Pop Warner People? I'm a little afraid it might ruin....

[Tarzan]

Just wanted to let those with holidays already planned during Pop Warner know that it's not as bad as some would have you believe. We stayed at ASMo Dec 7-17 '04 and the ONLY time we encountered problems were on the buses. The cheerleaders cheered loudly and continuously whilst waiting for their bus from MK. The line for ASMo was just far enough away for us to pity those waiting with them, especially at the end of a long day. During the day when all 3 All Star resorts share a bus we noticed that it was difficult for people at Music and Movies to get a seat on the bus, because the line at Sports is usually long enough to fill the bus on it's first stop. They squeeze on too, which makes it hard to get off the bus at Movies. In the evening however, when all 3 resorts have their own bus, it's not a problem. One lady did tell me that the reason we kept encountering such big crowds at Sports was because many of them were staying off site due to a lack of space and their transport dropped them off and picked them up at sports, so they used the all star buses despite not staying there. It wasn't so bad that I wouldn't visit at that time again, but I decided to go slightly earlier this year because it was so cold in '04, hoping for warmer weather this year

 

[Miffy2003]

We stayed at ASMo from Dec 8th this year and although we saw a few tour groups on the buses etc they were all well behaved

 

[n2mm]

Our only encounter recently was during our trip Dec. 10-13. We stayed at BWI, so we were pretty much safe (we were booked at A/S Sport, but I called EVERY day until something openned up). But a group of them arrived for dinner at the 50s PT--probably about 30 of them. While they didn't bother us, they sure gave the servers a hard time. They wanted to sit where THEY wanted to sit--while the servers insisted they could only sit at certain tables. One wanted to add a chair to a TV/table making it 5 and was told NO because of safety reasons--she threw a tantrum and keep trying to sneak the chair over. One table had a food fight and the girls threw icecream at each other. And again I asked, where are the parents, well they were there too. Running between the tables and laughing at the girls and taking pictures of them. There was absolutely no parental guidance at all. Granted not every girls' parents were there. One mom got in a servers' face when insisting that she make the TV table a 5 person table, but the server held her stance and said NO! Hubby and I, and daughter agreed that these particular girls had a bad case of princess syndrome brought on by their moms reliving their childhood (which was very apparent while these grown women giggled and participated in the same antics as the girls). While this no way represents the entire PW group, I can only comment on this one particular group eating at the 50s PT on Saturday night Dec. 11th. I know that cutting up at the 50sPT is part of this restraurants appeal, but the servers where not happy and did not particpate or lead anyone on. They obviously wanted to feed them and get them out ASAP. I heard the same bad review from our server at the WC at WL. She said that the group that ate there were the rudest and most obnoxius group of young people she had ever served.

On another note, we go to WDW during the spring and often/always stay at a value resort. There are always kids from "music days" or school trips there and we have never had any problems with these young people. If we are sitting near them in the food court, we usually will make conversation with them and ask them where they are from. Overall, most of these kids are pretty well behaved and their chaperons do a good job!

 

[Nanu57v]

Fatcow, I agree with you. I wish someone had warned us about the cheerleaders staying at the resort the same time as us. If I had known it would only have cost us another $40 a night to change our vacation from miserably annoying with little sleep to wonderful Disney magic, we certainly would've. Its just unfortunate that we had to spend $2000 and not enjoy ourselves. All my husband and I remember are being awoken by cheerleaders and riding on buses with loud cheerleaders. (I know not all cheerleaders are bad, my cousin competes, and she's very sweet. Its just like a PP said, a few can spoil the bunch).

I was tired all the time. I even had to skip a day at the parks because I was so tired from not being able to sleep that I felt sick. (The kids were competing during the day).The only good thing was it made me well rested for the MVMCP and it was my most enjoyable time there.

On a side note, I wish we would've known when they were taping the parade because the MK was so crowded those days. We would've avoided.

 

[KevinM]

Pop Warner Week 2003:

We stayed at POR, noticed large groups of teens in food court, etc. Were generally well behaved and did not seem to affect attendance.

Pop Warner Week 2004:

We stayed at the Dolphin, no cheerleaders or football players staying there. There was a youth Chess Convention at the Dolphin- very nice kids! However, we had a least 4 BAD experiences every day at various parks with Pop crowds. They were awful on the busses, roamed through parks generally unsupervised. Very loud, obnoxious, rude, etc.. Foul language, cut in lines, erupted in cheers for no apparent reason "Hey EVERYONE, Look at ME!!!!!"....

Many groups were well behaved. Cheerleaders were much worse than the football players as a rule.

Another thread indicated that Pop Warner will be reserving 50% more rooms this year and will spill over into the Moderates. Personally, I will not go again during that week. But it could just be that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Over and over again!

P.S. - For over-sensitive Cheerleader Mothers - I am NOT talking about your daughters, so don't jump down my throat. Let people give their opinions!

