Any Lost Children horror stories??

[Robinbare]

Last night my family was at MGM for Fantasmic. As we were walking the long walk-way up to the show, we noticed a small child maybe 2 years old wandering by himself with his little sippy cup! A lady in front of me went over to the little boy , he was lost & crying mommie! She picked him up and tried to comfort him. I saw her take him to a cast member. I was astounded. It made me shudder to think of that happening to me! The fantasmic show was a packed house! As I looked accross the bleachers I thought OMG how could this child ever find his mommy??? I sure hope the liitle fellow got where he belonged. I know the parents were frantic. I thought to myself if that lady was a bad person she could have just left with him!!!

 

[Terry S]

I have come accross many lost childern in WDW. I always stay with the child (without touching the child) and have my husband go and get a CM. I usually joke with the child and ask them if their mom and dad got lost just to try and calm them down until the CM arrives. Most of them time the parents show up within about 5 minutes frantic but usually say thank you! Last month I did have a parent come running at the child, CM and me, grab the child and just run!

It does happen quite often at WDW and the CM's have very clear instructions they are to follow.

 

[ILoveWDW2003]

There are no lost children at Disney, only lost parents.

 

[bethyg]

I have had a personal experience with a lost child. Our first WDW trip, our son was 8. We stayed at CB and he and I were in the main hall looking at the gift shops. He asked to play games in the arcade and I allowed him to go since it was right beside the gift shop. I instructed him to STAY THERE and I would be right back after I finished my purchase. Needless to say, within 2 minutes he was gone. I immediately found a CM and an APB went out throughout the resort to be on the lookout for him and his description was given out via radio to every CM within seconds of my report. A CM stayed with me the entire time we searched the main hall while every other CM knew to be looking for him. We called our room to inform my husb. that son had gone AWOL. My husb. walked our usual path from our room and the main hall and happened across our son walking back to the room. A CM recognized our son by the description and would not allow my husb. to escort him alone until I identified him as the boy's father. The whole scene was taken care of in less than 10 min. and I felt completely safe that no one would be allowed out of the resort with my son.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I got separated from my DD6 at the Mickey pool during the (very loud and very crowded) sailaway party on the Disney Wonder. I'd left our table to sit near her on the edge of the pool and in the time it took me to walk over there she must have ran back to the table when she didn't see me and began to cry. Another parent took her to a CM while I was still looking around the pool. It turned out to be a lot of miscommunication with a CM at the pool telling us they were sending out a "search party" for her and us combing the whole pool area. Turns out she was taken to the kids club but for 40 painstaking minutes we didn't know where she was.

I've read on other threads that the policy at WDW is for CMs to stay with the lost child for a while and usually the parents come to find the child. In light of our experience I think that's a good policy; I really wish they weren't so quick to take her away from the pool area. Nor did we know that the kids club is where they take lost children. Luckily she wasn't injured in the pool which was one of my biggest fears (the other of course that she'd been abducted even though my rational mind said it couldn't be; not on a Disney Cruise that's headed out to sea). Luckily she was fine and we still had a great cruise. We had just gotten through telling the kids if we got separated to stay put and we would come to them; all I could think of at the time was how scared she must have been without us...

 

[cdntourguide]

On our October trip, my neice was constantly walking away and everyone would spend about ten minutes looking for her before we found her. She kept saying that she needed time along. Well needless to say on Holloween night during the sold out MMSHP she wandered off on her own but by this time we were tired of looking for her so we went to the next place on our list, which was down in the seating are infront of the Plaza Restaurant to watch the Fireworks display knowing that she would eventually show up there. About one hour later she shows up: limping. She tripped over a rough section of the pavement infront of the Stitch ride and literally pulled down two other people with two other people falling on those three. She popped out her knee and had to have it pulled back into place (this happens quite often with her, she should were her knee brace all the time but you know kids: it does not look cool).
The tear streaks were prominent on her face when she showed up, wondering why we did not look for her. Well, we all felt guilty for a couple of minutes, but finally she agreed that she should not have wandered off on her own. For the next eight days she always remained with at least one other person.
By the way: this child was 32 years old.

