<p>My younger son did Ocean City beach week in June 2012 and had a great time - no issues whatsoever. He went with a group of 12 that he knew well. The parents who rented the house held a mandatory meeting for parents and kids to establish ground rules. Every family chipped in for security deposit and rental - the kids organized themselves to purchase food and supplies. They drove their in several cars, including some with parents - to ensure the property was in ok condition. We required them not to drive while they were there - some kids took a bus up to Rehobeth to visit other groups of kids. We kept in touch and tried to have some dialogue of what the daily plan was. Not foolproof, but they knew we were comparing notes. Biggest issue was some sunburn. So, it was a successful trip.</p>
<p>However, my neighbor’s son went this past June and ended up with a citation for underage drinking and noise violations, requiring a court date, so you just never know.</p>
<p>I think the key ingredient is the group of kids and how wild they will collectively become without supervision. My son and his friends are pretty tame, so it went well.</p>
<p>My sister lives in the NE where this is a huge trend. She and 3 other moms got together and decided their boys would go to Europe instead. The boys loved the idea, of course. All of them had frequent flyer miles to get them there so costs were somewhat defrayed. </p>
<p>Parents knew drinking would be part of the plan, but weren’t worried about them ‘going crazy’ as is done at Senior Week. In her view, the sole purpose of SW (Ocean City, MD is quite popular there) is to party–drinking, pot smoking, hooking up, etc, etc. </p>
<p>The Europe trip went very well. Boys stayed in hostels and saw the sights in 4 or 5 countries. Two of them had been German students in high school and that added to their focus. Glad I didn’t have to deal with this—not expected in my area. I’ve heard the horror stories via my sis–sounds like lots of them do get into trouble.</p>
<p>I personally have the called the police (twice) on a group rental in the house next to ours at the NJ shore. It may be senior week for some people, but others still have sleep and get up to go to work in the morning.</p>
<p>Fortunately, this topic hasn’t come up again in our house. I’m taking the “wait and see” approach. I am usually the one to make things happen, so hopefully beach week will “fall through the cracks.”</p>
<p>Two days before our 1,200 mile road trip, college roommate called to say - we can’t go unless we bring Mom. This was decades ago, but I remember that horrible life-is-over sinking feeling. Roommate did not “own” the car as she had said (surprise, surprise) It was the family car, and it was decided that Mom would go along, had a cousin she wanted to visit. So away we went with Mom in the backseat. Don’t remember what Mom did when we visited friends to overnight/party at other campuses along the way.</p>
<p>D1 and her friends eschewed the beach trip to take a trip to London. All the Moms went as chaperones and it was a fabulous week. </p>
<p>D2 was invited by a wealthy family to their fabulous beach home in the Caribbean (only 4 girls total, no boys). They had parent chaperones as well as a driver/“bodyguard” who accompanied them everywhere they went, including a couple of nightclubs (all were 18). </p>
<p>We were spared having to say no to the big beach weekend. And we would have said no to any large scale, poorly supervised drunkfest.
So we were happy with how things played out.</p>