It’s a Christmas Crowds Miracle! Massive Event Moves Away from Disney World in 2025!
Walt Disney World crowds are most impacted by school breaks. This is hardly stop-the-presses news. It’s patently obvious given the core demographic for Magic Kingdom, which is families with kids. There’s a reason why the weeks of Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and other breaks are among the busiest weeks of the year.
Less obvious is how “sneaky” weeks with regional school breaks cause spikes in attendance. The two we’ve discussed at length on this blog are Ski Week and Jersey Week. To the uninitiated, it probably seems counterintuitive that people would visit one of the hottest places in the United States for a break dedicated to snow sports. Jersey Week makes a lot more sense given the ubiquity of Spirit Jerseys among Disney fans…but that’s not really what it’s about.
The point is that breaks for only a subset of school districts can have an outsized impact on crowd levels at Walt Disney World. Jersey Week is only a break for a single state, but approximately 71% of families from the Garden State flock to Florida during that week every November. Narrowing things even further, there are the “breaks” that aren’t really breaks but draw huge numbers of school-aged kids: youth sporting events.
Historically, there have been massive youth sporting events hosted at the ESPN Wide World of Sports in the late winter and spring, and again in November and December. Basically, the months of the year when Central Florida is comfortable for outdoor athletic competitions (or “close enough” to comfortable). The schedules follow a similar cadence to runDisney races, which similarly skip the summer months.
The words “Pop Warner” no doubt send chills down the spine of longtime Walt Disney World vacation planners. For the longest time, this was a big red flag during the Christmas season, especially at the Value Resorts. Pop Warner was so infamous among Walt Disney World fans and we got so many complaints from first-timers that we included warnings about it in countless posts, and actively recommended avoiding the All Stars during Pop Warner. Thankfully, things have changed in more recent years, and we’ll circle back to that in a bit. For now, the big announcement.
In a move that underscores its commitment to delivering premier youth sports experiences, Pop Warner Little Scholars, the nation’s leading youth football and cheerleading organization, has announced that its highly anticipated 2025 and 2026 Pop Warner Super Bowl and Cheer & Dance Nationals will take place in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The move marks the first time since 1995 that Pop Warner National Championships will not be held in Orlando, Florida.
The Pop Warner Super Bowl is scheduled for December 6-13, 2025 at the Mecklenburg County Sportsplex. The Pop Warner Cheer & Dance Nationals will be held December 8-11, 2025 at the 600,000 square-foot Charlotte Convention Center.
Each year, the Pop Warner Super Bowl and Cheer & Dance Nationals bring together 10,000 student-athletes and their families from across the country.
There are more details to the announcement, but I’m guessing most Walt Disney World fans don’t care about the state of the art features at these venues, or hearing quotes from the president of Pop Warner or head of Visit Charlotte. The bottom line is that this is great news for Walt Disney World guests…and, I guess, bad news for those who had plans for peaceful visits to Charlotte that week in December.
It’s worth noting that this is not a sudden shift away from Walt Disney World. You may have missed it since that whole time was a blur, but Pop Warner actually “temporarily” moved away from the ESPN Wide World of Sports during the phased reopening. Here was the announcement at that time:
“We continue to have a great relationship with Disney and are sure families will visit the parks that week. While Disney has played host to our Pop Warner Super Bowl and National Cheer & Dance Championships for years, our partnership regarding championship week came to a pause when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020.
We were putting final touches on a new agreement when Disney was suddenly tasked with hosting and creating a bubble for professional leagues like the MLS and NBA at their ESPN Wide World of Sports complex. With so much uncertainty it was difficult for Disney to commit to the future and because our first priority is our Pop Warner members, we decided to start searching for a new location to ensure our teams had a first-class Championship home.”
As a result, the Florida Citrus Sports reached an agreement to host the Pop Warner Super Bowl and Cheer & Dance National Championships. The events would be played at Camping World Stadium with Universal Orlando Resort hotels hosting families. There was nevertheless the expectation that Pop Warner would return to Walt Disney World eventually, once things got back to normal. That never happened.