 

[CamColt]

Once at ASMO when we were waiting for the elevator. When it opend a very young girl(maybe 2) was in it alone. We finally found her older sisters(not much older) who were supposed to be watching her.

 

[picantel]

We were in the downtown disney pin shop and our 3 year old just took off to see the giant buzz lightyear without saying a word. For 5 minutes we could not find him and let me tell you with a lost child 5 minutes is a lifetime. We finally heard weeping and noticed him with a cast member. It gets worse. We took him to the lego store to calm him(and ourselves) down and he went into that house and somehow slipped out a back door and once again took off ourside the lego store and it started all over again. We found him crying with another CM. Needless to say, the new rule in downtown disney is he must ALWAYS hold a parent's hand and is not allowed to give it up for any reason.

 

[Tinkim]

In our infinite wisdom, we decided last January to go to WDW with a friend and her family. Now, I love this friend dearly . . . she is my best friend. . . otherwise we would never had attempted such a thing. My kids at the time were DS10, DS9, and DD6. Her kids were DD14, DD6, and DD5. Her DD6 was constantly not paying attention and wandering off. It was making me a nervous wreck and I told my DH "that child is going to get lost before the end of the day." I think my friend was in awe of everything around her and just wasn't paying attention as she normally would. So we all get in the queue for Splash Mountain and get on a boat. I turned around and said "Uh where is Cortney?" Everyone proceeded to check their seat and lo and behold no Cortney. It wasn't a very enjoyable ride to say the least. We were wondering what could have happened and where she was. When we got off the ride she was sitting with a CM with a very sad look on her face. Then later that night we watched Wishes. We decided to leave a few minutes before it was over to avoid the mass exodus and friend's DD14 is holding DD6's hand. Well this time I turned around and both DD14 and DD6 are missing. DD14 is not very responsible so now I am thinking she probably lost her sister and we will never find either of them. We had to wait at the exit as the park emptied out while CMs were looking for them. They did get separated as DD6 tripped and DD14 lost sight of her (obviously she was not holding her hand). For the rest of the week, I insisted that both of her DD's be holding someone's hand at all times. My DH was very aggravated. Her DD's were mad because my DD who is the same age did not have to hold my hand. But my kids have been before and they know that they must be walking right beside us at all times and if they fall behind and we don't see them they are to yell "wait for me!" I found it a very stressful week as far as that went but by the end of the vacation if either of her kids couldn't see my DH they would yell "wait for me, Dan!" in a panic. As a side note you should really try to make a mental note of what your kids are wearing in the morning or take a picture with your digital camera if you have one. My friend could not remember what either of her kids were wearing that day to describe to the CM. Luckily, I remembered what they were both wearing and it turned out okay. . . but it may be at a stressful time like that when you can't remember much of anything. This year we are going alone, the kids and I, and it will probably be a long time before we try to go with my friend's family again at least until her kids are older.

 

[CRSNDSNY]

Twice in one trip we came across two different children on two different occasions who were screaming and crying because they lost their family. For some reason, they each felt compelled to come running to us for help. I'm glad, though. Each time we've taken them to a CM to get help locating their party. This must be very frightening for a child -- it's so easy to get lost in crowds.

 

[Mortlives]

The first time I took my family to WDW, DS was 10. Before we went, we stressed upon him again and again that he Must Stay With Us At All Times and not wander off. We arrived at CBR, and checked in, and then went over to the bell services counter as directed. Turned around, guess who's gone! That's right, he hadn't been at Disney World for 10 minutes before he wandered off. We found him after a short search, watching the lobby cartoons. But, how nice to start our Disney vacation with that kind of scare.

Kungaloosh!
Morticia.

