A Word on Tour Groups at Disney About This Page:

[guerns17]

I have to say, based on a few experiences at Disney with large tour groups I usually give my eyes a roll when I hear/see them coming. Often thinking, oh great a giant group of annoying teenagers. I had a similar feeling on our last trip. We arrived at Epcot and 3 tour buses were unloading a group of kids. I was so delightfully surprised. There were a ton of these kids in the park and they were awesome!! I didn't see anyone being rude or obnoxious. At one point my daughter was playing in the splash pad at Epcot, by mission space and a group of them stopped to watch her and laughed (in a kind way) at all the fun she was having. It made me so happy! I did feel badly for them though because they were all wearing matching shirts, which were long sleeve and it was quite warm that day!! They were a music group based on the design on their shirts. I just had to share this as I obviously was being judgmental of kid tour groups, but this group proved me wrong!!

[GingerJ]

We saw tons of teenaged girls a couple weeks ago, some kind of dance competition, I would guess. What looked like a hundred of them stayed at our resort, and their sweat suits proclaimed that they came from China. They were polite and quiet, as far as I could tell. I think I saw a few other groups from the corner of my eye and I agree, these were all just regular people who tended to bunch up.

The only annoying thing was a group who posed in an endless array of small groups for photos, directly at the foot of the escalators in The Land, blocking traffic all around. But no loud chanting or cutting, so I put this down to plain cluelessness.

[Kynna]

I tend to be very defensive of teens in general because I worked with teens for years and now I have two myself. In my experience if you treat them kindly they are respectful in return. Honestly I would rather be in line with a teen/tween tour group than some families I've seen. It is much nicer being around kids who are goofing around and perhaps singing too loud than an overtired bickering family who is determined to "get their money's worth" or a family who is a bit over privileged and feel the rules don't apply to them.

If everyone who has children reminds themselves that their babies will be or once were teens I think their mindset would be much more tolerant.

Now some tour groups, usually adults, bring the whole 50 people cutting in line phenomenon that I don't have as much patience for. I think tour guides themselves should be somehow penalized if they allow that among their group.

[MayraLR]

I've only encountered tour groups twice, in all the years I've been going. They were both Brazilian and from what I could see, they were well behaved. I've heard not-so-positive stories about these groups, bit I have yet to witness their "bad behavior".

My oldest son will be part of a group tour to DL in June. I'm hoping they are all well behaved and follow rules.

[jenifermg0]

We encountered what we started referring to as "The Backpack Brigade" when we were at WDW the end of January/beginning of February. We couldn't seem to escape them!! Every day, they were in the same park as us!! It felt like they were following us! And really, DH and I were just kind of winging it on this trip, no major plan for touring. Just lucky I guess.

We actually saw more than one group. We could tell they were different groups because they all had different colored backpacks. And really only one group irritated us...when they were marching around Animal Kingdom chanting at the top of their lungs!!!! Did not enjoy that one bit. First of all, they were VERY LOUD and second, they were like some kind of steam roller ready to mow down anything or anyone that got in their way!

The other group that seemed to follow us was fine...just so many of them!!!!!!! There were other groups too that were just as well behaved, we just didn't encounter them as often as this one. From the few times we were close to the groups they were not speaking English, but we couldn't quite tell what they were speaking.

I really felt for all the chaperones. Can't be easy keeping track of that many girls! I can't imagine things like getting coordinating getting them all fed and hydrated or getting them all on a bus to and from the parks (though they were probably using chartered buses).

Toward the end of our stay, we started seeing smaller groups (of 4-6 girls) also in matching shirts/packs that appeared to be American. The smaller groups were easier to handle and happily they were well behaved as well. In fact all these groups were better guests than some individual families we saw!!!

DH had to take a picture of all their backpacks piled up outside of Space Mountain with one lonely adult watching over them all! Then again, maybe the adult was enjoying the time without teenagers!!!

Encountering all these groups just makes me hope that when DS went to Washington DC for Boy Scout Jamboree that all of those boys were well behaved and didn't annoy the other tourists!!!!

[MsLydia]

You reminded me of a high school marching band drum line we came across in Animal Kingdom. I had wanted to recreate a photo of DD playing the drums in Africa from her first trip. We came up to discover a group of boys all around the drums playing the odd note, but mostly just talking intently. (Cue: eye rolling)They proceeded to give a most impressive and delightful performance of several songs. By the time they were finished they had quite an audience and received a well deserved round of applause. I regret I didn't make note of their school and follow up to compliment them.

[JoanneS]

It's been a while since I've encountered large tour groups. I'm glad to hear you had a good experience. Maybe Disney has laid down the law on the tour groups. I mostly tried just to avoid them as much as possible.