How were things with Pop Warner this year?

[dreambound]

I just noticed that Pop Warner has now switched to "our week" and I'm wondering how things were with them there this year. We always stay deluxe, DVC, or Fort Wilderness. Was their presence felt in any sort of negative way?

Thanks

 

[twotoohappy]

here's a link

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2031902

 

[Lynne M]

This kinda covers it:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...orchester_pop_warner_squad_involved_in_brawl/

They don't stay deluxe, DVC, or FW, at least not in large numbers, so you shouldn't be affected at your resort. There have been reports of occasional obnoxiousness in the theme parks, but no major incidents.

 

[koolaidmoms]

We were there Monday and Tuesday for a short unexpected trip. The only room we could get (we booked two days before!) was at ASMu. There were PW Cheerleaders and Football players there. I know there have been issues that were noted. We actually used to love going this week but stopped because of problems in the past with both groups. We were hesitant to even go for 2 days but thought we could tough it out.

We had no problems what so ever with the kids. We went to the pools where they were goofing around. The life guard was pretty much on top of all of them. The problem was with the "adults" not stepping in to put a stop to dangerous or inappropriate activities before they life guard needed to. Sometimes the adults (and I use this term loosely) were egging them on! One parent even told the kids to ignore their coaches request to return to their rooms for bedtime and to just say they were with her. That sounds like a parent I want on my team.

But, overall the parks were empty and lines were short. Longest wait was for Fantasyland rides and Space Mountain at 20 minutes. We are even thinking of trying to go back on this week again. Let's see how April goes first!

 

[Twende]

We had a major disaster because of Pop Warner and the agreement they made with Disney!

On Wednesday 12/10 we had plans to eat an early dinner (4:30 PM) at Pepper Market and then head into HS to see Fantasmic followed by a quick walk through the Christmas lights.

We made it to CS and had a great dinner. We drove to HS and DH dropped us and our party off including 2 in wheelchairs. We slowly headed to the theater knowing we had a hour before the show started at 7 PM.

We entered the seating area and heard music! We realized that the show was going on! I thought my watch was incorrect so I asked what time it was and they told me 6:10 PM

What the heck! I start asking questions and am told that they moved the show up to 6 PM and had been announcing it since 10 AM. I explained that we were in AK and never head any announcements!

We head out, very frustrated and decide to see the lights before we leave the park. As we step/roll on to the street the lights go out! GRRRRRRR!

I am getting a bit upset by this time!

We come to find out that Pop W has rented the park for the evening and they did it at 10 AM that morning. I was told that they had 15,000 people coming in so the park was being closed early!

I was very ticked. We really wanted to see this show and the lights to we decided to come back the next night but we had a 6:30 PM ADR at Spoodles and then plans for some of our party of 17 to then enter EPCOT to see Illuminations. The rest without AP or hoppers were going to watch from the bridge. We also had morning ADR's for Tusker Breakfast in AK for everyone and now if they wanted to see the show or eat dinner they needed hoppers!

I went to Guest Relations and explained they their last minute rental of the park had really messed up my plans and ADRS that had been made 180 days out based on their calendar.

They tried to find some place for us to eat in HS and found that things were booked up. I said yes I knew that! They finally found a 4:30 opening for us at Prime Time and then issued us Fantasmic VIP seating for the next night. They also comped some members of our party tickets to enter the park and later had to change those to hoppers so they could eat breakfast and dinner.

It took a lot of time to get all this done and I felt like a second class person and the Pop people were all that was important!

We ended up not getting to eat at Spoodles at all and we missed Illuminations on Thursday.

I will say that on Thursday night the manager and staff at Prime Time went out of their way to make sure that our needs were met. That was very professional and much appreciated by us.

But who ever made the last minute decision to close HS early on Wed and chase people out, made a very very very poor decision.

 

[Geistmeister]

We were there last week and one thing that I hadn't thought about that affected us was the line for Magical Express. It took us 28 minutes to get through the line, but when my parents hit the line about an hour after us they were told it was a 45 minute wait. They ended up taking a cab and beating us to the resort. We arrived around 2:00 PM.

 

[Golf4food]

No problems in the parks. Problems in the resort (POR) mostly from the parents - standing out on the 3rd floor balcony after midnight, drunk and still drinking, yelling, cursing, laughing, making a ton of noise, running around - and had young kids out with them the whole time. We had to call security three times before they finally dispersed.

