Pop Warner??

[jm1008]

Okay so DH and I will be in WDW Dec 1-8th. It will be DH's 1st trip. In looking through various posts I am learning that POP Warner will be there the 4th -10th. I am growing concerned based on some of the posts of the crowds in particular because we are staying at a value resort.


The success of this trip will predict how often we will get to return and I LOVE WDW and will be crushed if DH has a bad time. So what exactly is Pop Warner and what can I expect? Should we change hotels?

 

[wld]

We were there last year but not at a value hotel. What I can tell you is it makes very little difference in the parks. We only encountered 1 group of rather rude young men that were yelling and pushing through a crowd. I have heard that they are concentrated in all star sports and at least one of the mods, POR (this from personal experience we just missed them one year at POR, but they were the cheerleader portion of the group. Our cm checking us in said we were lucky to have missed them, as they were a real terror. Again that is just his word.....)
I read alot of posts on this before we went last year and you will probably recieve a wide variety of answers about the hotels themselves.

 

[Eponine1]

Hello,

I agree, in the parks, you will not notice a difference. You probably will notice it if you are staying at a value resort. I was there last December but at deluxe. In the parks, I saw them, heard them but they were fine. The crowds are still low at that time.

 

[jm1008]

so what type of group is it exactly

 

[Markstudy]

so what type of group is it exactly

Little tiny football players and cheerleaders.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from my friend that works at Disney-

"Too many stage-moms for the cheerleaders.... lots of "my kid is special" contest all day The boys are a little better than the girls BUT.....all the dad's are back at the pool drinking beer and not watching the kids get into things that only a large group of little boys can get into when the parents aren't interested in being parents."

 

[irish dancer]

According to their website last year it was 64 football teams and 400 cheerleading squads competing at WWoS. You can go to www.popwarner.com or www.popwarnerchampionships.com for a look at what it is. I've read many horror stories of unsupervised kids and chaperones too busy having fun to do their job.

It is my understanding that they are primarily at the values with overflow into POR so you may want to avoid potential problems and move to a Mod.

 

[cvjw]

Sharing a bus with them can be especially awful. We stayed one year at POFQ while the cheerleaders were there. Did not really notice them too much at the resort or at the parks, but they made the bus rides horrifying. LOTS of cheering and stunts.

 

[jm1008]

thanks for all the help. so we currently are staying at POP century with our own car. Do you think we should switch resorts any recommendations.

My DH CANNOT STAND OUT OF CONTROL KIDS

 

[joll43]

It sounds like you're pretty nervous about your DH having a good time. If it really will affect your future trips, you might want to switch hotels. If you want to make him a lifer, go deluxe (especially if he can't handle out-of-control kids) - but definitely use Disney transportation -- were you planning on using your car to get around the parks?

 

[DrTomorrow]

We've been there twice during PW, we stay at SSR. The only issue we had there was a steady stream of folks taking buses from parks to SSR to walk to DTD.

We have noticed - in parks, in buses, in lines for shows - that the cheerleaders tend to get overly enthusiastic; screaming their cheers over and over and over and over . Of course, I'm now at the age where a group of screaming cheerleaders is an annoyance, not a challenge....

 

[BriansPyxie042]

We stayed at POR last year smack in the middle of Pop Warner. They were all very well behaved from what we saw. They had special busses set aside to transport them to and from WWoS. A few mornings small groups of them did go to the various parks, which made for added crowds on the busses, but nothing too bad. We encountered mainly cheerleaders around our resort, who actually seemed to be tired most of the time. We didn't try to go to breakfast in the food court, because we heard it was packed. We did see quite a few of them in the evenings at the food court, but again for the most part very well behaved, and usually with an adult. The main pool filled up with pre-teens in the evenings if it was warm enough to swim, but even there they seemed to be very well supervised. I'm not sure how it effected the AS resorts, because I'm sure there were quite a number more there considering that POR was the "overflow" resort. If you're really worried about it, you might want to consider moving to a moderate resort.

 

[tink1978]

Two or three years ago, I ran into this at Disney. Most of them were staying at AS Sports and AS Music. They were loud, obnoxious, and rude. We stayed at ASMO. When we were picking up at AS Sports, there was a group of people waiting in lines (parents and their children/infants), with the teens behind them. As soon as the bus doors opened, the teens pushed their way into the buses in front of all the families who had been waiting patiently in line. I was mortified. If I had acted like that as a teen, I would have been heavily repremanded. I was 24 at the time, it had not been that long ago since I was a teen. As far as I could see, there were no chaperones of any kind with them. However, I never saw them in the parks. We only had to deal with them on the buses.

 

[Tickla]

We have also experienced DW with the PW teams. Our opinion is they are rude AND annoying. Years ago we stayed at All-Star Sports (before we knew PW exsisted) and the busses were taken over by them. We had an infant at the time and had to comfort him every time we rode the buses because of how obnoxious they were--they really scared him!
This past Dec(2005) we camped at FW, and did not see any of them there, but we saw them all over the parks. After waiting in line for an hour for Kilimanjaro Safari @ AK, the whole ride was ruined because of all the cheerleaders screaming and constantly bugging the driver, asking him all kinds of personal questions (we felt bad for him as he tried to kindly change the subject). Also at MGM they were so loud and pushy on Tower of Terror. Now we are going to always plan around PW week.

 

[tink1978]

I agree....it's better to avoid than have to deal with them. I may get into trouble for this, but they need to be chaperoned better and their parents need to tell them how to behave before letting them go out alone!

 

[MisunderstoodLilo]

Don't switch from Pop. You'll be fine. They generally end up at Sports and work the All Stars from there.

I shared a resort with them on my honeymoon in 2003 and honestly, never knew they were there!

Don't worry! Have fun!

 

[scheddj]

We're staying at Pop Century 12/5 - 12/13. I tried to talk to my husband about possibly switching dates. He asked me what Pop Warner was - Big Mistake! My boy-crazy 11 yr old DD said "football players?!" and my gymnast 8 yr old DD said "cheerleaders?!" . Now there's no chance of changing dates.

 

[Mouse511]

We originally planned our trip for December 3 -9 and after reading many posts on these boards, we rescheduled our trip for December 8-14th. We are staying at the Wilderness Lodge and probably wouldn't have seen much of Pop Warner, but I didn't want to chance it. Mousefest will also be at WDW the first of December. I just recently heard that they will be filming the Christmas Day parade also that first week. From what I hear they book their rooms at the All Star resorts and POR.

 

[jln569]

We stayed at ASMu this past Dec. with Pop Warner. Lots of them at the resort, but never heard them at night. Buses were ok.No one rude. I did ask for a room away from the group and I could not get connecting rooms because they were all reserved for Pop Warner. Parks seemed more crowed then three years ( Nov. Trip) with several large groups of kids. We still did not have long waits.They
all were polite. The only time I was ever really annoyed was listening to cheers at the bus stop once after a long day.

 

[DrTomorrow]

We're staying at Pop Century 12/5 - 12/13. I tried to talk to my husband about possibly switching dates. He asked me what Pop Warner was - Big Mistake! My boy-crazy 11 yr old DD said "football players?!" and my gymnast 8 yr old DD said "cheerleaders?!" . Now there's no chance of changing dates.

Be thankful; in 4 or 5 years, it'll be DD woohoo-ing "football players!" and DS cheering "cheerleaders!"