I encourage you to do a little research on your own. EF Tours is not Rick Steves-style. They do student travel, and it depends on what you want. The accommodations are often located a good distance from the attractions and sites of interest in an area and may not be in areas you would feel secure if the students left in the evenings. The food served as part of the tours has been noted as "not a cultural experience" with some properties serving "Americanized" food to the students. As a teacher who led a number of tours to Europe, I researched this extensively before making recommendations to other educators. I am pasting below a copy of comments from fellow teachers gathered in the process. In the student travel industry, the following "ratings" --
EF and Explorica are the lowest,
CHA and Passports are middle of the road and
ACIS and NETC are the better/higher-end student tour companies.
With EF, some things depend on when you travel. If a bit offseason, quality of hotels/food might be a little better. For breakfast, some type of bread and juice (may be something like Tang at some places) and coffee. Some hotels you might get a bit more (yogurt, maybe cheese or hardboiled egg). Dinner will be geared towards teenagers with French fries at many meals (or some other potato). Chicken/pork and maybe a veggie. Most teenagers will still be hungry and need to buy extra food. Usually drinks are not included except water. Soft drinks are never included and are expensive.
As for lunch on your own, often you are traveling and the bus will stop somewhere (restaurant/cafeteria) in the middle of nowhere so you won't have a choice. Otherwise, you will lunch in a touristy area and they will tell you to be back in one hour or so. Some teachers will not allow students to go off on their own so you will have to eat where the group eats unless you have a parent traveling with you.
EF sometimes takes students to restaurants they think they want to go such as Hard Rock as an included meal. The food is prearranged (hamburger/fries) and you usually can't order off the menu.
Your teacher gets a free trip for every six students he/she signs up. Any students over six, they can choose cash reward for each student signed or add another adult free. With 20 students, they qualify for 3 adults free plus some cash or may choose free space and thousand + dollars (I don't know the current amount they are paying per student signed - also factors in total trip price).
Hotels can be 30 minutes to an hour outside of the cities so it's unlikely you could go off on your own for dinner (even if the teacher allowed). I have seen some teachers take groups to Europe with EF and just turn them loose. Those kids were out clubbing all night. He had no clue where they were and didn't care.
You can pack some breakfast bars in your luggage and be sure to take advantage of any stops at convenience type stores to stock up on a few of the local snacks.
