Using a Legitimate group for YES program

[NJOYURLIFE]

My son and about 8 friends have been planning a Disney trip to celebrate high school gradutation for a while now. Well, I will be doing the planning. The boys decided that instead of the unofficial "senior trip" to the beach where everyone gets drunk, they would rather do Disney. For most it will be the first time.

I am trying to gather prices and as we all know ticket prices are one of the most expensive parts of a Disney trip.

I understand that you need to be part of a legitimate group to participate in the YES program. In addition to going to school together, these boys are on the same summer baseball league (not school related) and almost all of them are junior members of a local fire volunteer fire dept. So I am debating on if we should open the trip up to all of the members of any one of these groups and if so, which group would Disney most likely approve. Also, what would the organization's liability be if they approved something like this.

To me, utililizing the fact that they are all seniors from the same school would require the school board, plus require us to open it up to a lot more students. If we include the baseball league or fire dept, then we would only need to incude a few more additional kids, who may or may not chose to go. If they chose to go, we'd hit 10 easily. If they don't go, there are 8 boys and 2 sets (possibly 3) of families planning to go on the trip, so with siblings we'd be over 10. Thankfully, they are all close in age.

Before I open it up to either group, I am wondering if it would be worth it. What type of liability would I be exposing the group to? What would I have to ask the group to provide? There will be 5 boys who will be traveling without their parents, but they may or may not have turned 18 yet (don't know all their birthdays) by the time of the trip.

If I can make the trip affordable enough, maybe a few more kids can join us. If their families don't chose to go, at the minimum we would have 4 adults dealing with about 12 16-18 year old boys.

Any thoughts or suggestions? We are not trying to break or circumvent any rules. This may not be the best route to go. But if there is a program that these boys can utilize legitimitely, I owe it to them to research it.

When I spoke with Disney, they were very vague.

 

[NJOYURLIFE]

Also, here is a small off topic rant by me. I think that every parent likes most of their children's friends, but there always seems to be one that just gets to you. When I got off the phone with Disney and was just sitting here tossing numbers around with my son and this one friend, I said the boys would probably need about $600 each to cover the tickets (without the YES program), some meals (the other mom and I will do a some meals plus make sure the villas are well stocked) and either plane fare or driving down costs. We are using our DVC points to provide the rooms. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think that is an unreasonable price for a Disney trip. When I mentioned that figure, this boy starts trying to convince my son that they should just do the beach trip. We can't provide rooms at the beach, so how much would a summer beach trip run for them? I would think it would end up being comparable. This one also doesn't want parents along and I think I can guess the reason why. He is also the only one who is not a graduate.

The rest of the boys have been talking about this trip for a while, especially since in the past couple of years, there have been quite a few under age drinking arrests during "senior week" at the beach. For the most part, they all have good heads on their shoulders.

Sorry for the small off topic rant. Thanks for listening.

 

[hsmamato2]

I don't know about'legitimate' groups, you can just get a certain number of kids together and that's a group. I don't understand the legitimate part.....
If I were hosting this,I'd expect money paid upfront in FULL by a certain date,plus meet with the other families,and have everyone sign an agreement as to behavior,expectations,etc.
As for not liking one of the kids, it's a strong possibilty he can't afford it, no matter how good a deal it is for Disney...KWIM? That would be my first guess,and most people wont' share with others their true financial situation...(?)
If it's not that,then just ignore his one opinion and go ahead with your plans,I guess. And yes, I do know what it's like to get 'annoyed' by one my kids friends....

 

[hsmamato2]

I would assume the liabilty,if there were any, would be on you,the organizer. I would also hesitate to make it too big,b/c there are going to be many details you'll have to handle....liability among them

 

[smitch425]

I understand that you need to be part of a legitimate group to participate in the YES program.

You do not have to be in a group to participate in YES classes. Any individual may participate.

 

[StitchandPooh'sMom]

I haven't ever done the YES program, so I don't know how the group enrollment works. But Disney offers individual enrollment several times per year, including in June (if that is when you were planning). You don't have to be part of a group - you can just sign up.

The classes I see online stop at age 17, though, so I don't know if the kids who have turned 18 would be able to participate.

http://www.disneyyouth.com/individual-enrollment/catalog/?location[]=WDW&filter=startDate

Here's more info on the group enrollment - some of those do say up to age 18.

http://www.disneyyouth.com/youth-education-series/catalog/

 

[pigget74]

I know when I was looking at the Yes program that 18 year olds did not count. At least they had to be marked as an adult.

I called groups and inquired about the Senior Class Celebration. You can purchas tickets through them...I think you can get 1 adult ticker per Senior ticket...the only catch is that NON-senior kids can not get that ticket. That is where we are doing the Yes program forour family to get out family tickets cheaper adnd let the little ones have something special as well.

If you go teh Yes individual page and look under celebrations.

We are also staying DVC. I thnk we will have about 8-10 seniors going, then my family, and one other family.

We are thinking about a dessert party as well, but trying to figure our the best way.

