Reservations for the 2026/2027 School Year will be opening in May.
Thank you for your continued support of California Weekly Explorer! As we look forward to another season providing quality history presentations that motivate children’s creativity, intellect, and ethics, we wanted to reach out to let you know how our reservation process works and to ease any concerns regarding the opening dates based on county and opening time for reservations.
The dates for reservations for the 2026/2027 school year will be:
May 12th – Orange, San Diego, and Imperial Counties
May 13th – Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties
May 14th – Northern and Central California and all remaining counties
May 15th – New schools and Waitlist
Reservations will open each day at 9:00 am.
As we did last year, we will be using a virtual waiting room to maintain an even flow into our reservation site. This was highly successful in avoiding server crashes and will be the status quo moving forward. You will want to make sure your account is made and associated with your current school prior to opening so that once you are let in from the waiting room, you can immediately look for available days.
Based on feedback from customers, we are opening reservations after school has begun (for most) to avoid distractions from starting class while trying to log in. While reservations open at 9:00am, that does not mean you must log in at that time. Wait times may be shorter if you log in later in the day. If you have a flexible schedule or are only booking 1-2 dates, that may be a better option for you.
Upon logging in, you will be placed in the virtual waiting room by order of entry. Please note that if you log in before 9:00am, your entry will be randomized, and you are not guaranteed an earlier place in line. Wait times can vary depending on how many users are on the site at once. You may have higher waiting times in certain areas or certain times of day. There is an option to receive a sound notification when it is your turn. Please have your speaker turned up so you don’t miss it!
Once let in from the queue you will have 10 minutes to be active. If the system shows no initial activity after the first 10 minutes you will be released from the queue in order to provide room for more entries. As long as there is activity, you will remain in the system and be able to look for all the dates you need. Rest assured if something happens that you get kicked offline for a short amount of time, you will not be placed back in line. Once you log back in, you will have immediate access to the reservation calendar to continue where you left off in your search.
We do want to let you know that due to the popularity of these programs among returning customers throughout the years and our need to hire and train dedicated and talented presenters, dates may be limited or you may see dates earlier or later than you are used to reserving. Some areas may have availability as early as September. Customers who have booked early dates usually find that the presentation provides an incredible opportunity to frontload students on future units and that the interest level of students in the material is much higher than when the unit comes before the presentation.
For those booking multiple presentations, we want to encourage you to consider reserving two presentations on a single day instead of having one presentation per day so that we can offer more dates to our customers. Reserving two presentations in one day will not only help us with availability but also save you a travel fee. We can accommodate two presentations of the same or different type in a single day if your instructional hours can accommodate a 60-minute break between presentations (30 minutes for state mandatory break for employees and 30 minutes to re-set equipment). You will want to avoid this option for any minimum days at your school.
For those schools who book for more than one grade level (4th, 5th, or 6th) we suggest having one person who can book for ALL grade levels. The system will give you the option to book them all on the same invoice or on a different one. When reserving you will see an option for either two presentations of the same type (2 Walk Through California, 2 Walk Through Revolution, 2 Walk Through the Ancient World) or two presentations of a different type (1 Walk Through California, 1 Walk Through Revolution; 1 Walk Through California, 1 Walk Through Ancient World; 1 Walk Through Revolution, 1 Walk Through Ancient World) and you will be given the option to choose which presentation you want to go first (a.m. and p.m.).
If you do not see a date available, we ask that you please add your school to our 26/27 Waitlist. The waitlist will open at the end of reservation week, on Friday, May 15th and can be found after logging into your account on the opening reservation page. You will be contacted in the order of your position on the Waitlist. To better serve you, please add your desired presentation type(s) in your waitlist entry so we know what to offer when dates become available. Our reservation system will also notify you directly when dates open in your area due to rescheduling or cancellations.
We will do our best to provide what we are able to and offer our support and assistance. We ask for your understanding and patience as we are a company that wishes to uphold the quality our customers have come to expect. If you have any questions at all, we are happy to answer them.
With gratitude,
Chelsea Black
Customer Accounts Representative
California Weekly Explorer, Inc