With parents like that I'm not surprised about teams getting kicked out for fighting or bad behavior - they have excellent role models in that regard.

 

[shellybaxter]

We had no problems with the Pop kids at all. In fact we found them to be fun. There was a group of girls taking flash pictures on a dark ride and I used my teacher voice and said nicely, "no flash photography please". They stop immediately - much nice response than I've gotten from grown ups when I've asked nicely.

As for the party - I think it was arranged further in advance than that day. I was aware of it before we left for our trip on Thanksgiving.

 

[CanadianGuy]

We had a major disaster because of Pop Warner and the agreement they made with Disney!

On Wednesday 12/10 we had plans to eat an early dinner (4:30 PM) at Pepper Market and then head into HS to see Fantasmic followed by a quick walk through the Christmas lights.

We made it to CS and had a great dinner. We drove to HS and DH dropped us and our party off including 2 in wheelchairs. We slowly headed to the theater knowing we had a hour before the show started at 7 PM.

We entered the seating area and heard music! We realized that the show was going on! I thought my watch was incorrect so I asked what time it was and they told me 6:10 PM

What the heck! I start asking questions and am told that they moved the show up to 6 PM and had been announcing it since 10 AM. I explained that we were in AK and never head any announcements!

We head out, very frustrated and decide to see the lights before we leave the park. As we step/roll on to the street the lights go out! GRRRRRRR!

I am getting a bit upset by this time!

We come to find out that Pop W has rented the park for the evening and they did it at 10 AM that morning. I was told that they had 15,000 people coming in so the park was being closed early!

I was very ticked. We really wanted to see this show and the lights to we decided to come back the next night but we had a 6:30 PM ADR at Spoodles and then plans for some of our party of 17 to then enter EPCOT to see Illuminations. The rest without AP or hoppers were going to watch from the bridge. We also had morning ADR's for Tusker Breakfast in AK for everyone and now if they wanted to see the show or eat dinner they needed hoppers!

I went to Guest Relations and explained they their last minute rental of the park had really messed up my plans and ADRS that had been made 180 days out based on their calendar.

They tried to find some place for us to eat in HS and found that things were booked up. I said yes I knew that! They finally found a 4:30 opening for us at Prime Time and then issued us Fantasmic VIP seating for the next night. They also comped some members of our party tickets to enter the park and later had to change those to hoppers so they could eat breakfast and dinner.

It took a lot of time to get all this done and I felt like a second class person and the Pop people were all that was important!

We ended up not getting to eat at Spoodles at all and we missed Illuminations on Thursday.

I will say that on Thursday night the manager and staff at Prime Time went out of their way to make sure that our needs were met. That was very professional and much appreciated by us.

But who ever made the last minute decision to close HS early on Wed and chase people out, made a very very very poor decision.

Hmm.. that IS odd.. especially because the P/W people have had the park rented on Wed night each of the last three years ... so we all presumed this week was no different.

The park was skedded to close with the showing of Fantasmic at 7pm... which would be in line with them renting it for the evening as they usually do.

Very odd indeed.

 

[nhl66pens]

We were at Fantasmic Sunday night 12/7 and my wife told me they allowed some cheerleaders to entertain the people waiting in line but that one of them appeared to have consumed too much alcohol and a minor fight started at which point they were asked to leave. Also, I did not see this personally but was at Epcot EMH Friday night and had stopped at Soarin to get a last ride at around midnight and was told by a CM at the snack stand that a bunch of cheerleaders came running (literally) through the land yelling and screaming and went to ride Soarin' and they were told to leave. Other than those incidents, I did not see any trouble and only noticed the cheerleaders walking through the parks because they mostly were wearing matching outfits.

 

[mama2twins]

We stayed this past week at ASMusic and didn't have any problems with the Pop Warner kids at all. We were also at DHS on Wednesday and I had read here a few months ago that they were renting the park that night. We didn't see Fantasmic but we went on ToT at 6:30 pm and left right after that, but the park didn't close until 7 pm.

Edited to add: I just looked at the printed schedule for that day and they do have Fantasmic listed for 6pm.

 

[rapriebe]

I was in several different parks last week and frankly I got tired of hearing the cheerleaders doing their cheers. While waiting for Wishes one night, we had to listen to a large group of them in the hub yelling (oops, I mean cheering) and it was quite annoying. Once in a while is okay but it seems like every day I ran into a group cheering - gets old real quick.

