Anyone ever had a stroller stolen at the parks?

[DannysMom]

The stroller was close to $2000, luckily insurance paid for the majority of it but it would still suck to have to replace it.

In your case (w/ a S/N stroller) I would definitely bring it thru the lines & have it parked w/ the wheelchairs. Also know that WDW is a lot of walking & is very stimulating, so don't be surprised if your son w/ CP needs to ride more than he does at home.

My son also has mild CP (we have a Maclaren Major, so not super expensive, but would majorly suck to have it taken on vacay) & while at WDW, he rides the majority of the time -- for him getting into & out of the stroller & the rides takes quite a bit out of him so his stroller is usually with us, only really getting parked right outside of attactions & @Tomorrowland so he can ride the TTA (peoplemover.)

 

[ZehnJahren]

In your case (w/ a S/N stroller) I would definitely bring it thru the lines & have it parked w/ the wheelchairs.

And if you don't always bring it through the line, what about a note on the wheelchair? It might sound crazy, but just leaving a note hanging on the handles or on the seat that says "please don't take this, it's for a special needs child named Marty" (or whoever) might either deter some people or may cause them to abandon it away from the ride if they grab and run (and therefore be found and returned to you).

I know it's not ideal, but it's another line of defense. ??

 

[CTmommyx3]

We have been 6 times or more and never had an issue. but I would always take a cheaper stroller. We got a good deal on on 75% off at target so we took it only costing us like 15! This year ds is not really in a stroller much every day he is 4 but we will bring one for disney. But not the nice jogger one of the cheaper ones we have just in case

 

[Wadecool]

I'm considering the buggy lock depending on how easy it is to attach/unattach. To me, some of the best advice I've seen is to personalize the bejesus out of the stroller with ribbons, name tags, and anything that isn't easily removable. It seems like a thief wouldn't want to take one that could be easily identified by the owner and he or she could subsequently by caught with it in their possession. Then again, while I know there are scumbags who would intentionally steal a stroller, I can't see one of them paying the $80 just to enter WDW for the chance to do it.

 

[Altoqueenkelly]

Yes, Yes. Yes. It was stolen three times in a two hour time frame. It was a Disney rental at AK and they were trying a new type of stroller. My friend and wife rented it since there were only 5 available, thus being much easier to spot. Go to breakfast at Donald's Breakfastsaurus, Gone. Find it at Dinosaur, take it back. Go to Its Tough to be a bug, Gone again. Find it near the Safari. Go to Lion King, Gone.

I took their ticket back to customer service and ask for a refund of the rental. CM said I needed to return the stroller and I explained how it was swiped three times. She refunded the money and gave me a voucher for free rentals the rest of our stay.

Anything that you do not have physical control of all the time can be stollen, just be aware of that. I think that maybe why so many people just rent at the parks.

Dan

I do wonder if the CMs moved it because they were consolidating? Or if it was moved on accident? I have had my stroller moved to different locations many times by CMs, But i always found it waiting for me in a stroller parking area.

I wanted to have my stroller stolen, but I couldn't find anyone who would help me out...

R O F L M A O

 

[mickey778]

I have taken my son 9 times with our peg and not had a problem. It does get moved by CM's but nothing more. I have seen, bug's, city mini's and many more $ strollers not locked up.

 

[GiGi30]

Yep - someone stole our son's stroller at Goofy's rollercoaster. We looked for over an hour and had given up. Found it @ Pirates and stole it back ... ARRRGGGHHH It's a Maclaren, but we had a very distinct tag still on there with our names. Idiot forgot to take it off. We left because I am pregnant and didn't want any drama and I didn't want my children to witness a potential argument. Nothing good can come from me confronting them.

A gentleman was sitting right by our stroller so we explained the situation to him and he wanted to stay and see what happened. We exchanged email addresses and he emailed us back, which we got after our vacation was over. The couple and their kid came out and the Dad was looking for "his" (our stroller). The man said, "Looking for that blue stroller you stole? The owners came and found it." He gave a nervous laugh and said "Oh, here's our stroller", and took a random one. Only thing was the real owners were right behind him and called him on it. The guy tried to run but suddenly remembered he was leaving his wife and kid behind. Security was called and the last the guy saw they were being escorted away from Pirates.
Nice example to set for your kids, huh?