 

[NJOYURLIFE]

Thanks for the responses. I thought about the individual YES program, but I sort of wanted to have control of the date and topic to make sure that they did a topic that was interesting to them. Disney no longer allows any group of people to sign up for the group YES program. You have to have a long time legitimate group. The long time part I read somewhere on the DIS boards.


I have to call back about the age, because I only asked about if they would be considered seniors since they just graduated or college students and she said they would all qualify as 12th graders. I didn't even think to ask about their ages.


Never heard about Senior Celebrations. I will have to look into. When is your Senior Celebration? Our's is in 2013.

I am almost positive that the PIA friend will not be able to afford it. I once loaned him $100 for baseball spikes and he promised to repay and never did. I had bought my son two different sizes and had planned on returning the one pair, but he asked me if he could keep them and I said yes as long as we made a payment plan and he stuck with it. I said I didn't even care if it was $5 a week. My attitude is that you don't loan money and expect to get it back, but it was the principle of the thing and both my husband and my son hounded the heck out of me, especially my son because he saw what the kid was spending money on. So, yesterday, as we were leaving the house, he says to me that I would probably have to front the money for the Disney trip because his summer job starts in June and he would need all summer to earn it. I nicely, said, it is THIS summer's job money that you need to save and even if what happened before didn't happen, I am sorry but there is no way we would be able to front anyone the money. It was then in the car that he all of a sudden brought up the beach trip. I just responded that it was up to my son to make the final call on where he wanted to spend his senior trip.


Thanks for the advice and suggestions so far.

 

[NJOYURLIFE]

We are also staying DVC. I thnk we will have about 8-10 seniors going, then my family, and one other family.

We are thinking about a dessert party as well, but trying to figure our the best way.

That is almost our exact same situation, except we may have one more additional family.

 

[Leajess99]

I am almost positive that the PIA friend will not be able to afford it. I once loaned him $100 for baseball spikes and he promised to repay and never did. I had bought my son two different sizes and had planned on returning the one pair, but he asked me if he could keep them and I said yes as long as we made a payment plan and he stuck with it. I said I didn't even care if it was $5 a week. My attitude is that you don't loan money and expect to get it back, but it was the principle of the thing and both my husband and my son hounded the heck out of me, especially my son because he saw what the kid was spending money on. So, yesterday, as we were leaving the house, he says to me that I would probably have to front the money for the Disney trip because his summer job starts in June and he would need all summer to earn it. I nicely, said, it is THIS summer's job money that you need to save and even if what happened before didn't happen, I am sorry but there is no way we would be able to front anyone the money. It was then in the car that he all of a sudden brought up the beach trip. I just responded that it was up to my son to make the final call on where he wanted to spend his senior trip.


Thanks for the advice and suggestions so far.

You do realize that legally you can't enter into any type of loan agreement with a minor right?? He may very well have had the intention to pay you back but as a kid they don't always think.

It sounds like this child is not trying to be a "PIA" but cannot truly afford such a trip. There will more than likely be added costs once getting to Disney and in all honesty a beach trip is probably less expensive. You can go to the beach and stay in a cheap hotel for half of what you are talking about. He may very well be embarrassed and it appears (from how you are talking) that his parents do not have the ability to help him.

As for him needing all summer to save the money, he may also have to pay living expenses. One just really never knows what happens inside other kids' homes.

I would honestly make sure all of the kids could truly afford to go on a trip to Disney.

 

[tinkerbell423]

I have been organizing our groups YES programs for the last 5 years. The process is easy and you fill out a simple form. That being said they are getting more selective with their aproval of groups. This year I send my form in and the initial email response said it was not approved then i received an email shortly after sayign they were sorry they located our past YES program information and Our trip is program is approved. If it were me I would use the fireman organization. feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

 

[torinsmom]

I would think the beach would be more expensive, unless it is just a long weekend. Beach hotels are expensive and I doubt they would let kids under 21 book a room. And adult would need to be present. Add in food and all the activities the kids would want to do(go-carts, water slide, amusement rides, etc) and it is an expensive venture. We are going to the beach this summer(just DS and I)and it will cost nearly as much as our trip for 4 to WDW with YES tickets.

With the YES tickets, you could probably get by with $400/student plus souvenir money.

 

[jcemom]

I'm sorry I don't know the answers to your questions, but I did want to clear up a couple of misconceptions.

I don't know about'legitimate' groups, you can just get a certain number of kids together and that's a group. I don't understand the legitimate part.....

This is no longer the case. You used to be able to form your own group, but Disney no longer allows that. Now you must be a "legitimate" group, i.e. boy scouts, girl scouts, a school group, etc.

You do not have to be in a group to participate in YES classes. Any individual may participate.

The only YES classes you can participate in without being part of an "official" group are the Individual Enrollment classes that are offered January-February and June-October.

As for the age restrictions, for Individual Enrollment the students need to be age 17 or younger. At age 18 they are listed on the form as an adult and there are no classes offered for that age group. It might be different if you book as a group, I don't know. You'd have to call and ask about that.