Any Lost Children incidents??

[Bruegge]

Planning a trip in May, I hope I don't need to know ...but where is the lost child office in the parks....Just in case

NOTE: When I was single I saw tethered children and I was Shocked... Now that I have kids... I wouldn't use them BUT BOY DO I UNDERSTAND THEM LOL.

Scott

[faline]

All cast members are trained on what to do if they discover a child has lost his/her parents. In the incident my husband witnessed, the child wasn't taken to another location. The cast members stayed in the spot the child was found until they could connect with the child's father and reunite them.

[kakn7294]

If you and your child are separated, contact the nearest CM! They are trained to spot lost parents (the kids never get lost). I saw it in action once. A little girl of about 3 was crying and appeared alone. A CM was alerted and one stayed with the child while the rest fanned out looking for the parents - all the while communicating on little walkie-talkies. It took mere minutes for the parents to be found. It's best if you place some sort of I.D. on you kids with your name and cell phone number. I use a laminated card I printed from my computer in their fanny packs. My sister uses "Who's Shoes" ID tags. Others use luggage tags (or similar, even homemade item) as a necklace or pinned to clothing somewhere or those rubber bracelets with the info printed inside with permanent marker. Whatever you choose, make sure your kids know that they are to give it to a CM in the event of separation from you. And I agree with the leashes - they look terrible until the first time your child wanders off!

[faline]

In the incident my husband witnessed, the little boy had his dad's cell phone number on a piece of paper in his pocket. Dad didn't know it was there. Mom had made sure he had it and he knew it was there so cast members were able to call dad!

[BelleCiavo]

I lost my middle son at Blizzard Beach when he was 6. We were floating around Cross Country Creek and one minute he was there and the next he was gone. Man, I still remember how terrified I was :( My dh and older son continued to swim the creek while I ran around the creek outside the water :sob: It finally dawned on me to ask a CM who directed me to my son, who by the way, was having a grand time coloring, eating nachos and drinking from a Bizzard Beach mug. We hugged :hug: , thanked the wonderful CMs and reunited with dh and other son.

Lesson learned: Tell children to go to CM if lost and tell nearest CM when you first realize you've lost him. Hope it never happens though.

Karen

[Mufasa]

I read an article recently about an interesting use of a USB flash drive that a parent had at Disneyland (via a site called Daily Cup of Tech and a program called "Lost Drive" which was originally designed to pop up a window with your contact information if you should misplace your portable USB flash drive):

This little program saved my wife and I a lot of of grief and emotional trauma while on vacation. Read on.

I am a PopSci reader and linked to DCoT via the mag. My family, which includes two VERY energetic boys, five and three, went to Disneyland for a little get-a-way. Before we went I told my wife about the ‘I’m Lost’ program that one can install on a jump drive.

We decided to buy three 32Mb drives, which are a dime a dozen nowadays, one for each boy and one for us with the same program and ’secret phrase’ on it. We also included our cellphone numbers. Two lanyards with dangling USB drives that had a ‘I’m Lost’ label adhered to them and tucked into their shirts later, we had two boys that if got lost would be found and be reunited with us quickly.

We told the boys to cry for mom or dad if they wander off or got lost and then give the USB drive to the person that found them.

Our three year old did just what we thought he would do - Disappeared. Within 13 minutes of being ‘lost’ though, my cellphone rang. My three year old whom we thought didn’t understand what we told him about the funny thing around his neck actually did what we told him. The account from our boys ‘finder’ was humorous and panned out like this: My little redheaded boy was SCREAMING for his mom. The ‘finder’ came to help him, the boy showed the ‘finder’ the labelled USB drive, the ‘finder’ then brought him to security, security plugged the USB drive in to his computer, saw the message and called me on my cellphone. When we went to retrieve our boy the security guard asked for our USB drive with the secret phrase on it. The USB drives performed just as set up to. It had my cellphone number, my boys’ first name (first name only!) to calm him down and his favorite treat.

To say the least, D-land security was very impressed and the ‘finder’ equally impressed and my redhead boy was wearing M&M’s on his lips and chin.

There it is. Not only can you retrieve lost USB drives with this you can also find lost kids. Thank you!

It was an interesting hack and can offer some additional benefits beyond just a piece of paper (the USB drives are pretty indestructible, easy to place on a lanyard and you can always put additional information on the drive such as a recent digital photograph of yourself so it can offer an additional level of authentication and identification for CMs to be able to locate the lost parent).

But a key for any system is to talk to your kids about what to do if they're lost- it can be very stressful for both kids and parents so spending a few moments to prepare ahead of time and maybe reviewing things each day before you head to the parks is always a good plan.

[r4kids]

This is a great thread. It really comforts me to know they have such an effective plan in action to locate parents/child. We are traveling down without reinforcements this Sept. (ie- DM,DSIS'S).

[bratmaster]

If your child has any sort of food allergy or other special need you can get a medical alert ID for him. That way you can use it not only for your disney trip, but all the time if you are ever in a car accident or anything. I had one made for my son in a dog tag form for $10 off an ebay seller. It has his name, contact info., blood type, food allergy, and also mentions his heart condition and that he has autism.
Also, they last time we went i made necklaces for my 2 youngest kids with glow-in-the-dark letter beads. I put their names and contact info. and strung them to make a necklace. They were a big hit and got a lot of comliments. they were waterproof and because they glowed in the dark it made it easy to keep track of them in dark ques and at night. My kids loved wearing them.