In our younger and more vulnerable years, we had the misfortune of staying at All Star Sports during Pop Warner. Suffice to say, there’s a reason it once topped our list of 10 Things We’ll Never Do Again at Walt Disney World. Since the shift to Universal, I’ve stayed at the All Stars twice that week, and it was downright blissful by comparison. So for several years already, Pop Warner relocating to Universal had a huge, positive impact on the relevant resorts at Walt Disney World.
However, Pop Warner did continue to offer ticket packages to Walt Disney World even when the events were hosted at Universal Orlando Resort. This is another reason why Walt Disney World fans might’ve not noticed that Pop Warner already moved–because attendees were still visiting the parks.
Presumably not in as high of numbers, but they were coming. It was still possible to have the unlucky experience of being stuck in the same Haunted Mansion Stretching Room with a group of dozens of “high-octane” kids. And that’s the kind of thing that sticks with you, and makes an outsized impression. (Ask me how I know!)
The writing has been on the wall for a complete move away from Walt Disney World and Orlando since last summer. Here’s an illuminating (I thought) blog post by Pop Warner on its business model and some of the challenges it has faced. In pertinent part:
“Our event was one of Disney’s largest outside event for years, as Walt Disney World in general saw unprecedented growth. Many of us have witnessed firsthand the explosive growth of Disney and the increase in visitors since the 1990s. However, that growth came with a cost.
Early on in our partnership with Disney, we provided a lot of room nights and theme park attendance during a time of year – between Thanksgiving and Christmas – that was said to be the slowest stretch for the resort. In 2019, the final year of our most recent agreement, Disney was reportedly at 97% capacity on a regular basis during that time period, with the capability to book and secure reservations well in advance. Unfortunately, Pop Warner was no longer the magic wand it was decades prior.”
An entire section of that Pop Warner post also discussed trimming costs, and the organization removing the requirement of purchasing theme park tickets. They also mentioned that this was being done despite a survey indicating that the overwhelming majority of attendees valued the theme park experience and reported “high utilization of tickets, plus a high number of multiple visits per person to the parks.” Hence the crowds Walt Disney World was continuing to see during Pop Warner even after the event relocated from ESPN Wide World of Sports.
There’s an interesting dialogue in that post that’s no doubt occurring among other events that are still held at Walt Disney World (for now). Pop Warner isn’t the only organization that is hearing from parents about ballooning costs and the need to trim expenses. This is something we’ve also seen at Disneyland with Grad Nites, which are still quite popular (for now) but the top-tier tickets have skyrocketed over the last ~5 years and cheaper packages have been created as a result. Even so, several school districts have already moved to different venues due to high costs.
As of 2025, there are still major youth sporting events hosted at the ESPN Wide World of Sports, including cheer and dance national/world championships in the winter and spring months. It seems inevitable that some of these organizations will follow a similar path as Pop Warner due to higher costs once their contracts come up for renewal. First maybe they’ll move elsewhere in Orlando, then out of state completely. But that’s down the road, and purely speculative on my part at this point.
Honestly, that’s unfortunate. Even though Pop Warner was an infamous event for Walt Disney World fans, it was undoubtedly a positive experience for them and their families–many of whom wouldn’t have visited but for the sporting event and it’s discounted packages. Walt Disney World pricing out the middle class and needing to do more to cater to families has been a hot topic here, and these youth sporting events are one of those ways. The participants could be obnoxious sometimes, sure–but we’ve all been pre-teens and teens. It comes with the territory. That makes this news a bit bittersweet–like the end of an era.
In any case, Pop Warner moving away from Orlando completely should result in slightly lower crowd levels at Walt Disney World for December 6-13, 2025.
When making preliminary crowd predictions for 2025, we were under the assumption that Pop Warner would still be in Central Florida and would have some degree of spillover at Walt Disney World. Strong emphasis on some degree. The moving of this massive event that draws 10,000 people to Orlando is not going to have a massive impact on crowd levels.
