For those who stayed on property the first week of February this year........

[JohnDaleswife]

Ok, so who all was there the first week of February of this year? Where did you stay at and were there any major "tour" groups at your hotel? Give me the good, the bad and the ugly!

Also, did any of you stay with a rate at the "certain" travel agency we know of? If so which hotels were they offering?

 

[alisonelizabeth]

I was at Pop Century from Jan. 31 - Feb. 4 and there were a lot of South American tour groups there as well as some dance groups and school groups. Seems like we had to walk around large groups congregated near the lobby/in the lobby every time we had to walk there, which was a little annoying, but besides that they never bothered us at the resort.

I think if you stay somewhere that might be full of tour groups, just be prepared for it to be more crowded than normal at bus stops (at the resorts and at the parks), in the lobby, and in the food court.

 

[ilovebassets]

We stayed at Fort Wilderness. Definitely no tour groups there!

 

[Gillyrose779]

We were there Feb 5-8. Stayed at BLT on rented points- last minute good deal.

No groups at BLT but A LOT of cheerleaders at the parks. I was surprised at that. Not too bad except the occasional bad behavior- saw two cheer moms sneak their way into a fast pass line at AK- they were wearing matching team shirts while doing it- tacky. Also at Epcot America - about 10 cheerleaders "sang" God Bless America overly loud on purpose and out of tune then chanted USA. Maybe just us but we were not amused.

 

[Babsy]

We stayed at the BWI. No large groups there. We did see large groups in the theme parks, but never noticed any bad behaviour. other than occasionally getting into line ahead of us and thus increasing our wait time (certainly no one's fault, just the way it is), we never had any problems with them at all

 

[JustCor]

Jan 31 -Feb 4, CBR for one night, POR for the rest. CBR was PACKED with cheer groups. They were loud and obnoxious. POR was, thankfully, free of them. The parks naturally had lots of cheerleaders roaming around in large packs, randomly stopping to do cheer stuff and obstruct the pathways and be generally obnoxious. Being on any of the lines with a group (or more than one group, the horror) is a test in patience. The nice thing about their pack mentality is that it's easy to see which way the cheer herd was moving and then choose a different direction.

 

[ninafeliz]

Jan 31-feb 8, booked at Pop Century but was upgraded to AKL on check in!! AKL was calm and peaceful. I had to go to Pop Century one evening and it was complete chaos. The food court was packed with groups of high school aged girls, and there were hoards of them sitting on the floor In The lobby and outside the gift shop/ food court. Ii had to wade through them - I'm pretty sure they were dance teams. I'm not saying I would not have still enjoyed out trip had we stayed at Pop, but I was so thankful for he upgrade after seeing that. I think my least favorite thing to deal with In a hotel is a large group of high school-ish aged kids - I try to avoid that at all costs. (Boy I sound so old now!).

 

[kaytieeldr]

Questions about agency-specific discounts would probably get best responses on the Discounts subforum.

 

[disneyfanlincoln]

CBR for 13 nights until 8 feb. Cheerleaders were sadly a huge issue this year for us. They haven't been previous years. they were everywhere, food court, pool, car parks practising, beaches practising in the room next to us being very noisy. Sadly it's put me off staying at CBR it was that bad. Unfortunately sometimes the adult chaperones were worst than the girls. Spoiled the experience for me because we could not get away from it unless we went off site. I've got nothing against cheerleaders by the way, we just had a bad experience this year.....

 

[JohnDaleswife]

Ya, this pretty much confirms what I already suspected. If we were to go back and go during this time frame, deluxe will be a must. Not going to chance it with any value or moderate what so ever. AoA would have been my first choice, and might still be if we choose a later date, but with the connection to Pop, we won't stay there during this time. Deluxe all the way.

 

[maccagerl]

Port Orleans French Quarter Feb 2-6 , no tour groups, and parks didn't seem crowded at all! It as a great week!

 

[Sue M]

We were there For the last 10 days of January. At beginning of trip there were big tour groups at the parks, and first 2-3 days of our stay there was a tour group at our resort, POR. But they were very well behaved and had no negative affect on our stay. Towards the end of our trip, tour groups had pretty much left the parks and the cheer & dance teams arrived.
We did get a magical deal at POR. I can't remember what other resorts were included.

