Grad Night - to go or avoid

[arichau]

Here's my take on grad night - I have been to a bunch over the years.

If you're looking for bad behavior from the grads you'll probably find it - just like you would with any large recognizable group. If you're able (and willing) to go to the parks early these are great days for that. I agree with someone above who said that they think locals avoid grad nights - the mornings we have experienced have been pretty great. If you're only able to get there after noon that would be too bad - although I would say that about any day at DL.

Are some grads going to be immature - yes, just like some adults. So for rides that are easy to mess with (Pirates, Haunted Mansion) I would hit those early and give yourself time for a second ride if a teen (or adult) behaves poorly.

I hope you have a great time on your trip!

 

[WDBRDWLK]

If 1 day is a Grad Night but the other day is not, go on the day that is not a Grad Night. Otherwise, if both are Grad Nights, just pick 1 of the days and go. I've been to DL a couple of times now during Grad Nights and it's not nearly as bad as the stories I've heard of the Brazilian tour groups at WDW.

We will be in DL from May 20-29th and also had some concern over Grad Night after reading the reports.. so we decided on that on Wed. May 24th, we will enjoy the pool and DTD area. Since we are there for 9 days it really does not impact us. However, as for the Brazlians in WDW, they are some rude people. As an example, this happened at EPCOT just at the beginning of Illuminations and this Brazilian man pushed me out of the way and stepped on my feet to get infront of me.. and he laughed about it.. I won't comment on what came out of my mouth.

 

[Abbey1]

We will be in DL from May 20-29th and also had some concern over Grad Night after reading the reports.. so we decided on that on Wed. May 24th, we will enjoy the pool and DTD area. Since we are there for 9 days it really does not impact us. However, as for the Brazlians in WDW, they are some rude people. As an example, this happened at EPCOT just at the beginning of Illuminations and this Brazilian man pushed me out of the way and stepped on my feet to get infront of me.. and he laughed about it.. I won't comment on what came out of my mouth.

Yikes. There's a big difference between discussing the issues that accompany large groups of teenagers visiting the parks and making harsh generalizations about an entire nationality of people. Not really an appropriate comment, in my opinion.

 

[WDBRDWLK]

Yikes. There's a big difference between discussing the issues that accompany large groups of teenagers visiting the parks and making harsh generalizations about an entire nationality of people. Not really an appropriate comment, in my opinion.

Sorry to have offended you.

 

[ButterflyKisses77]

Yikes. There's a big difference between discussing the issues that accompany large groups of teenagers visiting the parks and making harsh generalizations about an entire nationality of people. Not really an appropriate comment, in my opinion.

She's talking about the Brazilian tour groups. I'm sure she's not making "harsh generalizations about an entire nationality of people ".
Read VanVsmama's comment.

 

[VandVsmama]

My reference earlier to Brazilian tour groups was not intended to be racist or demeaning in any way. At certain times of year, a lot of tour groups of teenagers from Brazil go to WDW. They talk about it fairly often on the WDW edition of the Disunplugged podcasts.

From listening to this podcasts, reading people's personal accounts on the WDW side of these boards, and reading about it elsewhere, there DOES appear to be certain behaviors that the teenagers from Brazil tend to do which other WDW tourists often find bothersome.

I did not read the other poster's reply as being about ALL people from Brazil. The poster was referring to ONLY the tour groups of students from Brazil who go to WDW on trips which are quite similar to Grad Nights at DL.

And based on what I've read, I would take a DL grad night over that any day of the week. I have never encountered large groups of obnoxious park guests shoving their way through lines and incessant shouting and chanting cheers all day long. I've been during DL grad nights two or three times now and it isn't as horrific as people say it is.

 

[Abbey1]

She's talking about the Brazilian tour groups. I'm sure she's not making "harsh generalizations about an entire nationality of people ".
Read VanVsmama's comment.

My reference earlier to Brazilian tour groups was not intended to be racist or demeaning in any way. At certain times of year, a lot of tour groups of teenagers from Brazil go to WDW. They talk about it fairly often on the WDW edition of the Disunplugged podcasts.

From listening to this podcasts, reading people's personal accounts on the WDW side of these boards, and reading about it elsewhere, there DOES appear to be certain behaviors that the teenagers from Brazil tend to do which other WDW tourists often find bothersome.

I did not read the other poster's reply as being about ALL people from Brazil. The poster was referring to ONLY the tour groups of students from Brazil who go to WDW on trips which are quite similar to Grad Nights at DL.

And based on what I've read, I would take a DL grad night over that any day of the week. I have never encountered large groups of obnoxious park guests shoving their way through lines and incessant shouting and chanting cheers all day long. I've been during DL grad nights two or three times now and it isn't as horrific as people say it is.

