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 Century 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!
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
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!