 

[shellybaxter]

On the last full day of our May 2004 trip DH took niece Jonna to the pool at AKL to swim while I packed all the bags. We thought this would be easier. It was - for me First, you need to know that DH and I have NO children, so he's not in practice with the ways of little ones. I, on the other hand, am a preschool teaher, so I usually "dealt" with Jonna

After about two hours DH decided it was time to go, he sucessfully got Jonna out of the pool, which was a feat in and of itself - she LOVED swimming. That's when thinks went bad. DH's next decision was that he should take Jonna's life vest off, that way she wouldn't run back into the pool. You all know what's coming right? Jonna bolted from her uncle and ran up the pool slide before DH had his shoes on. Thankfully there was another "daddy" at the bottom of the pool slide that "caught" Jonna and handed her to DH. They then started walking back to the room. DH was taking the life vest back to the bin and Jonna broke away from his hand and ran into the Lodge. By the time he got to the elevators he found Jonna "chatting" with a CM. The CM told DH that she was pretty sure Jonna had run away from someone. Thankfully she stopped her. She knew her way back to the room, but I'm not sure she could have gotten off on the right floor from the elevator.

I actually expected this to happen more often. Jonna's parents don't take her places very often and she is very independent. While we were in the parks I used a harness so she wouldn't run or wander away. I know people think they are "bad" and "leashes for children". I used to be one of those people. But I'll take one of those anyday, over a lost child in a disney park

Shelly

 

[gracelrm]

We lost our son, who was about 5 at the time, at Blizzard Beach. There was some miscommunications between his father and I and we each thought the other was with him. Anyway, we were stupid and began to look for him on our own. I didn't know which horrible fate had occured; had he been abducted or did he drown? We searched frantically for probably 20-30 minutes (seemed like hours) and finally got smart and saw a Disney person with a radio. He calmly asked if we'd checked the "lost parent" site, which we hadn't and that's where we found him. He was with a CM at the place where you rented lockers and was having fun coloring. The CM gave us a stern look (I guess he was there longer than the average lost child) and I explained we had been looking all over for him. The CM suggested if it ever happened again to always immediately notify a CM and we would be reunited much faster than by looking for him ourselves. A year or so later, I was waiting for DH and kids to get off a ride and noticed a young boy, about 8 or so, who had lost his parents. I observed the entire procedure that the CMs followed and they did a wonderful job with the young guy. It made me feel much better about having misplaced my own child by watching how well the CMs handled the situation. I'm guessing it happens alot!!!!!!

 

[AJKMOM]

I have a now 16 year old autistic son, so I have more than one horror story. The worst was in one of the pavilions with games, and he broke away from me. We found him sitting in a strangers lap watching her play one of the video-type games.

Most frightening didn't involve Disney, but at SeaWorld in Ohio when he was 3, after dark. He went down the same slide 22 times, and at 23, chose a different one. My husband couldn't find him and wsa frantic. Turns out, my 2 older kids and I were walking down the steps of the climbing rope structure, and I said "Kids, watch out for this little boy so you don't knock him over" I looked and it was my missing kid! Guardian Angel was in high gear that night!

 

[MaryKatesMom]

We were coming out of Fantasmic heading for our stroller. The crush of humanity was unbelievable. My DH was carrying a sleeping DD2 and I was clutching the clothes on my DD4. I was holding her too tightly for her hand so I had my strongest grip on her clothes.

I don't know how it happened but during the long walk down she was wrenched from my grasp. I could still see her but I just couldn't get to her. I swear I shoved people stupid enough to walk between us. You couldn't move sideways, only straight ahead it was so crowded. I never lost sight of her but it took all the way to the bottom and me elbowing people before I could get to her. All the while yelling "Mary Kate! Mary Kate!"

Really unbelievable until you see that huge crowd.

 

[plutofreak]

This happened many years ago

My family and I were at River Country, and my brother who was about 10 at the time got lost. He was very small for his age, short and skinny. My parents told a CM and the search began.
If you've ever been to RC you know the water isn't clear. They had CM's searching the water to see if he had drowned. And there was no sign of my brother. We were very worried. We search for over an Hour and no sight of him. CM's were yelling his name to see if he would answer. Finally, they decided to look in all the lines. They finally found him behind an intertube in line for one of the slides. he was so small that holding the intertube to go up the slide hide him from view. It was very scarry, but thank god all turned out well

 

[YetanotherMouseFan]

No. But, once when DD (5 at the time) was throwing a tantrum over some expensive trinket we couldn't buy her, I fantasized about it!