Frankly, it can’t. Crowd levels have already been low to moderate for the second week in December for the last few years. Pretty much since Pop Warner moved to Universal, not so coincidentally. But with the event gone completely, we do expect further incremental improvement.
That is what this is really about. Our list of the 10 Best and 10 Worst Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World in 2025 & 2026 already identified both of the first two weeks of December as among the best of the entire year. And as you might be aware, the week starting right after Thanksgiving is our #1 week of the entire year.
With Pop Warner gone, that second week could now dethrone the first week as #1. At the very least, they will be equivalent to one another, so anyone who has the freedom to visit during either week can choose on the basis of cheaper airfare, better discounts, resort availability, or even their preferred Candlelight Processional narrator.
In fact, we are now leaning towards doing our annual family vacation in that second week. If all else is equal, we’d probably rather not deal with the holiday travel rush. Moving our trip away from Thanksgiving is also nice, as it makes things less hectic. I’m also going to go out on a limb and assume prices will be lower on everything–from airfare to Lightning Lane Multi-Pass (which has a nasty habit of staying elevated after Thanksgiving even after crowds depart).
Resort availability and discounts are also a big one. It’s interesting that Pop Warner mentioned Walt Disney World’s 97% occupancy level during this timeframe. I assume someone at Disney Events told them this during negotiations since the company doesn’t publicly share occupancy numbers.
In any case, it tracks with what we’ve seen. November and December are often booked up–and early. Often, availability is slim pickins’ before discounts are released. To the point that we hear from readers who are worried that crowd calendars are all wrong and attendance will be heavy during their trips.
A bit tangential to the point of this post, but they won’t. On-site occupancy is not necessarily indicative of crowds. Walt Disney World almost always has high occupancy stats (especially on the DVC side–by design). Despite tens of thousands of rooms, it’s still true that the majority of guests come from off-site, so that’s what really moves the needle. Year after year, hotels have booked up in the first half of December…only for crowd levels and wait times to be on the lower side of moderate.
The bottom line is that Pop Warner moving away from Central Florida gives us higher confidence in the second week of December being one of the absolute best of the entire year at Walt Disney World from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. It was already likely that wait times would be in the lower to moderate range, at worst, but now this dramatically decreases the likelihood of being stuck behind hordes of under-chaperoned cheerleaders and football players, and that’s an invaluable assurance on the qualitative side of the ledger.
It’s not a massive pendulum swing from one of the worst weeks to one of the best, but it is a big win for flexibility during the holiday season. Now you do not “need” to rush to Walt Disney World before the leftovers are even finished. If you’d prefer, you can visit (pretty much) halfway between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and still have what’s likely to be the optimal Walt Disney World experience. There’s no longer a single #1 week during the holiday season–there are two of them. To each their own, but that’s huge to me as a fan of this time of year!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about the Pop Warner Championships relocating from Central Florida? Expect there to be any impact on crowds that second week of December? Sad about this being the ‘end of an era’ for one of Walt Disney World’s most infamous events? Do you agree or disagree with anything in our crowd forecast for the first half of December 2025? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I don’t understand the sentiment from most people. I thought Disney parks were made for families, where adults could take kids to enjoy the day. Watching kids of any age experience the magic is truly inspiring. Sure, a large group of teenagers can get obnoxious but, there is some things for more annoying at the parks. Strollers and electric scooters. Although necessary for some, it’s gotten out of hand over the last decade. If your child is over 4 years old, why the stroller? And for adults that don’t need a wheelchair at home, find a bench to rest from time to time. Mostly, Disney is really pricing middle class families out of affording a vacation.
Hey Tom,
I saw a rumor on a post that there would be a cheer competition at ESPN the 13 & 14th of December. It’s the “Spirit Cheer – Dance Grand Nationals & Cheer Nationals – DI/DII” Does this ring a bell? Rooms at Pop Century have been “sold out” since they took the free dining deal out of the mix. Any insight?