 

[HopperFan]

I could go on and on with our nightmare experiences but in short:
- 2013 POP third week Jan. Room in middle of BTG. Complete nightmare, security called often, did nothing, could not use food court or buses, up all hours, had to address direct with kids, told their chaperone on 5th night no more security - next call was police.
- 2014 POP first week in Feb. Room in middle of BTG. Complaints at front desk blown off. Less late nights but the chaos and rudeness made stay miserable. Pool unusable, human soup. Chanting and singing until midnight every night. Buses unusable. Food court unusable. Walked to AoA - their food court unusable.
- Won't even begin to tell you what they do to the rooms, you'll never want to go in after them.
- They clog the walkways in parks plopping down, we've seen Main St wall to wall across, their leaders are instigators and create much of the problem.
- 2015 opted for a short Jan trip offsite and my POP week the last week of Feb/early March. I looked online to see that kids from B go back early Feb and kids from A go back usually by end of Feb. Our hotel experience was great, saw no groups and able to use all amenities, and in parks only saw one group at Fantasmic and yes they were rude.
- Have seen cheer groups on my trips but honestly have never had any issues with them.

Will never stay onsite unless deluxe in January/February unless last week of Feb. I can avoid in parks but I can't in hotel.

DD is CM. Were told Disney now has started to tell some tour groups they can not come back. Key here is complaints. Carry a piece of paper and pen or shoot a picture. Their company name is on their shirts and backpacks. File complaints. Enough that group isn't to come back. The kids will just move to other groups but at least the word is out that companies can lose their cash cow if they don't keep them in line.

 

[cindyfan]

Was there jan 29-February 3 at All Star Movies. Lots of dance groups and tour groups. For the most part they were well behaved and kept together. It was just annoying when they were trying to catch the bus or at the food court. The tour groups were polite. No where near the rude obnoxious Brazil groups that travel down there in July!!!!

 

[eddh0713]

Stayed at POFQ first week Feb last year. No large groups. Very quiet. Highly recommend it.

 

[ellie05]

We stayed at ASSports for two nights early feb. It was completely unplanned stay I called and made reservations the day of. I asked at the front desk at check in and cm told me we just miss the groups since they checked out earlier that day. The next morning there was two small groups checking out, but for the most part it was really quiet. Granted we didn't spend a lot of time in the resort. We check in at midnight later that day we went shopping and didn't made it back until 11:30 pm. The next morning we woke up early to pack our stuff and make it to the MK at RD, we checked out and left our stuff in the car until we check in off property later that day.

 

[JessLUVSminnie]

We were there Feb 3-8 with a split stay Feb 8-11. We started out at CBR in the Aruba section. The cheerleaders started arriving the morning of Feb 5th. It was crazy! It was very loud and congested. It seemed to overwhelm the buses. By 10:20pm on the 5th I was at the custom house requesting a move to a different resort. It was too much for me. We moved to GF and stayed there until the 8th. We had a lovely time there with no issues at all. We moved to AKL for the 8th-11th. We had no issues with large groups. Our overall stay there was nice but staff there were not as knowledgeable or as friendly as either of the other resorts we stayed at.
* If we ever return during that time of year I will try my best to book a deluxe. If I couldn't afford that, I would try for POR or POFQ. Although I must say that staff was very nice and accommodating when I requested to move to a different resort.

 

[Cedarmom]

We were at ASMu from Jan 31-Feb 5. Lots of dance groups but I was pleasantly surprised at the behavior. The girls were polite and well-behaved. Practice was done in the parking lot well away from the building. We never once heard them in our room. The one time they were singing on the bus, the chaperone caught that the song was about to get inappropriate for our children and shut them down. They sang Disney songs after that. They were in the food court, but it never seemed overwhelming. I never had to wait behind more than one or two people in the food court the entire trip.

I did laundry one evening with young teens from a South American tour group. They were fine. I was annoyed by the lack of working machines, but that was a disney issue, not a tour group issue. I never saw or heard the kids from that group at any other time.

 

[abk96]

I was there with my dd's middle school cheer group Feb 5-8. I wasn't lookng forward to doing it since we go in July every year and have those Brazil tour groups that are loud and rude.

This trip was pleasantly surprising. My girls were complimented several times for their good manners and I never had a problem with any other cheer group there.

We stayed at all star music.