I am shocked keep a good eye on your child

[jimsgal05]

this isn't a made up story my friend was Hysterical on the phone when she told me this. She is also travel agent as well for Disney.
I just want to make people aware that a small child can get in without a ticket on a busy day with out having their own family right there with them.

[GAN]

What bothers me most(if the story is in fact true), is that a child with a tag that said she was autistic gets on a bus and not one person on the bus thought that it was odd that she wasn't paired with an adult. On a bus that is less than full it should be fairly easy to recognize a problem -so I assume it must have been relatively full. One thing I notice when sitting on a Disney bus is that it is hard NOT to notice who is with who, especially with younger children. So if the bus was full, the child had to be sitting near one or maybe two families(with children of their own, most likely) -not one of those people was curious as to who she might be with? Not one person thought to strike up a conversation? You know, the child with the Autistic tag! Maybe I'm the only one who pays attention to these things. This is the part that makes the story totally unbelievable to me.

[BrerGnat]

What bothers me most(if the story is in fact true), is that a child with a tag that said she was autistic gets on a bus and not one person on the bus thought that it was odd that she wasn't paired with an adult. On a bus that is less than full it should be fairly easy to recognize a problem -so I assume it must have been relatively full. One thing I notice when sitting on a Disney bus is that it is hard NOT to notice who is with who, especially with younger children. So if the bus was full, the child had to be sitting near one or maybe two families(with children of their own, most likely) -not one of those people was curious as to who she might be with? Not one person thought to strike up a conversation? You know, the child with the Autistic tag! Maybe I'm the only one who pays attention to these things. This is the part that makes the story totally unbelievable to me.

Are you suggesting engaging a NON VERBAL autistic 6 year old in conversation on a crowded WDW bus? Good luck with that...

In fact, I challenge you to engage my 8 year old high functioning, completely verbal autistic son NOT on a bus. Say "hi" to him. Ask him what his name is. How old he is. Good luck with that. Unless you start in on discussing electric circuitry or the ins and outs of Dyson vacuum motors, you will get NOTHING back from him. He won't even acknowledge your presence.

[Aurora]

What bothers me most(if the story is in fact true), is that a child with a tag that said she was autistic gets on a bus and not one person on the bus thought that it was odd that she wasn't paired with an adult. On a bus that is less than full it should be fairly easy to recognize a problem -so I assume it must have been relatively full. One thing I notice when sitting on a Disney bus is that it is hard NOT to notice who is with who, especially with younger children. So if the bus was full, the child had to be sitting near one or maybe two families(with children of their own, most likely) -not one of those people was curious as to who she might be with? Not one person thought to strike up a conversation? You know, the child with the Autistic tag! Maybe I'm the only one who pays attention to these things. This is the part that makes the story totally unbelievable to me.

Gan, I know it seems hard to believe, but imagine this: You are sitting on the bus, facing toward the middle of the bus. Your kids are on your right. Next to them is another child, and next to that child is another child and her parent. Isn't it possible that you would assume the child is with that family, and they would assume the child is with yours? In fact, it wouldn't occur to you otherwise.

Now multiply that by a dozen or more families on a crowded, busy bus. People don't necessarily get in and out of a bus with spaces in between families to denote who is with who or to alert people to an unsupervised child. How is this not believable?

Before we lost my son at Disney, my mother (who was with us at the time) said she could never understand how a child could get lost. After that, she said she would never say such a thing again. I guess it's just easier to understand when something like that has happened to you.

[GAN]

Are you suggesting engaging a NON VERBAL autistic 6 year old in conversation on a crowded WDW bus? Good luck with that...

In fact, I challenge you to engage my 8 year old high functioning, completely verbal autistic son NOT on a bus. Say "hi" to him. Ask him what his name is. How old he is. Good luck with that. Unless you start in on discussing electric circuitry or the ins and outs of Dyson vacuum motors, you will get NOTHING back from him. He won't even acknowledge your presence.