 

[Stacerita]

Now I dont know what to think. I was planning on going down for the sweetpea's birthday this year and being there 12/3-12/10. Are the Pop Warner people going to be there during that time? The sweetpea was wanting to stay at ASMu (because of the guitar pool). Would we be better off staying at POP or POR? Do they stay there also or will we be okay? Ive spent years in Pop Warner as a participant and a coach so I know how some of these kids and parents can get so I would rather try to avoid staying as the same resort as them. I know there are some really great parents/kids in the program, but from my experience, there aren't enough. I would just rather stay away from them and only have the chance encounter of running into them here and there. Help.

 

[DebbieB]

Since they are reserving more rooms for this December, I would bet they will be at all the values & moderates. The e-mail I got from them said they are thinking of moving it back a week. I would think they have to make a decision on dates soon because WDW is blocking alot of rooms. My dates are Nov 26 to Dec 2, so I'm ok for this year.

Here is their website, if you want to e-mail them about the dates:

http://www.popwarner.com/

 

[Nanu57v]

Stacerita, how old is your daughter? Maybe she'll think the older girls are cool and it won't bother her. Or maybe you can do a split stay. Stay at another resort during Pop time, and stay at ASmu when they won't be there. Another thing, my parents stayed in the preferred locations at ASmu, and they didn't lose sleep like we did.

 

[TR Denise]

We were there from dec. 5-10th 2004. Four adults no kids we stayed at OKW. Went to MVMCP on the 9th. We really didn"t see any problems, only saw a few cheerleaders the whole time. We had a great time. The only time we saw obnoxious kids and parents was on the plane home it was no big deal. We all agreed we would go that time again. It was so much fun. So as long as your not in the same resort go and you won't regret it, we were really worried before we left so glad we didn"t change our plans

 

[WaltD4Me]

If you're concerned, stay at POFQ. I don't think they use that resort

I was there for Pop Warner this December and we stayed at POFQ, although there were not alot of PW'er's, there were some groups at POFQ and they took over the pool a couple times. Also if you stay at POFQ you will have to share buses with Riverside and there were TONS of Pop Warner groups there.

While Pop Warner did not "ruin" our trip, they did make a difference and I will be planning around their dates the next time we go in December.

I read on the Pop Warner discussion board that there were 35% more PW people at Disney this year and next year there will be 50% more there than were there in 2003. Since Pop Warner seems to be getting larger, I won't be taking the chance of going the same week as them again, even if we were staying at a Deluxe resort. Alot of people said they didn't notice them at the parks, but we definitely did and it's an experience I prefer to avoid in the future.

Like I said, they didn't ruin our trip, but they were noticeable enough and obnoxious enough to make a difference.

Lisa

 

[Ronda93]

We were at WDW 12/3-11/2004. Stayed at AKL and didn't feel the presence of PW there. Saw players and cheerleaders at every park during the day. Like any pack of roving teens some would have made their mothers proud others would not have.

We have stayed at an All Star resort the first week in December in the past and for us it *was* awful. Cheer practice in the hotel courtyards into the wee hours and generally lots of noise. You know the noise that's generated when several rooms return shouting from MVMCP or MNSSHP and you're asleep already. It's like that, but at a constant level. They simply kick the volume of the world up a few notches. If you are around crowds of kids you may be inured to the activity and it won't affect your trip.

My advice: Volunteer to supervise a middle school field trip (or talk to someone who has), if you liked it, book the values the first week in December. If you would not want to spend your vacation on the fringes of that group, book a moderate (other than POR/FQ - now maybe others) or, if you can swing it, book a deluxe (AKL always seems to have the best discounts).

 

[Luigi's Girl]

Must have been during the St. Francis of Assisi Nun's and Friar's convention. Great weekend...I've been there during that time too.

Laugh O. Grams,
Your posts seem to have been making me laugh a lot lately. Maybe you should change your name to Ton O. Laughs!

 

[Philly81]

Don't worry about the probability of encountering rude, obnoxious, noisy groups of cheerleaders... it is 100% certain that you WILL encounter them... everyday... many times each and every day... all through your trip.

This is from someone whose trip was mainly ruined by the PopWarner crowds.

If you are staying where any large group of teenagers are it will probably be noisy. You will probably run into some obnoxious people. It could be the group staying at your resort, the clerk in the resort store, the family behind you in line at Splash, the elderly man trying to catch up with his wife who decides to push a small child out of his way (that really happened), or the teenagers. If you stay at the resort where they'll be you'll see them. If you don't they won't affect you. The parks are too big for them to be everywhere all the time (maybe you'll see them but the majority I've never found to be rude at all). The poster above states, "it is 100% certain that you WILL encounter them... everyday... many times each and every day... all through your trip." If that happens you need to adjust your schedule because there's no way they should affect you that often unless you are going with the same park schedule that they have.