Lifetime NJ person here. I’m sure it feels like 71% of families go to Disney during Jersey week but 7.1% might actually be the exact number. Off by one decimal point :).
Perhaps this is a long term move for Disney – ESPN sports takes up quite a bit of land – so allowing these groups to leave will result in the property to be used for something else say a —-
5th Park!
Sorry fat fingers.. that was supposed to be $150/nt
Interesting article. I experienced the “Pop Warner” effect last year way away from WDW. I was at the Hilton Orlando (right by Orlando Convention Center) for the 2nd annual “Spacepower” conference– essentially the new national convention for active duty and support contractors for the US Space Force. The previous year (the first) they held it at the Wyndham convention hotel right by SeaWorld. It’s a huge military conference and the move to the Hilton was seen as a big upgrade from the previous year (especially since conference rates were $2150/nt– a STEAL for that hotel in December). The funny part was that the hotel was also one of the official hotels for the National Cheer competition and Pop Warner which was happening at the Convention Center and the stadium, so at this hotel at the exact same time, you have a huge crowd of uniformed military folks, military contractors, cheerleader moms, cheerleaders, and also weirdly a bunch of dog show people who were there also for some big regional dog show. Bottom line, the hotel was PACKED with not overlapping populations, and the hotel bars at night were a really weird mix of populations.
Greedily, I’m not sad to have the cheer and football events move out of Orlando that week because Space Force has basically set up shop that Orlando in early December will be the annual convention, so maybe I’ll actually be able to get a beer in the evening without a fight 🙂
This is clearly one of those moves which will have a variety of reactions, depending on the recipient. The typical person going to WDW will be pleased. The Pop Warner kids will be disappointed, as will many of their parents. However, many other parents will be pleased with the lower price point.
There wasn’t an overwhelming number of comments, enabling a read through, and Mickey1928 makes a very valid point: This also indicates many of the current problems with WDW, as it’s priced itself out of the running for this event. What this news might mean for us as fans is one thing, but whether Disney takes to heart the lesson to be learned here is something that remains to be seen, but I see it as but one more example of corporate narcissism of the now, where the pursuit of profits today is done without consideration of the consequences for tomorrow, which in this case is yet another example of the potential loss of generational guests at WDW.
I’m with @Denny. I’ll take a thousand kids groups getting to experience the magic of Disney over the Brazilians that wait for me to open the door for them everywhere, push you out of the way like you’re invisible and then yell loudly throughout Philharmagic and the shows which need a little bit more quietude to actually enjoy them…
I don’t think that 70% of all families in NJ go to Florida that week. I would say maybe 70 of Florida visitors are from NJ that week.
New Jersey has a population of about 9 million people. Let’s just say 1 million are adults (crazy low but just as an example). that means 700,000 NJ people would vist WDW in one week. Not possible.
I’m thinking that the fact that I find this article incredibly important and relevant should be telling me that I have a Disney addiction. The other problem that I see is that a support group would most likely make things worse. I reckon I will just make reservations for early December at WDW.
Other than the rack rates for hotel rooms, I wasn’t expecting evidence that Universal had significantly raised actual room prices post-Epic in the month of March. It’s one thing to work through the logic that they have to raise the costs regardless of whether it’s a huge success, a remarkable failure, or pretty much anything in between; it’s another thing to see it happening in real time.
Now, if the ever-so OBNOXIOUS Brazilian Tour Groups would stop coming, that would be the absolute best. They are rude, disrespectful on every level and so loud that it makes being around them almost unbearable.
We’ve made our annual trip the second week of December for the last three years and it’s always been wonderful. Manageable crowds and near perfect weather. Hearing it may be even less crowded could make it an incredible week to visit.
The past 4 years we have been going the first week of December. That week seems to be one of the best weeks to visit Disney during the holiday season. Do you think the second week of December will be even better then the first week with this change?
