"DS did not want to hang around long in room as that meant less time off the Yard. Once they get free they want to skedaddle quickly to get to A/C, a bed, a shower, food and in general not be a Plebe for a few hours."
THIS!
People/Kids/Families differ. That said, while DD was at USNA we viewed her as the member of our family under the greatest stress. When we visited USNA from the West coast the focus was always on what DD wanted. Like Lt360’s Mid, our DD wanted to get the ____ off the Yard and be with family for PPW weekend; so thats what we did. We had 2 (?)phone calls during PS; on the second call (less stressed) we included a “what do you want PPW to look like?” question in our
call script. It was VERY clear that a stop by her room wasn’t on her agenda.
Lt360’s parking advice is excellent too. Expanding a bit on what Lt360 said; for USNA events and maximizing time with your Mid try look for the moments/places where you can “Zig” while everyone else is “Zagging”. Like the parking garage Lt360 suggests, or Gate 8 vs Main Gate (driving onto the Yard for future visits). Maybe, (like we did), you pay a little extra to stay within walking distance of The Yard for event weekends (I-day, PPW, and 2C year). You could also use
Premium Parking App (recommended by Annapolis Gov) or
Mobile Parking App to find and reserve a stress free parking place w/in walking distance of the Main Gate. This will let you stay outside of walking distance of The Yard ($$) while giving easy access to down town Annapolis. You will also reduce A TON of plebe stress over getting back onto the Yard at the end of PPW. Or, you could just suck-it-up and resolve to Uber everywhere.
These things cost more than parking at the stadium, lodging farther from campus, or frenzied searches for public parking. NOTE: DW actually enjoys the angst of “winning" at parking
……. but she relented. Accepting these added expenses associated with visits to see DD, I tried to keep in mind that, besides getting herself the best dam education on the planet, DD's choice of USNA was saving me about 80K a year over her other schooling options.
Back to visit focus for a sec. The USNA Exp stresses every family a bit, but 4c year it's the Plebe who is under the hammer. Accordingly, for us a USNA visit wasn’t about siblings, or Grand-ma; or what DW and I thought we’d like to do/see. We just did our best spoil DD for the few days we had her before tossing her back into grind. We became very flexible in our expectations and our schedules while in Annapolis.
In the longer term we gave up some stuff, and adapted the way we traveled (DW in particular) so that we could fly out to see DD when she wanted/needed some time with Mom or Dad off The Yard. For our family (and for DD in particular) this approach paid off tremendously. PLEEEZE no "helicopter/spoiled mid comments", DW and I traveled only when invited and I am pretty sure anyone in DD’s CoC would want her in their foxhole if/when the SHTF.
My best to you OP! I am sure you are proud of your P2B. I hope that U R proud of the job you did raising Him/Her too….U should be.