4 year olds and finger prints

[PrincessWithABlaster]

On our trip last week my DS4 consistently had problems getting into the parks in the morning. Half the time they had to call a second CM over to reset the tapstiles to try again (it seems like they also reset the sensitivity or something because the 3 times it happened to us, DS tried 3 times, the CM came over and then it worked on the next try). It was not an issue of forgetting which finger because I paid attention our first day and told my DS every morning what finger to use. My niece, also 4, was with us a couple days and she had the same problem. Anyone else have this issue? Anyone have any suggestions other than to make sure an adult knows what finger it's supposed to be? I feel like on our trip last year they didn't require my son to do a fingerprint. I thought I remember them saying young children didn't have to even if they needed a ticket (he was 3 and did need a ticket last year) so I don't know if the policy changed. But it's rather annoying.

 

[ArielSRL]

Yeh, I don't remember my 4 yr old needing to do it last year. Interesting....

 

[abnihon]

They had me do the fingerprint for my son.
They said it doesn't register well on their small fingers.

 

[chiisai]

We were there with our 7 yo last month and our first day they had me do my finger for her. They told me it would be much faster for us. (She is very small and appears to be around 5.)

We went when she was 5, too, and she did her own finger, then.

Maybe they are having issues with some update.

 

[Jonas_Swe]

Yeah, sure sounds like an update / software issue. Hope it's just temporary.

And I could also understand that a very young / small child's fingertips could be difficult to read.

 

[Hopefully]

Just as a point of clarification - because it is important to some here - they do not use real "fingerprints" like the police do. It is a biometric scan. Similar but different

 

[istillbelieve]

Last week I used my fingerprint for my 6 year old daughter and my husband used his for my 7 year old son. One night my son and I wanted to go and my husband didn't but he came because we realized it was his fingerprint attached to his ticket. I am assuming we could have gotten him in if push came to shove, but just think about that when you choose who's fingerprint you use with your kids ticket.

 

[emilyrachael]

We had the same problem with my 3.5 year old son last week. We didn't want to use one of our fingers for the scanner because he has an AP and might go with the grandparents on a future trip. Finally, we realized his 'fingerprint' worked the best if it was the side of his finger, not the front (yeah, don't get my started on the 'accuracy' of the scanners...) It was very annoying.

 

[RachaelA]

We had issues literally every single time with my 5.5 year old this past weekend Friday-Monday. It was so annoying. She had no issues in October/November and that was a 12 day trip.

 

[Sleepy425]

They took a picture of my son (age 4), and used my fingerprint. This way if my husband brought him to the park his picture was on file (which did happen later in the trip).

 

[DisneyMom2000000]

At first they used my daughter's finger, but we had issues with it as well. So someone had me scan my finger and they took her picture. I used my finger every time since and it was no problem.

 

[ColoradoMom12]

We were in DW spring break, and my youngest (age 5) had problems every morning! We rope dropped every park, and it was so annoying when we ran into this problem every single day. I'm sure the people behind us were delighted, too (we were second in line one morning at Epcot). I don't remember having so much trouble with my DD's fingerprint last year. I know she was fingerprinted then (age 4), but we certainly did not run into problems every day. I was sure she was doing it properly (a few CMs acted like it was her fault for not holding her finger still...she knows she drill, though, and I was sure the issue wasn't something she was/wasn't doing). I guess it's good to know other families with kids this age are also experiencing problems with it. Hopefully that means DW is aware of it and can get it resolved! I did not like being slowed down every morning at one of the busiest times of the year.

 

[DopeyDame]

They told us to use my finger on my 4 year olds. They assured me that if she was alone there with dad, she wouldn't have any problem getting in (they'd just reset it). Tehy have my 7 year old use his own, and it was hit or miss for him. One trick a CM told us, that seemed to work a lot, was to make sure that the child is stretching out their entire hand really straight (sort of like if you wanted to stretch your finger muscles or something) rather than bending back the other fingers. Not sure why it made a difference, but it seemed to.

 

[jeni16]

We were just there last week. We found that the problem was that he wasn't putting his finger all of the way to the top of the scanner. Once we made sure it was up to the top all of the time, we didn't have any more problems.

 

[AngiTN]

It's a combo of the way the data is collected and their small fingers
An adult finger is large enough to fill the "window" so it's the same scan each time
A child's finger isn't so the scan changes just enough each time they place it on the "window" that it causes the system to not recognize their finger
It's a PITA

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

I believe it was last summer that they then decided to require children ages 3-9 to also use the biometric finger scanner. (It's not a finger print).
At that time they were telling adults that they could use their finger but that was causing problems because if one parent did it first time and the other parent took the child to a park alone then it wouldn't work.

I personally have always had an issue with the biometric finger scanner since they introduced it.
I believe they introduced the old style where you had to squeeze your fingers in 2004 and I just could not get it to work right so I always havd to use my other hand to squeeze my fingers together.
Once they introduced the newer version that was attached to the turnstile it would work the first time and then after would not work the rest of the trip.
They were constantly telling me I was doing the wrong finger because I was using my middle finger.
The reason I used my middle finger was because my cat had bit my pointer finger the day before the trip and it was actually pretty deep and I had a bandage on. After a couple days I removed the bandage but I had already used my middle finger plus it still hurt really bad so I wasn't about to touch it to anything.
Since the introduction of the tapstiles the finger scanner definitely seems to be more sensitive to my finger and I have much less issues and I still use my middle finger because its just my go to now lol.
Only time I have a problem is when park hopping. For some reason if I go to a second park in one day it turns blue. Although that did not happen this past trip but it did to my sister and it took 5 minutes and then they had to take her pic and info in case she was proven to not be the rightful ticket holder later.

It can be frustrating when you see everyone else walking in and you're stuck there waiting.

 

[IWRBIE]

For our last two trips (October 2016 and April 2017) we couldn't get it to work with any sort of consistency for our five year old and ended up pairing his magic band to my wife's finger both times.

 

[Accident]

The problem with disney is there is too many kids.. "yes it's a joke but wouldn't it be nice if...."/.

 

[scard192]

They took a picture of my son (age 4), and used my fingerprint. .

they did the same thing last November for my 6 year old niece. She knew which finger it was and it worked the first dew days, then it didn't anymore. so my sis used her fingerprint for the rest of the trip.

 

[gratefulfred]

This problem sounds like fun. We are going this fall with the older 10 day non expiring tickets and are only using 4 days. My daughter is six years old. Next time we go she will be in her teens. No way will we remember which finger she used by then ( ridiculous to think we would) and she is obviously going to grow so I doubt it would recognize her anyway