I think it’s going to be a really close call. Personally, we’ll probably stick with the first week because it’s our tried & true tradition, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the second ends up being marginally better.
Tom, it seems DVC availability is already pretty scarce for those first two weeks of December. I assume the end of that third week starts to get busy?
“This is another reason why Walt Disney World fans might’ve not noticed that Pop Century already moved–because attendees were still visiting the parks.” Unless I am very much mistaken, Pop Century is still at Hourglass Lake, across from Art of Animation. You may want to correct that.
I kid you not—while in the shower this morning, I said to myself: “you better doublecheck that no instances of ‘Pop Century’ slipped into there.”
Clearly a good idea…that I forgot to do. Thanks!
Yes Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus!!!
Now, about those cheer competitions . . . . .
Interesting, however this is not a time we would visit so has zero impact on our planning. I tend to agree with what your saying though- could be great to have less crowds but also everyone should have a chance to go.
The moment I realize that Pop Warner is now being held in my city… 2 days after I bought a season pass to Carowinds… for the first time in close to a decade. Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
So what I hear you saying is that you volunteer to be a
sacrificial lambhonorary DTB correspondent, and head to Carowinds in mid-December for the sake of “Very Important Research” to see just how badly Pop Warner impacts crowds. Thank you!!! 😉Ha! Now I’m imagining a scenario where my family shows up clad in Disney shirts, mouse ears, and my Figment Loungefly backpack and we all look REALLY confused.
Despite Carowinds being literally 5 miles from our house, we hadn’t been in so long that my kids (7 and 9) don’t even remember ever going before this Saturday when we went for a Cub Scouts event. My 9-year-old daughter (a bit out-of-the-blue) said “Mom, I prefer Disney World.” In a timid kind of way… like I’d be offended or something. I responded, “Me too, kid… me too…” Only reason we decided to get season passes was because upgrading our heavily discounted Scouts tickets to season passes was a pretty good deal and we could see ourselves going to the water park side sometime this summer and maybe Winterfest once. Maybe I’d consider making that Winterfest visit in mid-December if I could get some cool DTB swag or something.
Ironic, is it not?
That you, a cheerleader for the Disney Parks, albeit a fair one, bemoan being stuck behind a line of cheerleaders or in a room filled with them.
Especially since I suspect BOTH our wives were cheerleaders at some point.
Carolyn, though introverted and soft spoken, was one in both high school and college.
I surmise, that at the very least, Sarah was a high school cheerleader. Something I believe she has in common with Carolyn besides being part English.
AND I, although playing many sports in school, was rumored to occasionally don a giant Eagles head as the school mascot at halftime and other events.
That’s right, I missed my calling, Tigger at Disney World.
So I bemoan the loss of Pop Warner and the cheerleaders.
Not because I desire bigger crowds, but because it’s symptomatic of Disney Worlds true problem, which is not enough “stuff” to accommodate everyone who wants to go there without packing them in like sardines with lines we will only see again at the gates of Hell. (That’s gotta be a line form some B movie, no?)
Naturally my hat is off to you for your ever keen insight of the who, what, when, where and whys of happenings at Disney and keeping us alerted of all good and bad news so that we may have the best possible experience whichever park we go to.
Very presumptuous of you to assume that Sarah was the cheerleader and I was the one who kept his face hidden inside a mascot head, and not the other way around. It’s almost like you’ve seen photos of us or something! 😉
I’ll admit to being torn about this. I’d selfishly like to encounter fewer youth groups at Walt Disney World during my trips, but more objectively, I think it’s shortsighted to push those groups away, as some of them are future generations of fans–and many wouldn’t ever visit WDW but for these youth events.
It isn’t even a crowds thing. Even Pop Warner and the other youth sporting events don’t contribute to crowds THAT much. It’s more the impact they have on already-high hotel occupancy. So I guess the solution is building more resorts?! (Only half-kidding there–as I know how fans react to this.)
This may be the best news I’ve heard about WDW in awhile!!!