mimiceleste
New Member
Planning a trip for a high school band in March of 2019. Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I'm trying to be sure each kid experiences a little bit of Disney magic.
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Help!!! Planning a trip for a high school band.
- Thread starter mimiceleste
- Start date
Nemo14
Well-Known Member
I know we have a few band directors on this forum who might be able to help ...
@brifraz
@SteveBrickNJ
come to mind, but I think there are a few others whose screen names escape me at the moment.
@brifraz
@SteveBrickNJ
come to mind, but I think there are a few others whose screen names escape me at the moment.
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SteveBrickNJ
Well-Known Member
The other band director @Nemo14 mentioned might be able to help. Yet he is rarely on here during the busy autumn season. I teach elementary school band and have no suggestions other than to follow the advice given to you earlier in the thread....contact Disney and speak to their experts re group bookings.
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SteveBrickNJ
Well-Known Member
Sorry? LOL...don't be silly. I always like to log onto wdwmagic and see I have an alert. I so enjoy being a member of this Chit Chat Community. The Original Poster ....if a High School band director...should know a bunch of high school band directors....at least one of which took their band to Disney. Having said that, I am the one who is sorry that I could not help more.
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Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. We are booked and ready to go, just trying to get a jump on scheduling fast passes and assigning each small group a leader. We have a total of 65 band members. Fortunately I have lots of Disney mom's willing to help. Wish me luck, this is going to be one wild ride.
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Believe it or not, here I am on wdwmagic for the first time in a month or so, and it's the last day of my marching band season. Big regional competition, so, of course, I'm up at 4am and after a couple of hours of making sure everything is in place and ready here I am!
Preface out of the way...I've been doing this at the high school level for almost 30 years and still have never taken a group to Disney. Although, I am planning to do so in 2020. Even with over 30 trips to WDW under my belt, I will do so with a tour company for sure!
Recommendations to @mimiceleste - I let kids pick their own groups and generally have about 3-4 student groups (minimum of 4 kids) per parent chaperone (when we go to Hershey or King Dominion, etc). Those student groups usually have 2 check in times during the day (generally close to meal times) when we are in parks. Usually we just have parent security in the hotel, but for Disney I'm getting hired private security. For planning, I'm going to be working with kids - we are designing a little "An Owl's Guide to WDW" packet (that's our mascot) that will cover rides and shows and give levels of entertainment and excitement as well as some basics about food options. In terms of Fastpass booking, my plan is to have one thing that the whole group does together each day (granted, we are going with likely 200 total travellers, so that could get interesting) and then let student groups pick their other FP+. For our trip, we already have one activity planned for the full group for three of our days (dinner party in Epcot, parade viewing area in MK, Fantasmic viewing area), but I'm hoping that we also do one other full group activity each day.
I actually have a question for you about how you do book those FP+ (since I'm still a year out from our trip, we haven't gotten into that minutiae) - how does that happen? One month out and somebody has to go online and book all of them? Or is there some 'group FP+' thing that I'm just not familiar with? Thanks for any hint!
I hope you have a wonderful trip and would love to hear more about how things go when you get back!!
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MickeyCB
Well-Known Member
Our sons band historically traveled to Disney every 2 years, with 2 days at Disney and 2 days at Universal, or some similar schedule. This year (his senior year), was the exception because the band director said Disney requires them to buy 3 days of tickets whether they are used or not. For those reasons the director chose to go to Universal 2 days at the parks and one day Volcano Bay. I am completely unable to comment on those types of details, but I do know he uses a travel agent.
I will tell you I was bummed they didn't march at Disney this year because I literally had tears coming out of my eyes 2 years ago, when they rounded the bend at Cinderella castle heading down main street all wearing Mickey ears with their uniforms!
This band is over 200 kids and they are divided into groups of anywhere from 8-14 or so. We, my husband and I, chaperoned one group 2 years ago and had 13 kids. The choice of park days were set by the director, but what you did during the day completely up to your group. He has very strict rules for the kids, none of them are permitted to be anywhere without the chaperone and group, etc.
I had my group of kids over before the trip and together we made decisions on any dining they wanted and I booked as many fast passes for our group as possible. I had a blast with these kids, they were super polite and troupers with 12-15 hour long days.
One piece of advice I would give you or any group leader is do not put them on your friends and family on MDE. It was very difficult to get them removed after the trip and the Disney IT person I worked with told me I could have created another account for this purpose.
I will tell you I was bummed they didn't march at Disney this year because I literally had tears coming out of my eyes 2 years ago, when they rounded the bend at Cinderella castle heading down main street all wearing Mickey ears with their uniforms!
This band is over 200 kids and they are divided into groups of anywhere from 8-14 or so. We, my husband and I, chaperoned one group 2 years ago and had 13 kids. The choice of park days were set by the director, but what you did during the day completely up to your group. He has very strict rules for the kids, none of them are permitted to be anywhere without the chaperone and group, etc.
I had my group of kids over before the trip and together we made decisions on any dining they wanted and I booked as many fast passes for our group as possible. I had a blast with these kids, they were super polite and troupers with 12-15 hour long days.
One piece of advice I would give you or any group leader is do not put them on your friends and family on MDE. It was very difficult to get them removed after the trip and the Disney IT person I worked with told me I could have created another account for this purpose.
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fresh_as_daisies22
New Member
My son's high school band has been invited to perform at Disney World in March 2019. I don't have a lot of details, other than the dates (staying 3 days) and that they will be staying at one of the All Stars (don't know which yet). I wondered if anyone who had done this before could answer a question for me. If our family decides to make the trip too and extend the visit to 5 or 6 days, will I be able to upgrade his ticket to add 2 or 3 more days, or will I have to buy an additional 2/3 day pass for him? I don't know if I'll have access to his ticket before the trip.
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MickeyCB
Well-Known Member
I would definitely call Disney ticketing and talk to them. I had to add a day on for a family member and they were able to do it at the reduced (longer stay) rate. But, this was with normal tickets not a group ticket.
Our kids on the band trip didn't know their ticket numbers till a few days before the trip. But, you may be able to talk to whoever in your band is handling them.
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I am a band director that has traveled to Disney for around 20 years and I only used a travel agent the first year. Disney has people that are there to help you do this - basically like a travel agent. I found that it was never cheaper to go through an agent, and it was easy to work with Disney people. It does take phone calls to a few different people (hotels, disney performing arts people, etc.), but it was easy. Make your first call to the performing arts people to set up the performance and they'll set you up with everyone else. Incredibly easy.
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