and drinks given out within 10 minutes. The wait for the pizza couldn’t have been longer than 30 minutes, and it tasted fresh. One of my friends got an upset stomach from it, but the rest of us at the table weren’t affected. Overall, I was very impressed by the way the restaurant handled a group of our size with such efficiency. “Giordano’s was well scheduled and organized,” Kiera Lang, junior, said. “The food was good, and the wait time was non-existent. It was fun to sit down and have dinner with my friends!”
My friend Mary and I spent some of our time at Giordano’s changing into our formal attire for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. At the informational meeting before the trip, students were given multiple options to be properly dressed by the time we made it to the symphony. Some students, especially the boys, wore their formal clothes throughout the entire day (my friend Simon made it through the whole day in a suit). Others took some time at each of our activities to change, keeping the clothes in their Bennett Travel bag. Ultimately, everyone was well-dressed by the time we arrived at the symphony.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was very beautiful. The first piece performed, To See the Sky, was incredibly unique, blending warm, homely percussion with full symphonic grandness. It was the clear favorite of most students. The Violin Concert No.1 in G Minor, Op. 26 performed by the violinist Himari was beautiful. As the same age of most freshmen on the trip, it was amazing to see her play at a professional level. “My favorite was when Himari came back out & played a few Paganini’s Caprices,” said Mr. Rose. “They’re a collection of unaccompanied violin pieces that you play when you want to show off just how much of a boss you are, and she’s the same age as my freshmen! Amazing.”
While the performances were fantastic, our seats were less so. We scaled 6 flights of stairs to find that our seats were at the very top of the auditorium and angled quite sharply downward. The chairs weren’t very comfortable and we were all sweating in our formal attire. Most of us utilized the provided pamphlets as makeshift fans throughout the show. However, it’s understandable that better seating was likely much more expensive, so sitting at the top was the most cost-effective option.
The bus ride back to the hotel was much quieter than the previous ones throughout the day. The night was spent similarly to the first one: tired groups went to bed early, while more energetic students stayed up late to chat and prank-call each other using the hotel telephones.
Sunday, February 15th – Day 3
Another calm morning and typical hotel breakfast passed, and within a couple hours after getting up everyone packed up their bags, loaded their luggage onto the buses, and got ready for our final sightseeing activities before heading home.
After a sleepy bus ride, we arrived at the John Hancock Tower for the 360 Chicago sightseeing experience. The sights and views were incredible, and since it was so early in the morning we were almost the only people up there. Most students went on The Tilt, which was less thrilling than I imagined, walked around the perimeter of the floor and looked through the small gift shop. We weren’t up there for very long, maybe an hour and a half at most. Sending all 110 of us through the two elevators took less time than I expected- the capacity for each one was 12 people.
Our final official activity on the trip was a brief visit to Millennium Park for a group photo in front of Cloudgate/The Bean. The weather was wonderful outside- it was perfectly sunny and the first 60 degree day we’ve had since the fall. Everyone enjoyed taking in the fresh air, especially before the long bus ride home. After around 40 minutes of photo-taking and wandering around, we started the drive back to Royal Oak. “Millennium Park was a super short trip, but I loved being there,” Emma Jarrait said. “I took awesome videos and pictures with my friends. Being at Millennium Park made me kind of recap the trip, and for that, I love it more.”
About halfway through our drive, we stopped for lunch at a combined Burger King and Taco Bell. Both restaurants were prepared to handle a group of our size due to the efforts of Tracey, who called about an hour and a half ahead to warn them that we were planning on eating there. As a result, both places were prepared to make our orders quickly and there was a short wait time for food. Just another reason why Tracey was amazing on this trip. We were in the plaza with the restaurants for about an hour before resuming our drive.
We arrived at Royal Oak High School at around 6:00 P.M.- an hour earlier than the itinerary predicted (more proof of how awesome our bus drivers were). The bus was quickly unloaded and then everyone went home.
Final Thoughts
I had an incredible time on the Chicago Band and Orchestra trip. I was surrounded by great friends to spend my time with, the activities we participated in were all fun, and the trip as a whole was very efficiently organized. There were only a few problems that arose at all during the trip, and each was handled effectively and quickly. Each adult did a fantastic job: the chaperones all ensured group safety and cohesion, Ms. Jensen, Mr. Rose, and Mrs. McArthur were great at directing us through activities, Mr. L.A and Ms. Sugarfoot were the best bus drivers I’ve genuinely ever seen, and Tracey was the glue that held everything together. All in all, the Chicago trip was amazing and it will stay in our memories for years to come.
Samantha Gittinger
Samantha Gittinger is a senior attending Royal Oak High School. She writes for her school’s newsmagazine, The Acorn, and also serves as The Acorn’s website editor. She has been part of the band program at ROHS for four years, participating in the concert, jazz and marching bands as an alto saxophonist. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting, journaling, scrapbooking and playing music with her friends.
