Terry O. Roen Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
January 3, 2006
Soccer families and swingers do not mix.
Especially when the parents of adolescent soccer players checked their daughters into a hotel that was hosting a New Year's Eve party for more than 200 self-described swingers, who had reserved a downstairs ballroom along with rooms on the ninth floor.
Parents who traveled from South Carolina and Clearwater to bring their 11- to 13-year-old daughters to a five-day soccer tournament 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 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel-Airport in Orlando 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.
The teams booked the $92-a-night rooms for Disney's Soccer Showcase, sponsored by Disney Wide World of Sports, through the Internet from Anthony Travel. They said hotel management did not tell them about the swingers' party or try to keep the uninhibited adults away from their children.
Hotel managers would not comment Sunday or Monday.
However, several hotel employees, who spoke on the condition they not be identified, said about 200 swingers attended the New Year's Eve party Saturday night -- about half the number that attended a similar event a year earlier.
One employee said the party was advertised on a swinger Web site, and participants -- some of whom engage in partner-swapping and voyeurism -- came from across the United States.
All of the swingers had checked out of the hotel by late Sunday and could not be reached for comment.
"We're not prudes by any means," said Rob Young of Greenville, S.C., who said his two daughters, Leah, 13 and Lauren, 11, were asking questions that were difficult to answer. "We would have liked to have been informed when we checked into the hotel so we could have made other arrangements."
Young said a hotel manager at one point told the children from Carolina Elite Soccer Academy to move out of the lobby and into the swimming-pool area.
"The kids could see through the glass atrium into the ballroom where naked people were dancing," Young said. "There were exposed breasts, thongs and see-through dresses on women who were not wearing any underwear."
Young said he complained to hotel management and to John Hollis, an off-duty Orlando police officer, asking if the swingers could be kept out of the hallways and lobby. He said neither the officer nor the hotel manager acted on his complaints.
Hollis was hired by the hotel for a New Year's Eve security detail and did not witness any violations of the law, Lt. John Mina, a watch commander for the Orlando Police Department, said Sunday night.
Officials at Anthony Travel could not be reached for comment late Sunday or Monday.
Walker Downs, 15, said he was walking through the lobby about 8 p.m. Saturday with his sister, Molly, 13, and two of her friends, when he saw something he will never forget.
"Some lady pulled down her skirt to show a black thong with diamonds," said Walker, a 10th-grader at Mauldin High School in Mauldin, S.C.
"It made me uncomfortable because I was there with my family."
Walker's mother, Julie Downs, a 43-year-old registered nurse, said her children asked why they were restricted to their rooms and couldn't party on New Year's Eve.
Paul Camporini brought his wife, seventh-grade daughter and eighth-grade son from Safety Harbor and said he had to "delicately explain to my Catholic school children that swingers change partners during the evening."
Camporini, 49, said his son initially did not want to travel to watch his sister play soccer but "thought it [the swingers' party] was downright hilarious."
"My biggest gripe is that the hotel had two distinctly different groups under the same roof," he said. "A soccer team and middle-aged swingers should not have been booked together. Even Disney tells guests when they book during Gay Days." -------------------------------------------------------------- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.