A Missing Kid Story

[threewilmingtonwalls]

OK.so the braclet only works in the clubs/rooms correct? does it sound a warning or alarm if a child tries to leave the club?

AKK

Not on the Magic. I have had my daughter try to "tap" too fast and have to turn around after already passing thorough to gate. No alarms.

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[MrsScooby]

I dont blame him for acting irrationally, I'm sure he wasn't thinking rationally. But where are the KTTW concerns when another guest takes your kid into his/her stateroom ? the problem is not that your kid is missing, its that you realize extremely quickly that you are now powerless to protect them. That doesn't mean that every time a kid wanders away from their parents that something bad happens, but its also true that the statistics of these things rapidly become irrelevant when its your kid.

The kid getting off the ship ( however unlikely) is indeed a nightmare but that's not to say that bad things could not have happened to the kid ON the ship either.

Oh I'd have panicked as well, my point was that he was making the whole situation worse than it actually was by not thinking things through well enough. Been there done that myself. But at least I know my weaknesses.

This is all 20/20 hindsight of course and as others have pointed out we don't know what was actually said to the dad, why he jumped to the assumptions that he did or how long it took for them to actually locate his son as he was running around the ship in a panic.
Did the CMs try to assure him that the kid had to be in the club somewhere because their system would have alerted them otherwise? Maybe the dad was too panicked to hear this?

if this had happened to me I would have kicked myself for not looking closer in that club. The kid was there. Both he and the CM missed him. The CM should have known better, yes, and now they do.

The dad continuing the saga on the internet in the way he is doing after DCL tried to make it up to him...that seems unreasonable to me.

 

[Jugglemom]

I am not sure why people are questioning the father's decision to go public with this? If my chid was missing on dcl for 45 minutes I would definitely want to publicize it and see if it has possibly happened to anyone else. widespread publicity is often what leads companies to change their policies and in the end, if there is a flaw in the system there should be publicity and change.

It s doubtful he could sue as per the contract there was no actual injury.

The bottom line is that I, for one, was very excited about my upcoming cruise and now I regret my decision based on the descriptions here about the kids club. I had hoped to be able to dine at Remy once and also for my children to participate in some of the activities as they are very social children. The feedback I have gotten from this thread is that it is not necessarily a safe place for a 3 year old - which leads me to wonder why it is even an option and why it is marketed as such. I am not asking for hand holding or lullabies but I do want to know that my children are safe while in the kids club (which to means more than just not being able to get; I mean, you can't get out of prison but you aren't necessarily safe there either).

I really don't understand the defense of seemingly inadequate kids policies compared to other cruiselines. I am hoping that it has been misrepresented and that I will come back inning a different tune.

 

[manhattanman]

On the Magic (and I would guess also on the Wonder) they do not tell you where in the Club or Lab your child is. The Dream and Fantasy may be more technologically advanced, but what jjje said about the kids' spaces on Magic is correct.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

My bad, I've never been on the Wonder and read the consumerist and somehow got the wrong impression that he was on the dream ( probably because we sailed around the same time and I remember wondering whether it happened on the cruise we were on).

but he was on the wonder, I have no idea about how it works on that ship but I though he was on the dream so I related my experience.

 

[MrsScooby]

I am not sure why people are questioning the father's decision to go public with this? If my chid was missing on dcl for 45 minutes I would definitely want to publicize it and see if it has possibly happened to anyone else. widespread publicity is often what leads companies to change their policies and in the end, if there is a flaw in the system there should be publicity and change.

It s doubtful he could sue as per the contract there was no actual injury.

The bottom line is that I, for one, was very excited about my upcoming cruise and now I regret my decision based on the descriptions here about the kids club. I had hoped to be able to dine at Remy once and also for my children to participate in some of the activities as they are very social children. The feedback I have gotten from this thread is that it is not necessarily a safe place for a 3 year old - which leads me to wonder why it is even an option and why it is marketed as such. I am not asking for hand holding or lullabies but I do want to know that my children are safe while in the kids club (which to means more than just not being able to get; I mean, you can't get out of prison but you aren't necessarily safe there either).

I really don't understand the defense of seemingly inadequate kids policies compared to other cruiselines. I am hoping that it has been misrepresented and that I will come back inning a different tune.