I understand what your saying, but I wouldn't recognize the child to be non-verbal -so the answer is yes. If I was that child's parent I would probably speak for him, acknowledging that he is with me. I have a nephew with Aspergers so I'm familiar with a lesser form.

Gan, I know it seems hard to believe, but imagine this: You are sitting on the bus, facing toward the middle of the bus. Your kids are on your right. Next to them is another child, and next to that child is another child and her parent. Isn't it possible that you would assume the child is with that family, and they would assume the child is with yours? In fact, it wouldn't occur to you otherwise.

Now multiply that by a dozen or more families on a crowded, busy bus. People don't necessarily get in and out of a bus with spaces in between families to denote who is with who or to alert people to an unsupervised child. How is this not believable?

Again, if a child is on a bus with a sticker acknowledging their autism and on the ride, with children everywhere, not one parent gestures toward that child -that would seem HIGHLY unusual(to me). I don't think I've been on a Disney bus where there wasn't someone holding a hand, carrying, leaning, sitting on a lap, talking, scolding, or a myriad of other interactions that would indicate "this child is with me". Just seems a little too unusual to me.

The other thing that struck me as odd was the lady who got off the bus and said she saw her getting on the DHS bus. Seems kind of convenient(maybe just luck) but most people get off the bus and move on, not stick around to see who is getting on the bus they just got off. The child would have been surrounded by dozens of other families -I'm thinking she would have blended in quite well. Why would the lady have given it a second thought?

Seems to me there are too many lucky circumstances to be convinced -but I respect the opinions of those who believe. I don't want to turn this into a flame session!

[DisneyDawgette]

This summer we took a large group of kids to Disney, and by large, I mean 47 not including leaders. I had a group of 8 girls and they were all split into partners. This system worked flawlessly in all of the parks (they were to walk two-by-two with the same partner in the same order... I would know if I looked up and someone was missing, and so would their partner).

However, we went to DTD one night which was the most CHAOTIC night of the trip, and keeping them all together in World of Disney was simply not going to happen. So I kept up with them by giving them room boundaries, and they would be allowed to wander with their partner in a given room but we would all move to the next room together. They knew that they were NEVER to cross the "boundary" that I had given them under any circumstances. Until I had one pair of girls who just got a little too excited and ended up on the OTHER side of the massive store completely ignoring any and all boundaries I had given them. It was so crowded and the concert going on outside made the noise level intolerable. Losing someone else's kids was not helping the matter. It took me ten minutes to find them and it's safe to say that I was not happy with these more than capable 5th grade girls. Relieved, but very unhappy.

Sometimes it's not determination to get away, but pure excitement that overcomes all sense! Even in older kids!

[VWL Mom]

The most important part of this story is the child is safe, thank goodness for that!

IMO this post serves two purposes: a reminder to watch your children and a reminder that if you notice something wrong, report it! No one had to approach the child but someone should have mentioned to the driver or a cast member that the child was alone. I am 99% certain that someone on that bus noticed and it only would have taken a few minutes to report a suspicion.

[ANG]

This seriously gave me a belly laugh. Cause this is my son as well!

Are you suggesting engaging a NON VERBAL autistic 6 year old in conversation on a crowded WDW bus? Good luck with that...

In fact, I challenge you to engage my 8 year old high functioning, completely verbal autistic son NOT on a bus. Say "hi" to him. Ask him what his name is. How old he is. Good luck with that. Unless you start in on discussing electric circuitry or the ins and outs of Dyson vacuum motors, you will get NOTHING back from him. He won't even acknowledge your presence.

[Mrs Bus Driver]

The thing that really concerns me is the cast member at the beginning who told her to find the child herself. No report of a missing child should ever be treated like that. Better to have a quick happy ending then having a child missing long enough to get into a park. All cast members should have been told at once to look out for the child.

My own experience tells me that cast members and most people would not notice a calm child going about their business. Really most of us would only notice an upset child. So you can hardly blame the bus driver or cast members at the parks for not noticing when they are already busy.

