A lost weekend in Sicily forces JCU to rethink its tour operator

By Mara C. Martinez

ROME, Nov. 12 – John Cabot University appears to be cutting ties for good with Fun Trip, a Rome-based tour company that organized student trips, following a four-day trip to Sicily that generated a series of complaints.

“This provider is obviously ending his JCU career with this trip”, JCU President Franco Pavoncello said of Fun Trip in  a Nov. 6 e-mail seen by The Matthew Online. The president was responding to a complaint from a student who signed up for the Sicily trip.

The trip, scheduled between Nov. 1-4, was advertised on campus to include guided tours of Palermo, Catania, Siracusa, Mt. Etna, and Agrigento, plus paid meals, hotel stay and transportation.       

Upon arrival in Sicily, the dozen JCU students were surprised to learn the Palermo leg had been canceled,  and there would be no tour guides. Students were also angered by location of the hotel in the remote periphery of Catania.

Michele Danza, the main coordinator of the Fun Trip tours, has organized a number of trips for JCU students; The Matthew Online wrote a favorable review of a trip he organized last spring to Cervinia.

Danza, who told the students he was last in Sicliy over 40 years ago, led the group around Sicily. He blamed the sudden cancellations and itinerary changes on the light rain and the small turnout (the group was originally advertised as requiring 30 students, but just 12 signed up.) Requests for comment e-mailed to Danza were never returned.

Throughout the trip, students were dropped off at sites without a tour guide. They were told to explore each location within an assigned time - ranging between 45 minutes to three hours - before the bus moved on to the next place. Other complaints ranged from having to tip the bus driver, being required to pay on the spot for one supposedly "included" meal and being dropped off each evening at 7:30 p.m. at a hotel located far from any sign of night life.

“This is not what I paid 480 euro for”, said one of the attending students last Monday as she walked over to student services to voice her grievances. “I strongly believe that we were mistreated and taken advantage of”, said another upset student.

JCU student services has been dealing with student grievances and offering advice to reach an amicable agreement among the disputing parties: the Fun Trip tour agency and the upset students. Although no agreement has been reached, the affected students say they are still some hope left in the upset students to get compensated in some way.