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Does anyone know what activities take place during Plebe Parent Weekend? We are trying to determine if we should stay in Annapolis proper or save the buck and stay a little farther away. We know that it starts at Noonish on Friday and ends at 6PM on Sunday but nothing about what happens during the weekend. Are there activities on the yard with the parents or is it just a chance for the new mids to get off the yard with their parents? Will they have overnight liberty, daytime liberty or no off yard liberty?
Please keep in mind, I will be referring to what happened last year for the class of 2016. Don't consider anything official unless it comes from USNA.
To further answer your questions; yes, there are activities on the yard you and your plebe can share. A favorite is Sunday morning worship services in the chapel. The schedule for Sunday will show worship schedules. For the class of 2016, there was liberty, town liberty. There are 3 kinds of liberty at USNA. Yard liberty, town liberty and overnight liberty. They are self-explanatory.
The first chance you may get to see your plebe will be at the noon meal formation, Thursday. The first chance you'll get to greet and hug your plebe will be after the noon meal formation on Friday. Town liberty commences right after that. Your plebe is excused. This is where you will have the opportunity to see his/her room and dine in King Hall, where all the mids eat. We saw our son's room and then headed out to town. We found by staying in the local Annapolis area, we were close to just about everything. If your plebe does want to get away good choices are in the Bowie area, about 15 mins west of USNA on highway 50 and a mall area named Arundel Mills, just south of Baltimore and about 30 mins from USNA. We stayed at the Marriott Courtyard in Annapolis. The location is very convenient to Annapolis mall, eating places and movie theaters. The mall has all these things too. It seemed everywhere we went, plebes would run into each other and just chat and hang out together. An added benefit of that was we got to met our son's friends and roommates and their families. It was a good way for all of us to meet and get to know each other. These relationships have strengthened as time has gone by.
As I said earlier, we stayed at the Marriott Courtyard. It is close to Downtown Annapolis (DTA), Annapolis Mall and of course, USNA. This will be an important consideration because during liberty because your plebe will be constantly aware of the time and when liberty expires. Liberty expires Fri at 2200, Sat at 2359 and Sun at 1800. As you can imagine, traffic to USNA around these times will be hectic. But where we stayed allowed us access to a route back to USNA that a local resident told us about. The main road coming into USNA is King George Street. It takes you right into gate 1, the closest gate to DTA. A careful study of a map of Annapolis near DTA and gate 1 will show another street, Randall St, that intersects King George St right at USNA. A very good alternate route to gate 1 is Randall St, from Compromise St. These two streets intersect at a traffic circle in DTA. We would approach gate 1 on Randall St and just drop off our son right there at gate 1, then meet him again the next morning.
This should give you a good start on planning for PPW and of course, I-Day. If I can help you or any other parent, just let me know. Cheers.