Seriously when you see what the clubs are like first hand you'll understand the debate more

 

[justmestace]

I am not sure why people are questioning the father's decision to go public with this? If my chid was missing on dcl for 45 minutes I would definitely want to publicize it and see if it has possibly happened to anyone else. widespread publicity is often what leads companies to change their policies and in the end, if there is a flaw in the system there should be publicity and change.

It s doubtful he could sue as per the contract there was no actual injury.

The bottom line is that I, for one, was very excited about my upcoming cruise and now I regret my decision based on the descriptions here about the kids club. I had hoped to be able to dine at Remy once and also for my children to participate in some of the activities as they are very social children. The feedback I have gotten from this thread is that it is not necessarily a safe place for a 3 year old - which leads me to wonder why it is even an option and why it is marketed as such. I am not asking for hand holding or lullabies but I do want to know that my children are safe while in the kids club (which to means more than just not being able to get; I mean, you can't get out of prison but you aren't necessarily safe there either).

I really don't understand the defense of seemingly inadequate kids policies compared to other cruiselines. I am hoping that it has been misrepresented and that I will come back inning a different tune.

I agree with your comment highlighted above, and just as a note, he NEVER said he was going to try to sue. Ever.

 

[manhattanman]

I am not sure why people are questioning the father's decision to go public with this? If my chid was missing on dcl for 45 minutes I would definitely want to publicize it and see if it has possibly happened to anyone else. widespread publicity is often what leads companies to change their policies and in the end, if there is a flaw in the system there should be publicity and change.

It s doubtful he could sue as per the contract there was no actual injury.

The bottom line is that I, for one, was very excited about my upcoming cruise and now I regret my decision based on the descriptions here about the kids club. I had hoped to be able to dine at Remy once and also for my children to participate in some of the activities as they are very social children. The feedback I have gotten from this thread is that it is not necessarily a safe place for a 3 year old - which leads me to wonder why it is even an option and why it is marketed as such..

I'm not sure why you come to this conclusion, its not like they found the kid juggling knives or anything. The kid was safe and sleeping. The issue is why didn't they know where the boy was. if the bracelets are to measure entry and exit, I'm not sure how the signal could be characterized as
" unavailable"

I am pretty happy with the level of security on the dream, my kids loved it and I never once got the impression that they CM's were not overtly if not near pathologically concerned with security. When you get on the ship go to the kids club and see the level of security, I think it will assuage your concerns pretty quickly.

 

[justmestace]

NEVER SAY NEVER.

I would never say that a child could NEVER get out of the clubs.

It could happen.


People say never to an awful lot of things.....and then something called "an accident" happens and their world could be changed forever.



I don't find it unreasonable that the man thought the cruise director or maybe even the Captain could come to his table at dinner to apoligize. In my "incident" the cruise director came to MY table at dinner.....and I didn't even ask him to. He offered me "everything in his power to make this right". I overestimated his power, and so did the man whose little boy was missing.
On top of the dinner visit, the CD and the heads of a few of the other departments came TO MY ROOM every day. So it's not unreasonable for the man to think someone could show up at dinner.

I thought they came to check on me because I thought they cared. I thought they told me that someone shoreside would help me get a refund or whatever because it was true. I thought when they told me they had my accident on video, they were telling the truth, and that it would show the insurance company what had happened. See, I didn't ask DCL for a refund, or a free cruise...I had trip insurance and I was going to go that route. Until DCL's shoreside called me and told me that everyone onboard lied to me.

Again, I've cruised DCL since then, and I will again, but I won't ever believe them, if myself or someone else has an accident or incident. I've learned a lot from that.

 

[ilovetexas]

I'm not sure why you come to this conclusion, its not like they found the kid juggling knives or anything. The kid was safe and sleeping. The issue is why didn't they know where the boy was. if the bracelets are to measure entry and exit, I'm not sure how the signal could be characterized as
" unavailable"

I am pretty happy with the level of security on the dream, my kids loved it and I never once got the impression that they CM's were not overtly if not near pathologically concerned with security. When you get on the ship go to the kids club and see the level of security, I think it will assuage your concerns pretty quickly.

