Enforex

I recently enrolled my 11-year-old son in the Enforex Camp at Barcelona Beach for three weeks, hoping for an immersive Spanish learning experience. I paid a total of 2800 euros, expecting high-quality service and an enriching environment. Unfortunately, our experience was anything but satisfactory.

From the very start, communication from the camp was non-existent. Despite paying a significant amount, I never received any information on arrival times, what to bring, or general camp details. This lack of communication set the tone for what turned out to be a highly disorganized experience.

One of the primary reasons I chose this camp was for the advertised 20% Spanish-speaking students, which was supposed to enhance my son's language immersion. To my surprise and dismay, when we arrived for drop-off, there were virtually no Spanish-speaking students. Over 70% of the attendees were of Asian descent, and most were there to learn English, not Spanish. This completely defeated the purpose of immersion, as the campers predominantly communicated in English, and not particularly well at that.

Every day, we had to ask the staff what my son needed to bring, and they were consistently clueless. My son also reported that the food was terrible—pasta was served every day, either half-cooked or mushy. This kind of monotony and poor quality is unacceptable, especially when paying such a high fee.

After witnessing the chaos and lack of organization during the day camp week, my son and I decided he would not attend the sleep-away portion of the camp. The environment was far from what was promised, and I felt it would not be a beneficial experience for him.

I expressed my concerns in an email to the camp on the Tuesday of the first week and they acknowledged the lack of Spanish-speaking students. I also reached out to the president of the company twice, and have yet to receive any acknowledgment or reply.

In conclusion, this camp was a complete waste of money and time. It did not deliver on its promises, and the lack of communication and organization was appalling. I would strongly advise other parents to steer clear of Enforex Camp. It is, in my opinion, a scam.

I am writing this review as a parent
I want to begin with the only positive feedback which is program manager Jamie , he was responsible and available and helpful
My biggest concern is conditions such as poor quality of meals and false advertisement ( on the website it says breakfast includes eggs and bacon which is not reality) only donuts and cereal for half of the day
No fruits except watermelon for dinner
That’s during the summer
Program advertising says 4 meals a day and only has 3 meals
My son would text me that he is hungry
But the most serious issue is lack of water for kids during extreme heat months
They were not allowed to bring plastic bottles with water into their rooms but only fill bottles at one station which was often empty
But instead kids were allowed to purchase sodas from vending machines
My son was quite often thirsty
When I picked him up he was sleeping excessively 10-12 hours for a week and was extremely tired
Absolutely unacceptable conditions
My son brought a note book per camp instructions for Spanish. It’s was empty when I picked him up
He said they did crafts in English and he was told teachers don’t get paid enough
He had not learned any Spanish
I wrote my concerns to a camp administration in Madrid 3 days ago
Never heard back a word.

Barcelona Beach Enforex camp was the most upsetting experience for my children who have been to many camps before. Instruction was very poor, there was no level division (my older daughter who is taking AP Spanish, was placed with my younger at the same level), no immersion (counselors for some reason spoke English vs Spanish), couple of unsafe situations that have not been acknowledged. There was one when kids went to the beach and their water bottles were locked for several hours and counselors could not open those lockers. When I reached out to one of the head counselor, she was trying to blame it on children! Safety issues! Waste of money.

Let’s start off by saying this is based on my experience going to the summer camp in Barcelona. First off, having them contact me to ask questions before I paid the full amount for the trip was unusually difficult. Emailing was the only way they wanted to communicate with me. Looking for information on the site was limited as I had questions and wanted them answered in real time. The site was also hard to navigate and no one would explain to me the other much better option available for someone my age. I would find out it existed after my trip was completely ruined (basically the option to stay with a host family or on a residence that didn’t confine me 24/7). Throughout my stay we had to sit and wait for at least a couple hours or more daily in a common area that was packed with kids of all ages with barely anything to do. We would wait here in-between activities. The most unsettling part was that they mixed young kids and teenagers. The older kids would be swearing and generally mischievous along with some of the nearby college students smoking around the children. The counselors were overwhelmed and hardly spoke English. I get that it was a Spanish camp but it is an INTERNATIONAL Spanish camp that also taught English. Even the higher ups had a major language barrier. Now let’s start with the lessons, what a disaster. The classes were not structured and all over the place. A lot of the counselors were also the teachers so they were extra burnt out and it showed in lessons. My teacher admitted at one point that they only gave them 10 minutes to prepare each lesson. It certainly seemed like it since each day it was basically “What do you guys want to learn?”. Thankfully I was a bit advanced for the basic level that I was selected to be in so I would call out a topic for the others to learn. I was over the camp and just gave up on the lessons after hearing they were pretty bad at any level you were in. As if the lessons and the sitting around for hours at a time wasn’t bad enough, the activities were even worse. They would either keep you in the common area lawn or bring you around the back to the basketball court for some scheduled activity. They did separate the younger and older kids for this. All the activities were low budgeted despite hundreds paying thousands to attend the camp. I would overhear parents talking to the camp directors on how their children were not learning Spanish (the camp doubled as a day camp along with being residential). I must’ve overheard a dozen complaints. It was pretty laughable. The food here was also terrible. Bad quality and I saw a handful of people get sick from it the first week. I stopped eating for a few days just to try to avoid the stomach turning food. The extracurricular were also pretty boring. They either took you to the beach (two hours outside of Barcelona) or to one of Barcelona’s famous landmarks which to see the best parts of you had to pay. You would think when they put these famous landmarks on the itinerary it would be safe to assume that your fee for the camp would pay for full access to these places. Just another disappointment. The best part about the camp was the 2 days out of 2 weeks that you could venture out for yourself. This was only offered to the older kids. You of course had to be back at a certain time. They gave you five hours on a Thursday and eight hours on a Sunday. Everything was pretty much closed on a Sunday so the 8 hours you would spend wandering around trying to figure out what you should spend your only free time on. The cherry on top for this trip *drum roll* was personally getting assaulted by a counselor. I was boarding the elevator there and she used both hands to push me from stepping in. She apparently was taking a kid up so she didn’t want anyone else to board. It was totally disrespectful and even my peers were surprised. I reported her to her supervisors and they gave her a talking to and I tried to make light of the situation after she apologized. However, I did suppress some hard feelings and avoided that specific counselor whenever I could. Overall, this camp is a waste of money. I feel my experience could have been a lot better if I had known about the other option of joining a host family or a desperate residence where you were a bit more trusted to take care of yourself and see the city on your own time. Being confined majority of the time and looking at the city from your assigned room here was torturous. The only thing that kept me sane was socializing with my newly found friends (who I still talk to). I could go on about every negative detail of this camp but I will leave it here for these are the most stand out points that should persuade you from signing up.

I am currently enrolled in a summer intensive course at Enforex, Salamanca and have been having an amazing experience! I wanted to brush up on what Spanish I had learned in school and I have already learned way more than I thought I would. The 'profesores' are very approachable, patient, and diligent. I really like that we solely speak Spanish in class because I feel I am really being immersed in the language. However, while I am learning a lot, I will say that for a complete beginner even the first level may be difficult because they do not always go over the fundamentals.

There are people young and old that come from all over the world to take classes here. It is amazing to be in a room of people that I normally would not have a language in common with and be able to communicate through Spanish. And it makes me so happy to be able to speak Spanish to people in the town and make friends here.

I did not participate in the housing they provide, so I cannot speak to it. But I would recommend both Enforex and Salamanca for anyone wanting to learn more Spanish, meet great people, and experience a bit of the Spanish culture.