SWINGERS AND KIDS DON'T MIX IN FLORIDA, ARIZONA

It's funny to read the story, but not humorous at all for a couple of groups on New Year's Eve.

A group of 11-13 year old soccer players and parents from South Carolina and Clearwater were expecting a great family outing while participating in Disney's Soccer Showcase, a five day tournament sponsored by it's Wide World of Sports comples. The youngsters and their families were staying at Orlando's Crowne Plaza Hotel-Airport, but were unaware that the hotel was also hosting a New Year's Eve party for approximately 200 swingers.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the parents said they were shocked by the parade of sexually adventurous partygoers who sashayed through the glass-enclosed atrium, sometimes flashing breasts and bare buttocks in front of their children.

They described the dress of some of the swingers...as "raunchy, despicable and worse than prostitutes."

"We thought we were coming to Orlando, not the Las Vegas Strip," said Mark Gilbert, the father of a 13-year-old who plays on the Clearwater Chargers, a group of 13-and-under players.

They were not the only ones it happened to, and Orlando wasn't the only place it happened.

Pasco County's Wesley Chapel High School marching band was in Phoenix for a New Year's Eve competition, and ended up sharing the Crowne Plaza Hotel Phoenix-Airport with a similar group of swingers.

From today's Sentinel story:

The Wesley Chapel band was on its way back to the hotel when calls began coming in from parents who had stayed behind, said Glen Nelson of Asheville, N.C., whose daughter attends Wesley Chapel High.

The White Party Swingers were partying at the Arizona hotel's lounge, and parents were trying to avoid bringing the children back into the hotel until they could find a "secure area," Nelson said.

They waited outside on three school buses for about an hour, then moved the students into a ballroom until they could make sure the lobby was clear and escort them up the elevators to their rooms. A parent posted guard on each of the three floors where band members were staying.

"The hotel had booked a party of a very adult nature and inappropriate for my students," Wesley Chapel band director Mary Harvey said. She said she had received apologies from Tostitos Fiesta Bowl organizers and International Travel, the Nashville, Tenn.-based agency that booked travel for all of the bands attending the event.

I wonder if some of the dads among the group wanted to check out the scene...