The level of security doesn't mean squat if a kid's bracelet doesn't work, he "disappears", and the CMs don't IMMEDIATELY start an all hands on deck search of the club.

I don't know why I keep reading this thread although it does amuse me. Do the cheerleaders even realize that Disney reads these things? You've all just given them permission to "lose" your kid, blow off your concerns, not communicate properly about whats being done to find your kid, then pass you off to someone shore-side. Congrats!! The next time a cheerleader on this thread complains about ANYTHING kid or service related on DCL, I hope someone links them back here so they can see their comments minimizing this man's experience.

 

[KappaSigHero]

I agree with your comment highlighted above, and just as a note, he NEVER said he was going to try to sue. Ever.

He never posted it in a blog, at least.

 

[manhattanman]

The level of security doesn't mean squat if a kid's bracelet doesn't work, he "disappears", and the CMs don't IMMEDIATELY start an all hands on deck search of the club. .[/COLOR][/B]

its an electronic device, sometimes they fail or malfunction. I agree that they should have sent CM's into the club to literally shake the bushes , but if you have faith in a system that says that the kid is not there, I can see why you might want to marshall resources elsewhere.

what I dont understand is if, on the wonder, there are no detectors inside the club, then what does " unavailable" mean ? Could it mean that when he was checked in, it didn't actually record that he was in the club ( that seems far more likely than an phantom scan of the child leaving) ?

 

[dansamy]

not the same, the kids wear them all the time, inside and outside of the clubs. they get if the first time and they are supposed to keep it on the entire time, then return the bracelet at the end.

my understanding is that the RFID dectectors are only in the kids club although how deeply vested in analytics disney is ( my understanding is that fastpass plus is pretty much this to track and analyse individuals withing WDW) it would not surprise me if there were detectors in other parts of the ship.

I'm okay with my kids being guinea pigs to improve customer experiences, so long as they dont misplace them.

Our patients under a particular age wear their band the entire hospitalization also. The receivers however are only located in the pediatric & maternal wards. To send a child to another area, such as for tests, we have to tell the system to stop looking for a signal from that band for a given period of time. When the patient returns, the system will see the signal & resume monitoring. The major differences I note from the descriptions of Disney's system are the band durability, the ability to "check in/out" a band into the monitoring & the lack of a door alarm to indicate an unauthorized exit.

 

[sftnslky]

I'm NOT judging who was right/wrong refund/passes etc... What I am saying is when my DD was 4 she got lost in Target and they had LOTS of procedures in place to find her...from calling out a code, to radioing all the team members, alerting security, the store manager and having someone stand by the doors watching for her with all the folks leaving the store. This all happened literally within 3 minutes. I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that a HUGE company like Disney doesn't have the same if not more procedures in place. I mean if Target can ....

And yes they found my DD actually in a shopping cart with a woman trying to leave the store Now it took 11 minutes to find her...and I was so RELIEVED to have my DD back that it never crossed my mind to ask Target for some type of compensation.

 

[KappaSigHero]

its an electronic device, sometimes they fail or malfunction. I agree that they should have sent CM's into the club to literally shake the bushes , but if you have faith in a system that says that the kid is not there, I can see why you might want to marshall resources elsewhere.

what I dont understand is if, on the wonder, there are no detectors inside the club, then what does " unavailable" mean ? Could it mean that when he was checked in, it didn't actually record that he was in the club ( that seems far more likely than an phantom scan of the child leaving) ?

The dad's term was "Unreadable", which is taken from what the CM told him. Unless we have a screenshot of the computer from that moment, and understand the system fully, we're going to continue to be guessing. Or, to use what's become a popular term, "ASSUMING".

It's worth investigating, though.

 

[jjje]

I don't know why I keep reading this thread although it does amuse me. Do the cheerleaders even realize that Disney reads these things? You've all just given them permission to "lose" your kid, blow off your concerns, not communicate properly about whats being done to find your kid, then pass you off to someone shore-side. Congrats!! The next time a cheerleader on this thread complains about ANYTHING kid or service related on DCL, I hope someone links them back here so they can see their comments minimizing this man's experience.

Yeah, I'm sure my kids are totally on a "ok to lose" list now. Never mind. The ability to ignore certain people is a wonderful thing.

