Tour Groups From Brazil

[Charlie & Lucy]

My wife and I have just returned from WDW celebrating our 36th. Anniversary, we have been to WDW 10 times now and I will post our trip report soon....but I just have to ask this question, could someone explain why there are always so many tour groups down there, is it that the parents from Brazil can't take time off from work to vacation with their kids or don't choose to come to WDW with their kids, or what is it? Everytime we are there my wife and I wonder what the reason is you see so many tour groups with all the kids from there.

Thanks

 

[OhMari]

I really have no idea. Maybe they take the trip to WDW, like our kids take school trips to the local apple orchard.

Our h.s. band goes to WDW every 4 years. We have over 125 in our local band. We have chaperone's that go along, but when we get to the park, they are told to stay in the park, not hopping, and they are told what time they have to meet to go back to the hotel.

So maybe schools, from different nationalities, just run their rules different. Maybe they insist that their kids have to stay together in large groups with a tour guide.

Did you ever go to Europe with a Tour Guide? When we were in Italy, I don't think anyone every strayed from the Tour Guide, so maybe we are the minority in the U.S. we are used to being on our own, and doing our own thing. Other countries are used to tour guides.

 

[freesone]

My wife and I have just returned from WDW celebrating our 36th. Anniversary, we have been to WDW 10 times now and I will post our trip report soon....but I just have to ask this question, could someone explain why there are always so many tour groups down there, is it that the parents from Brazil can't take time off from work to vacation with their kids or don't choose to come to WDW with their kids, or what is it? Everytime we are there my wife and I wonder what the reason is you see so many tour groups with all the kids from there.

Thanks

Do you go the same time each year?? I have heard stories about the Brazil tour groups(from bad to good), mainly staying at CSR.

 

[kte28]

I believe it's a cultural celebration. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understood, once a child is considered an "adult" they are supposed to see the "world." Over the years this has morphed into Disney "World." The parents send their children as a welcome to adulthood type moment, and they book them in tours so that their children are with friends, they're with people who speak the same language, they will have a chaperone to get them from point A to B and home safely.

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

We just got back as well and had the same problem. We talked to a CM at Soarin' about it and he explained it very well.
In South America, their winter is during the Northern Hemisphere's summer. And their school schedule is very different than American and most European school years. During the NH's winter (their summer) they have a 3 month break and during the NH's summer (their winter) they have a 2 month break. That's when all of the big tour groups come out to WDW. In Spanish culture, celebrating a girls 15th birthday (I know it has another name but I don't want to be embarrassed by spelling it wrong) is a HUGE thing. I mean HUGE. So the parents will pay for their daughter and all of her friends to travel to Florida for a vacation at WDW. I believe (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong and you know otherwise) that there are also several South American touring agencies that take all these kids and several different groups of them down at the same time. And some actually go for school trips (when you graduate into a different school grade, its a big thing as well) and they'll pay for a touring agency to take the students up.
We fondly nicknamed the 10 (count 'em 10) Brazilian tour groups that seemed to follow us around for all 6 days of our vacation the "Tour Groups from Hell" (I'm planning a TR about it with a similar title ).
So...yeah...correct me if I'm wrong on anything. We were really curious about it and didn't really have any idea what was going on until nearly our last day.

 

[addicted2dizney]

I come from an area of NJ where there are a lot of affluent people. Many of them pay big big bucks for their kids to travel all over the country for 6-8 weeks on a teen tour. I compared the South American trips to that. I don't know if they only go to Disney and then return or if they continue on to other spots but I'm sure it's just like the US Teen Tours.

 

[leahjade]

do they tour in July? We usually go to WDW in May or August and last week was our first experience with the groups. They were well-behaved, but it really made an impact on the crowd levels and the ride lines. And some of the people we talked to said the groups were there for weeks at a time.

 

[addicted2dizney]

do they tour in July? We usually go to WDW in May or August and last week was our first experience with the groups. They were well-behaved, but it really made an impact on the crowd levels and the ride lines. And some of the people we talked to said the groups were there for weeks at a time.

There were tons of groups there two weeks ago! The crowds were heavy anyway so I don't think it had a huge impact. They were well behaved and the groups were well organized. They had FP runners. The only problem I noticed was when we had a group return for a FP time and they just got ahead of us in line! There were like 75 of them so we jumped out of line and went back a short time later.