Total Attendees: 16 (10 Scouts and 6 chaperones) (It’s not necessary to meet the safety wise to have this many chaperones but I wanted 2 adults in each vehicle just in case an issue arose and we weren’t all together. This also allowed for the chaperones to have some moments where they weren’t on ‘duty’ and could take a 30min or 1 hr break to not have to deal with kids and just relax for a bit.
Accommodations: Booked thru Airbnb – Dolphin Beach House. Was literally 1/2 block from the local grocery store, had 2 kitchens and enough beds and towels to accommodate 16 people. Had a great host who responded via text within 2-5mins each time I reached out. Cost $2,446
Activities:
- Sandy Feet Sandcastle: Booked a 1.5 hr session and built a fortress! Cost $225 (Only had to pay for the scouts, chaperones just watched)
- Dolphin Watch Eco Tour: 1.5 hr boat tour. We watched dolphins and they also brought on the boat any marine life specimens from the tour and let everyone touch it if it was safe. Cost $237.64
- Sea Turtle, Inc.: 20 min presentation about sea turtles and spent ~1.5 hrs looking at displays and sea turtles in the education center or rehabilitation tanks. Cost $64
- Schlitterbahn Water Park: Spent the entire day there from 10am – 5pm and rented a Palapa for an additional $150 to have a central place to meet and have lunch. Total cost $727.96
Food:
- We went grocery shopping there the 1st night and picked up food for breakfast each day, snacks for the house, and lunch at Schlitterbahn
- Ate out for Lunch and Dinner each day.
- Dinner at Blackbeard’s (Seafood), The Meatball (Italian), and scouts pick one night which ended up being Dairy Queen
- Lunch at Chili’s on the way to South Padre (Corpus Christi area), Burger Fi (American), & Pier 19 (Seafood)
- I budgeted ~$137/person for food based on different amts for kids vs adults and meal type and including a 20% gratuity and we came in way under budget in this category at around $112/person
Transportation: We rented 2 mini vans and one mom drove a personal vehicle. We spent ~$1,300 on the mini vans & Uber to bring drivers home from the rental place and ~$180 on gas for all three vehicles. (The island is really small so you only need gas pretty much to get there and get home)
Other: Purchased badges from the Sea Turtle, Inc. place and ordered badges for building a sandcastle, going to a water park, and dolphin watching online. Spent total $132 on 10 badges for each activity
In total, this trip cost about $7,100 for 16 people but you can totally find areas to save such as driving all personal vehicles or finding cheaper accommodations, etc.