 

[FatCow]

If you are staying where any large group of teenagers are it will probably be noisy. You will probably run into some obnoxious people. It could be the group staying at your resort, the clerk in the resort store, the family behind you in line at Splash, the elderly man trying to catch up with his wife who decides to push a small child out of his way (that really happened), or the teenagers. If you stay at the resort where they'll be you'll see them. If you don't they won't affect you. The parks are too big for them to be everywhere all the time (maybe you'll see them but the majority I've never found to be rude at all). The poster above states, "it is 100% certain that you WILL encounter them... everyday... many times each and every day... all through your trip." If that happens you need to adjust your schedule because there's no way they should affect you that often unless you are going with the same park schedule that they have.

I think this thread is going to the same direction as the closed thread.

Before this thread is being locked, let me share a bit of my recent experience in the past 2 days.

I want to the Ontario Science Centre and they currently have Robotics Competition, there are TONS of teenagers from around the country. I've never seen OSC this PACKED. Guess what? Although the noise level is higher, the noise is not annoying... and we're indoors! Every single group I've encountered behaved normally (no cutting in line, no swearing, no screaming, no running around... basically not rude, obnoxious, nor loud).

How is that so? I spend the total of 16 hours with these groups and have not yet encountered a single negative experience whereas with PW, I encountered the minimum of 3 negative experiences each day?

Something to be said about GENERAL discipline between the science-oriented kids vs cheerleading-oriented kids.

Again, to the over protective mothers here, I'm talking in general but I am NOT generalzing all CL or Science-Kids

 

[back2disney]

I have plans to stay at the Pop Century 12/08-thurs to 12/17-sat this year, so I will be at the tail end of the Pop Warner group. Other than taking up space at the Resort do they really impact crowd levels that much at the parks. I picked these dates because of the assumed low crowd levels and Pop Century because of the price. The Christmas themes are more of a bonus. Its been more than a decade since I've been to Disney and it was always during Spring Break or the summer. I have flexibility to change dates if necessary. Any recomendations: August 28 - October 4 Value season instead?

 

[DebbieB]

They really don't affect crowd levels at the parks, I wouldn't change your plans. They have their competitions or games at various times during the day. I guess when the groups are done with the competitions for the day or don't have one scheduled, they are free to do what they want. I don't think they have a "park schedule".

 

[dolphindan1]

I posted on this once before and got flamed and eventually got the thread closed....I made a comment I should not have made....BUT having been there during POP the past 2 years and stayed at the ALL stars both years I think makes me some what knowledgeable on this subject....#1 pre teens and teens ar gonna be just that especially when peer pressure kicks in and they are trying to fit in...that being said I have only had 2 issues with Pop Warner one was with a group of football players in line at one of the rides and another is MGM on fridays during there week....I will say about the group of football players we saw in one line that if they were my kids I would have slapped the snot out of each of em and I told my son that also...very disrespectful but we also encountered some of the nicest kids you would ever want to meet....when my party got split up there was a group that was kind enuff to let us catch back up...even a group that saved a seat for my wife and youngest son....So I think the comment that 1 bad apple spoils the bunch is mostly true....as a whole people tend to only remember the negative....Now as for MGM that friday of Pop week the park closes a little early and is opend back for a POP event so just dont plan that day at MGM and no worries....we learned that the hard way and MGM was packed....As far as the resorts go this past december we stayed at movies in toy story and only saw 3 people in our building the whole week...the food court was busy as was the pool...2 years ago we were at the football building at sports and it was great too....I think if you request a room off the beaten path and top floor you will be fine....the main walkways are gonna be loud and busy....Finally I would not rescheule a trip to disney just to avoid this group....If you plan you will hardly notice them...I also think the screaming girls on some of the rides add to the rides.....So go and have a good time we are planning our 3rd trip for dec 3-11 this year and not thinking twice about it.....no matter where you go you are gonna encounter rude people....I have been to carowinds and 3 six flags, busch gardens and always ran into someone rude or cutting in line or or something.....I dont let little stuff like that ruin my day....So I say go and enjoy but if you reschedule thats fine too cause it will be less people that I have to deal with...lol

 

[Shutterbug]

I will try to avoid that week at all cost. Last year I had no choice. Thank goodness I was able to rent a whole house off site for the same price of moderate resort.

Yes the majority of the groups were well behaved but there enough misbehaved groups that made me not want to be there. Like the football players that thought it was funny to keep bumping into me while I was trying to take a photo.

 

[hercamore]

Never encountreed a problem with them this past year. I went from Dec 5-12.

Saw a few girls hurryinb by me in the parks, but that's about it.

I did sit next to one well mannered football player and his mom one day on the train to Rafkii in AK. They were having a good time.

herc.

 

[Luv2Roam]

I would look at it this way -- How many here would book a room at a resort knowing a PW group was housed nearby?
My guess is once anyone experiences being booked near them, they make sure they are not in the future.
I never have read anyone wanting to be booked next to any large group they were not involved with.