Thanks for clarifying. We have only visited WDW once, so I was unaware of any issues surrounding Brazilian tour groups. The post I replied to didn't mention tour groups- "as for the Brazlians in WDW, they are some rude people", so I didn't realize that is what was being referred to. I'm glad to read I was mistaken!

 

[shannonisthequeen]

Has anyone stayed at the Grand Californian during the late night grad stuff at DCA? We were wondering about the noise factor and if that would be a concern for the rooms facing the park? We will be at DL May 21-27.

 

[whoever]

Unless the sliding door is open you shouldn't have any issues.

 

[Xenorye]

How exciting that it's almost time for your trip! I would love to hear about your experiences... thank so much!


I still have to figure out if my daughter is even interested in going that day. Being a 15 year old girl in the park with her mom when it's full of free roaming teenagers, may completely mortify her.

Okay, so here's the rub:

Overall, we got lucky last Wednesday. We landed at 9:35, and were in the park before 11. We were able to get a Hyperspace Mountain fastpass first thing (at 10:40 am, actually) with a return time of 1:25-2:25. We went to Haunted Mansion and got on with a 10 minute wait. Pirates, at that time, was already 25 minutes, and looked like it very well could have been longer, so we skipped it. After Mansion, (which had ballooned to 25 minutes when we were finished), I noticed that Splash Mountain was sitting around 5-10 minutes wait time, so we hopped on that standby. Got soaked (btw, Splash ballooned to 45 minutes by the time we finished it... thus, the 'lucky' part I was talking about). Rode Pooh after, basically walk-on (at this point it's almost noon -- at some point, maybe before Mansion, we stopped for a snack at Maurice's). Got a snack at Bengal BBQ (with no line... and by the time we got our food there were 10 people in line... luck), rode the teacups with about a 5 minute wait (which became 15 when we finished), grabbed a Roger Rabbit FastPass on a whim, did something else (memory is hazy at that point), and rode Hyperspace. Got a Star Tours FP, rode Roger Rabbit, checked on the Jungle Cruise (it was down), so we ate at Cafe Orleans, rode Star Tours with our FP, went back to Jungle Cruise (I was on a Skipper's 'List' so I was able to walk on). Did Tiki Room and decided to leave as wait times by this point were crazy (it was around 7pm). I feel like I'm forgetting one or two things in the middle there too.

So, thanks to FastPass and just getting lucky, here's what we are able to accomplish arriving after opening on a Wednesday Grad Nite:
Mansion
Splash
Pooh
Mad Tea Party
Hyperspace
Roger Rabbit
Star Tours
Jungle Cruise
Tiki Room

We were fairly pleased with what we were able to accomplish going at a relatively slow pace on a busy day, but we got lucky at least a few times. Your mileage may vary.

 

[tkradtke]

We were fairly pleased with what we were able to accomplish going at a relatively slow pace on a busy day, but we got lucky at least a few times. Your mileage may vary.

Thank you so much for your report! Makes me feel better about our decision to skip the parks on the Grad Night that we're there. We don't land until 11:30ish am, which puts us two hours behind your schedule above. We would be arriving around the time lines started to balloon for you. I think we could still get stuff done, just not enough to warrant the effort. I like the idea of just starting fresh at rope drop the next morning. We'll walk around DTD for a bit that afternoon and we're booked for a character meal that night to kick things off. Thanks again for sharing your experience!

 

[Xenorye]

Thank you so much for your report! Makes me feel better about our decision to skip the parks on the Grad Night that we're there. We don't land until 11:30ish am, which puts us two hours behind your schedule above. We would be arriving around the time lines started to balloon for you. I think we could still get stuff done, just not enough to warrant the effort. I like the idea of just starting fresh at rope drop the next morning. We'll walk around DTD for a bit that afternoon and we're booked for a character meal that night to kick things off. Thanks again for sharing your experience!

Good plan. Without getting there at rope drop, this trip would have been a bust for us. It was SO BUSY. I'm sure the boards have reported on that already (I haven't caught up and not sure when I will), but man... it was insane. The combination of grad nite and the last weekend that the SoCal 3-day passes were available was a killer.

 

[Snap Crackle Pop]

The gradnights that happened recently were also overlapping the fact that those tickets for SoCal people are expiring and this past weekend was the last weekend they could be used. So on top of that and gradnights I feel like it was really busy.
I've gone on gradnights before, and yes it will be busy but it's tolerable if you go in knowing that it's going to be busier than a normal busy day. Yes, there are very rude teenagers (and there are equally rude adults as well.) but there are some really well behaved ones too. A girl in a group of teenagers accidentally dropped her soda all over my shoes and she apologized for a good three minutes, and then her and her friend tried to give me fastpasses for another ride they had but I didn't take them.