Except for possible excursion days, our schedule starts with breakfast and a “class meeting” at the hotel for reviews and previews of each of our plays. Most afternoons will be free so that you can explore London on your own, relax before the evening’s performance or join fellow travelers to visit some of London’s cultural sites. We will attend nightly performances, plus at least one matinee. This schedule can be vigorous, depending on how you use your free time. There will be at least two or three group lunches/dinners provided as a way to socialize and relax together.
Accommodations are in standard rooms at the Club Quarters Hotel Trafalgar Square, a 4-star hotel ideally located in Central London, with easy access to our theaters and activities. The hotel is quiet, with sizable rooms, and amenities such as complimentary coffee, tea, and snacks in the Club Living Room, “Wine@5” from 5 to 6 pm every Monday through Thursday, free high speed internet, unlimited chilled bottled water at H2O To Go stations, and self-service laundry and traditional valet service.
London is best experienced on foot. Be prepared for lots of walking! You can take the “Tube” (Underground) to and from matinee and evening performances, restaurants, and other sites around town. This can include walking several blocks to the Tube stop, walking down and up one or more flights of stairs in the subway station, and walking several blocks to the final destination. Some of the theaters are old and require walking up narrow stairs to our seats. Comfortable shoes override the latest fashion!
Participants will be provided with a £20 Oyster card to which you can add funds if you use it frequently. Alternatively, you may take taxis (at your own expense) — and Uber now provides an accessible and relatively economical cab alternative throughout London.
To fully participate in this program, you should be able to walk up to five miles per day over possibly uneven terrain (e.g. cobblestones or aged sidewalks), climb stairs that may not have handrails, keep pace with an active group of travelers, deal with the emotional highs and lows that can occur when experiencing a different culture, and be a considerate member of the group (prompt, courteous and flexible).
Covid Information
As a condition of participation in this program all attendees must have received a COVID-19 vaccine and received a booster shot at least 2 weeks prior to attending the program. The Centers for Disease Control now say all adults can and should get a booster shot once they are six months past their second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or two months past their single Johnson & Johnson dose. If, by departure time, you are not yet 6 months past your second dose or 2 months past your single J&J dose, you will not be required to have a booster. Because changing conditions may result in additional or different participation restrictions, we will strive to keep you promptly informed of any changes resulting from the ongoing pandemic.
What happens if you develop symptoms or test positive for covid while traveling on the St. Olaf program?
- we will expect everyone to follow the isolation and other protocols of the host country and will provide those to you, to the best of our knowledge, closer to departure, as they may be updated frequently in the next several months
- our itinerary cannot be altered, so if it calls for the group to move to a new city/hotel, we will do so
- group leaders cannot stay back with sick or covid-positive individuals
- the injury and illness coverage provided with your program fee includes covid-related illness. Here is the language from the latest FAQs:
Is there coverage for COVID-19? (new as of 5/1/21)
Yes, participants diagnosed with COVID-19 would have the same coverage as if they had any other illness.
Is there coverage for pandemic quarantine? (new as of 5/1/21)
Yes, if the participant is required to quarantine while on a covered trip due to exposure to, or a confirmed case of a virus/illness due to epidemic/pandemic not requiring hospitalization, the policy would provide up to $5,000 of benefits for food and lodging. If the participant requires hospitalization, the basic emergency medical coverage would apply.
You can read more, including the full FAQ and a Summary of Coverage document, on our Travel Insurance page.
Diana Postlethwaite retired in June 2018 from the St. Olaf Department of English, where she has taught since 1988. A Minnesota native, she received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a Ph.D from Yale University. A dedicated Anglophile, her academic specialty is nineteenth-century British fiction, with a particular love for Jane Austen and George Eliot. She has reviewed contemporary novels for a variety of national newspapers. As a movie enthusiast, she enjoyed a decade of on-air reviewing for St. Olaf’s radio station WCAL, and worked to establish a Film Studies Concentration at St. Olaf. Her lifelong love affair with the theater began in l963 with a junior high school class outing to the then-brand- new Guthrie Theater—still her favorite Twin Cities institution! One of the courses she’s enjoyed teaching most at St. Olaf has been her first year writing seminar, “Page, Stage and Screen,” which compares the different ways novels, plays and movies tell their stories.
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