The next international World Youth Day will be held in Madrid, Spain from 16–21 August 2011.

Although the day to day stuff of the WYD week is similar, in terms of organization, this next WYD will be very different from WYD08 in Sydney, so below are some facts to consider in your planning:

Costs

Pilgrimage packages and costs to attend WYD2011 in Madrid are still being determined (WYD2011 has not yet announced registration costs etc). However they are likely to be in the vicinity of $5,500-7,000 per pilgrim. These pilgrimage costs will be all-inclusive of WYD registration, airfares, accommodation and a pre or post WYD tour/retreat. We are hopeful that we will be able to provide detailed packages and costings prior to mid-2010.

Pilgrimage Coordination

WYD2011 will be a totally different experience to WYD08 both for pilgrims and coordinators. It will be held in the middle of the Spanish summer, attended by an estimated two million pilgrims.

The Sandhurst pilgrimage will be co-ordinated centrally, unlike the Sydney experience where each region, parish or school took charge of registering and supervising young people.

We will travel as a diocesan group, prepare as a diocesan group and pray as a diocesan group. For logisitics purposes, there may be three subgroups across the three deaneries of the diocese, but essentially all pilgrims will travel under the Sandhurst banner.

A word of warning: Pre WYD Sydney, we gave a number of disclaimers about things that you may find uncomfortable: Shower access, sleeping arrangements, waiting for transport, crowds and the like.  As SYM we managed to get to Sydney a few days early to iron out some of the kinks that had arisen in accommodation issues, and on the whole busses were generally only a few hours late at the most. WYD in Spain will be a lot less controllable. Experience of a previous European WYD had pilgrims sleeping on church steps overnight, and homeless for 2 days while issues were being sorted out. Crowds meant that train station platforms simply shut down for hours and hours and temperatures of above 40degrees meant that pilgrims were not the sweetest specimens on earth. Considering there were some issues, Sydney ran incredibly smoothly. Be prepared!

Official Tour Provider

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has appointed Catholic tour operator Harvest Pilgrimages as the official tour operator to support Australian groups attending WYD2011 in Madrid. SYM have begun negotiating pilgrimage packages with Harvest with the aim of providing package details to prospective pilgrims in mid-2010.