b b.

It's been over a month since I placed an order. All attempts to contact humans have been met with auto-generated bot replies. Finally yesterday I got an email saying my order has supposedly shipped, but not from the "warehouses in NJ" claimed on their website. Tracking info is straight from China, written in Chinese. I should have known! Lesson learned. I imagine it will be another month before it ever arrives. IF it ever arrives. Their website is obviously pretend U.S. based vendor so save your money and shop on legit sites.

A recent hiking trip with RS to the Canadian Rockies was a huge disappointment. First, people who could barely get on and off the bus were allowed on this trip. Ridiculous. Only 4 of us could go on daily hikes they called "motivated" or harder than the others -- all of which I considered easy to very moderate. The hiking pace was also crazy slow. The catalog/website descriptions of the trip were way off base. Simply not truthful.

The majority of meals were served in a windowless hotel conference room. Very mediocre food. Breakfasts were the worst. Restaurant meals for dinner were way better, but certainly not terrific restaurants I would go to again. A couple of us younger, energetic folk purposefully left the group on two evenings just to get away and have some time to chat and eat at GOOD restaurants.

RS is clearly not for people, like myself, looking for true rigorous activity with other happy, young at heart people. It was clear to me that RS attracts a much, much older crowd, which is fine, but that's false advertising in their materials. Their original name of ELDERhostel fits their group way better. Nothing wrong with being older, but it sure isn't fun being around grumpy, negative retired folk who have a very "old and tired" mentality. I won't be going on another RS trip. Lesson learned.