Grad nights and MK resorts

[mouseketeer mom]

OK. An April trip is in the works for us. We just noticed there are 3 grad nights during the week we'd be going. Sounds awful to me, but is it?? We'd be staying a split between the WL and the Poly (lagoon view Hawaii bldg, so right across from the MK) How noisy would it be at the resorts during grad nights??? I saw the grad nights end at 4 am or something..Yikes. Would we be hearing boats ALL night? Its one thing to wake up to the horns, but its another thing to miss 3 nights of sleep due to all nighters at the MK. Anyone been in this position before??? And will it be a super crowded week then? Do we have to exit the parks at a certain time? Help!

[Belle94]

We have been twice during grad nights. One stay at the Wl and the other at the Poly. They bus the kids in and they stay in the park. The only effect it has is that MK closes early on those nights and there are no fireworks or night time parade.

[WDWfanatic742]

As far as I know, grad nights only last until late in the night and then they bus us out. I'll be there the same week for Grad Night and we leave that night around 3am or 4am. I wish we could spend the night though...

[Brian]

You won't hear any noise from the Grad Nites events. The only exception would be possibly if you're outdoors. You won't hear a thing in your room. We stayed at the Contemporary during Grad Nites two years ago and never heard a thing.

The only thing we found annoying about Grad Nites was that the Magic Kingdom closed early on certain nights. It also seemed that when the Magic Kingdom closed early, everyone headed to Epcot. I've never seen Epcot so full in my life.

So, aside from the crowd issue on nights when MK closes early, you'll probably not even know that there are Grad Nites events going on during your trip.

[Kerry823]

I think you should be ok at your resort. If you were at the values, you would have MAJOR problems. We were unfortunate to have ended our stay during one of the weekends of Grad Nite. We left a day early because it was so bad. The kids were basically unsupervised and the behaviors were completely unacceptable. They were damaging property, running from the courtyards outside the rooms and "body surfing" on the mattresses. I complained several times and virtually nothing happened. Disney had no control. After one night with no sleep and a 2,000 mile drive ahead of us, we decided to leave a day early. Disney did credit us for the night we had reserved but left early, but it definitely left a bad impression on us. I will NEVER again stay there during the Grad Nite period. If, when reserving rooms for these groups, they would put them all in one resort, like All Star Sports or All Star Movies, etc., and keep the others free for families it would allow them to increase security at one or two facilities and keep some semblance of control. There are many "special events" like Grad Nite and Pop Warner that occur that seem to have gotten completely out of control. I know the mighty dollar speaks volumes, but when families have bad experiences, they are less likely to return. I am glad to see that there were actually consequences for the Pop Warner group in recent weeks. There is no excuse for bad behavior and large groups that are not chaperoned appropriately.

[Sweezy]

my class went up there a few yrs ago for Grad Nite. we left our high school in naples around 1pm, arrived probably 5ish and headed to the first event (pleasure island). we stayed there for about 2 hrs dancing in the clubs and whatnot, which was a great time. at that point we all got back together and headed back to the bus (our group was probably 55ish, out of 60 total in our senior class). we then took the back route into magic kingdom, where we entered around the back of splash mountain (which was very interesting...definitely saw some parts of the park that you normally are not exposed to). there were plenty of 'trouble causers' around us lol, im sure...people really arent too mature around that age and alot of those larger groups had plenty of sketchy kids. the most annoying part of the night was on splash mountain when kids consistently kept getting out of the boats/ walking around/trying to jump from boat to boat to impress their little friends, causing the ride to continuously stop. i swear it was as if you had let a bunch of 5th graders loose in the park. other than that though our night went pretty smoothly...but i would NOT like to deal with those kids if i was with my family instead of a group of friends that i felt could handle them. anyways later on in the night (probably 3ish), we headed out and took our bus back to naples...we didnt stay in a hotel, and i feel that if our little private school didnt partake in that then not too many other schools would, especially in one of the deluxes like WL. Long story short...i had an awesome time at grad nite and feel like its a great program, but i would always steer clear of it now that im not part of the high school crowd (if there is even any opportunity to be in the park with them, which i dont think there is). you should have absolutely no worries at hotels like wl/poly, and i even doubt that very many of those kids (if any at all) are staying on Disney property that night.

[dmosher]

Having been around for a few of these, you shouldn't have any worries at your resort. If you are unlucky enough to be around during the melee, then Yes it is Horrible (no offense meant to those of you who were there for the event) but it was just .. well horrible. Enough said. Otherwise, the odds that you will even know it is happening are slim to none. Just avoid that are of WDW on those days and all is well. If not, you will miss out on the usual night time stuff and that would just be sad anyway, with or without the insanity of High schoolers running wild in the park.

:pipes:
D