I drive a school bus and if a child is reported missing after school they will call every school bus from that school. Even though we try to know all our students and new students and friends going home must have a pass, it only takes a moments distraction for a child to slip on board with friends. I had one years ago, I knew all my students (80 of them) and I didn't know he was there until his friends playing around pushed him out in the aisle. If they had sat there quietly I wouldn't have seen him until we got to the bus stop. He of course didn't have permission to be there and I had to take him back to school where parents were called. But at a busy resort where cast members and bus drivers don't know the children unless an alert is sounded it is easy to see how this child got so far.

The cast member at the beginning should have sounded the alarm. I know most of the time children are found right away (Thank Goodness) but there is always that one child and time is of the essence.

Long vent I know but just had to put in my

[disneynarula]

I am just glad she got back to her family safely. How scary would that be? We lost our DS at Legoland in Germany. It was just a matter of miscommunication between DH and I. We are totally to blame. We are very clear now about who is in charge of what child.

I would never have noticed a child without a parent unless that child acted scared or upset.

[Mrs Bus Driver]

BTW I now drive special needs and just want people to know that unless they have a deformity, they look just like every one else. Only in most cases they are smarter.

[Dulcee]

What was actually said: "Alright ma'am I've contacted the head of our lost children department and he's sent out a code turquoise alert which initiates our 382 step procedure so that we can find your child and reunite you safely. But in no way should you feel that you can't look for your child yourself if you have an idea of where they might have gone."

What hysterical woman heard: "Look for your child yourself."

This. Having worked in an aquarium we routinely had lost child incidents. Trying to tell a hysterical parent NOT to go look for their kid is next to impossible. We usually told them that if they felt the needed to look that they could. Most parents feel more helpless just standing and waiting, even if that is the best thing they can do.

[Gator]

This is exactly the reason I'm bringing a double stroller and a single to accomodate all my kids. As long as they're in the strollers, they don't take off and get lost in the sea of people. Yeah, they're all the way up to 7, but I don't care. If I can take the worry of "where's my kids" out of the equation, my trip is that much more enjoyable.

[TheVBs]

So glad this turned out well!

I have to agree that it would be very easy for CMs and other guests to assume the child is with one of the families packed around them. Most families are focused on each other, talking about what they're going to do for the day, getting out their tickets to get into the park, etc. If the child was calm and looked like she was supposed to be there, she could easily escape notice that something was wrong.

And, I agree that it seems unlikely that the original CM only told the parent to look for the child. It was obviously called in if other guests were questioned and there was probably the additional suggestion of the parent continuing to look on their own.

[Sam&Alex&Josh'sMOM]

I am just so glad this worked out ok.

Our daughter was "lost" in the boneyard at AK for about 5 minutes when she was 4. She made it up the net climbing thing and slid down before I could get down there to see where she was, then it was pure hysteria on my part looking for her. There was a CM at the gate, but he was manning the in and the out, but really just chatting with someone at the IN (which I am pretty sure is just wrong) and I knew she could have run out. I was so lucky that she had been crying and a really nice Mom found her and just sat down right in the middle with her and said"We arent moving until your Mommy finds you!" Sammy wanted to go, and was crying to find me, but the mother was insistent that she would stay right there with her. I found them. We all shed tears. It was all of a 5minute process, but the scariest 5 minutes of my life. I still can't thank that other Mom enough for just SITTING STILL with my daughter. It was the perfect thing to do. To this day I HATE that play area. And if the kids insist on going in, I make sure one of us stays with the youngest (the 4 year old is now 8 and has siblings who are 5 and 2) So one stays with the baby, and the other stays at the gate. CM's are great, but they get distracted too, and I would rather make sure the gate is guarded myself. I KNOW my daughter would have been headed out that gate all those years ago, and the CM would never have known because he was watching the IN not the OUT.

Now I always try to be observent of kids that might be lost to help out.