 

[KappaSigHero]

Yeah, I'm sure my kids are totally on a "ok to lose" list now. Do you suppose Disney will let me see the file they've put together on me based on what I've written here? That might be the most ridiculous thing I've read on these boards so far.

Wow, you're such a cheerleader. I'm calling you that because the best way to counter someone's argument is to call them names

 

[manhattanman]

The dad's term was "Unreadable", which is taken from what the CM told him. Unless we have a screenshot of the computer from that moment, and understand the system fully, we're going to continue to be guessing. Or, to use what's become a popular term, "ASSUMING".

It's worth investigating, though.

unreadable is surely different from unavailable and completely different from " not present".

I was basing my information on my experience on the dream where you can track kids within the club and "unreadable" becomes nonsenical.

One possibility is that instead of the boy getting out that he was never porperly recognized as being in the club, or that the rfid recognized a signal but could not assign it to a unique ID ( the boy in question). but i have no idea how likely this is and I suspect that no one else in the thread does either.

no one is speaking from a position of authority trying to affix blame, its not an assumption that they could not ( for whatever reason) find this man's child for three quaters of an hour. unless of course, he's a liar with ulterior motives.

 

[Jugglemom]

I'm not sure why you come to this conclusion, its not like they found the kid juggling knives or anything. The kid was safe and sleeping. The issue is why didn't they know where the boy was. if the bracelets are to measure entry and exit, I'm not sure how the signal could be characterized as
" unavailable"

I am pretty happy with the level of security on the dream, my kids loved it and I never once got the impression that they CM's were not overtly if not near pathologically concerned with security. When you get on the ship go to the kids club and see the level of security, I think it will assuage your concerns pretty quickly.

Several people on this thread have mentioned that there is no actual supervision and that the 3 year olds are not supervised independently from the 12 year olds. Others have mentioned that they would not leave a 3 yo in the kids club because of the commingling of age groups. To me, safety means more than simply not being able to leave the kids club. With all the nooks and crannies described in this thread, the lack of supervision and the variety of ages grown together it seems that there could be a safety concern within the club especially for the younger kids. What I have garnered from this thread is less a fear that my child would escape but more so a feeling that if not being supervised they get seriously hurt by one of the much older kids.

 

[KappaSigHero]

unreadable is surely different from unavailable and completely different from " not present".

I was basing my information on my experience on the dream where you can track kids within the club and "unreadable" becomes nonsenical.

One possibility is that instead of the boy getting out that he was never porperly recognized as being in the club, or that the rfid recognized a signal but could not assign it to a unique ID ( the boy in question). but i have no idea how likely this is and I suspect that no one else in the thread does either.

no one is speaking from a position of authority trying to affix blame, its not an assumption that they could not ( for whatever reason) find this man's child for three quaters of an hour. unless of course, he's a liar with ulterior motives.

I agree with you that there's a lot to be questioned. My point wasn't to discount your opinion- it was to add on to the vagueness of much of the information.

I think that many are trying to affix blame (yay Internet!)- my use of the term assumption is from the fact that each side only thinks that the other side's assumptions are assumptions.

 

[manhattanman]

Several people on this thread have mentioned that there is no actual supervision and that the 3 year olds are not supervised independently from the 12 year olds. Others have mentioned that they would not leave a 3 yo in the kids club because of the commingling of age groups. To me, safety means more than simply not being able to leave the kids club. With all the nooks and crannies described in this thread, the lack of supervision and the variety of ages grown together it seems that there could be a safety concern within the club especially for the younger kids. What I have garnered from this thread is less a fear that my child would escape but more so a feeling that if not being supervised they get seriously hurt by one of the much older kids.

are your children in the presence of a CM the entire time ? No. But when I was granted access to pick up my kids, there were tons of CM's there supervising the kids doing lots of different activities. It's not like chuck e cheese with kids running wild, and I actually like that the kids can play independently and switch midstream to something else.

but if you are not comfortable leaving your kids with strangers, that's certainly your choice, I dont begrudge it in the least. I dont even know if my experience is representative or not, but my kids really liked the clubs and I never really had any concerns regarding their safety. but you get to make that decison for yourself.