 

[mom2disprincesses]

i was there last week and pop warner was out in FULL FORCE. but you know what? they didn't bother me at all...i actually was mildly entertained by their cheers. the parks weren't that rowded wait times weren't that bad. what WAS bad was the airport on saturday coming back. YIKES!

 

[SEC]

We stayed at WLV December 7 - 13 and will avoid PW next year and in future years.

PW affected us from the time we got off the plane until after we landed. We arrived at 11:40 on Sunday and waited in the magical express line for 1 hour! The line was past the elevators and most of the rental car counters.

The parks were very busy. MK was crazy on Monday, we were there from 10a.m. until about 6 and only rode 3 rides due to long lines even with using fast pass.


We had a couple of incidents with kids, one in EPCOT when a group of boys about 8 years old were throwing coins at the train, people and buildings in the German section. There was no adult supervision apparent. My parents had an incident on the bus going from EPCOT to WLV when two rival groups started verbally sparring on the bus. The chaperone did not do much to make it stop. There were groups cheering all through the park and on the rides. I did not enjoy my ride on Big Thunder Mountain with a group of 3 girls screaming behind me and competing with screaming with another group of girls further back in the ride.

There were PW groups staying at WLV. There was not much of an impact at the resort itselft just the one bus incident.

We flew Southwest because Delta has dropped a lot of nonstop flights and we were able to get a nonstop flight on Southwest. Apparently, a lot of the PW guests also flew Southwest because when we left on Sunday, the curbside and inside line was crazy! The conveyer belt for luggage at curbside broke down at 10:30 in the morning, so my luggage did not arrive as was the case with about 5 other people on my flight. I fly frequently for business and pleasure and my luggage has never been lost! At least it was on the way back and I did get it today.

We are already planning for next year and we will not be going when PW is going on, it had a negative affect on our trip.

 

[5 for WDW]

We were there the 6-13th so, we shared the entire week with the PW groups.

As others have mentioned the ME line at MCO was insane. We landed at 9:30am and I waited 50 minutes to get to the counter. However, we literally walked right onto a bus.

We did not see any of them at SSR, which we planned on.

We had one little negative experience with one group at AK one afternoon. It was a group of about 20 girls with 4 or 5 adults who thought it was cute to yell Christmas carols at the top of their lungs. Singing would have been fine but, the yelling was not. Thankfully, our bus came about ten minutes after they walked up.

We saw lots of groups throughout the week, as well as a few kids here and there. They were always quiet and well behaved.

There were lots of people around the parks all week but, the lines were all very manageable.

We would not avoid the PW kids for future vacations. But, we are DVC members. If we were staying at a resort they were, we might have a different opinion.

 

[DebbieB]

I doubt they decided to rent the park at 10:00am. They always have an after hours party one night and since Wednesday was the only night DHS closed at 7:00, everyone assumed it was that night.

I'm not sure when they changed the time for Fantasmic but the calendar shows 6:00pm. What did the materials that you received at check-in say?

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wd...x?id=MGMCalendarDailyViewPage&date=12/10/2008

 

[danielle.st]

We were there the 6th-13th and barely saw PW.
The only loud groups of cheering girls we saw were from the South American Tour groups (I know one was from Argentina... I'm not sure of the others). It was kind of annoying when those tour groups would go through anywhere just because they are just such huge groups even when they are not chanting. When a couple large tour groups of 80 people each get into a line, they increase the wait time dramatically and it seemed difficult for the CMs to keep on top of that adjusting.
The PW groups we saw around the parks where in small numbers, certainly no larger than any of the grand gathering groups.
We stayed at POP.

 

[JPG]

 

[jpeppers]

I was at CSR a few years ago and let my 16 year old nephew go to the pool in the evening. I later went looking for him and found him in the hot tub drunk with some Pop Warner parents. They had asked him if he was 21 before serving him alcohol they had brought to the pool, apparently he was convincing. I'm a drinker, just don't believe in serving minors. I think the biggest issues are with the parents, not the kids (and not all the parents).

 

[kellyg403]

I don't think that Pop Warner was a problem for us in the parks. The cheerleaders and other tour groups seemed to be the ones who went in mass to the parks together. We seem to encounter these groups later in the day in the parks and while it wasn't the sheer numbers of them it was how LOUD they were! Those cheerleaders would start chanting in the lines and in the closed space got old real quick. But, I agree that the chaperones were mostly to blame...they started the chants and would get the kids all hyped up. If we got somewhere and saw a large group of them in the line, we turned around. Honestly, once was quite enough for me!

Kelly