We took a Sharpie and wrote our last name in several visible places on the shade of the stroller. We were completely nervous about leaving both our kid's strollers the rest of the trip. Shame that someone can pay for a Disney vacation and are too cheap to even buy a $10 umbrella stroller if they don't have one. Karma caught up with him, though.

 

[GiGi30]

Yep - someone stole our son's stroller at Goofy's rollercoaster. We looked for over an hour and had given up. Found it @ Pirates and stole it back ... ARRRGGGHHH It's a Maclaren, but we had a very distinct tag still on there with our names. Idiot forgot to take it off. We left because I am pregnant and didn't want any drama and I didn't want my children to witness a potential argument. Nothing good can come from me confronting them.

A gentleman was sitting right by our stroller so we explained the situation to him and he wanted to stay and see what happened. We exchanged email addresses and he emailed us back, which we got after our vacation was over. The couple and their kid came out and the Dad was looking for "his" (our stroller). The man said, "Looking for that blue stroller you stole? The owners came and found it." He gave a nervous laugh and said "Oh, here's our stroller", and took a random one. Only thing was the real owners were right behind him and called him on it. The guy tried to run but suddenly remembered he was leaving his wife and kid behind. Security was called and the last the guy saw they were being escorted away from Pirates.
Nice example to set for your kids, huh?

We took a Sharpie and wrote our last name in several visible places on the shade of the stroller. We were completely nervous about leaving both our kid's strollers the rest of the trip. Shame that someone can pay for a Disney vacation and are too cheap to even buy a $10 umbrella stroller if they don't have one. Karma caught up with him, though.

To add ... we had a lei from our hotel on it and that was missing. He took that off but I guess he didn't see the bright green luggage tag that had our name on it.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I believe I saw one nearly stolen.

I was in line for Peter Pan. Next to me in another row was a family of 3. The wife looked out and said to her husband "Someone is taking our stroller!". He yelled at the person and everyone cleared the way for him to jump over the chains and stop it.

It was a man, woman and child. I don't know if they meant to really steal it or just thought it was theirs but they disappeared really quick.
The husband whose stroller it was stayed with it while Mom and child rode Peter Pan.

 

[wdwlibrarian]

What about something like this? It's a bit "cutesy" for my taste, but it locks through the wheels making it difficult to move.

Stroller Cable Lock

Adorable! I am absolutely going to get one of those for our upcoming trip! We are renting two strollers from Magic Strollers, and we're paying for the theft insurance just in case. But I'd rather not have to worry about it, and these seem like the perfect solution! I can lock the wheels of the strollers together going in opposite directions, so they can be moved, but would be completely useless if you tried to roll away with them. Thanks for the link!

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

Reading these stories reminded me of the time I was accused of stealing someone's stroller about 2 1/2 years ago. My DD2 at the time wanted to go play at Pooh's play spot. So as we were walking through the entrance, she hopped off and ran in with my wife trailing her. I continued to push the stroller into the play area when a woman runs over yelling "You're taking our stroller!" then grabbed my handle. I looked at her and said "Ma'am, I just walked in, and this is our stroller". She was upset and still continued to insist it was theirs. I pointed to the carriage portion where we had stored our jackets, and our diaper bag hanging off the handle. It took another 30 seconds before a man yells over from the Pooh's treehouse "Honey, ours is over there!" and points to the stroller parking area. The woman ran towards her stroller without even a word of apology.

I can understand the confusion - the strollers looked remarkably alike. But my thought was, if someone was stealing a stroller, shouldn't they be heading away from the scene of the crime rather than towards it?

 

[bellelab]

We had a stroller stolen 2 years ago. We had bought a brand new (cheap) $14 stroller at Walmart for DD who was 4 because we figured she might need her own and wouldn't have to share with our 2-year-old DS. We weren't 2 hours into our trip when we came out of Peter Pan and couldn't find our stroller anywhere. We looked and looked and had CMs look too. It was one of those strollers that a lot of people have so I chalked it up to mistaken identity at first. It had our airline id tag on it though. Guest Relations gave us a rental for the rest of our trip. That was nice but it was still very annoying. I kept calling lost and found but no one ever returned it.

I was thinking in Sept. that I would tie a big ribbon and knot it really good around the handle and also buy a balloon the first day and tie it on for the duration of the trip (except in AK). Would those balloons last several days? Does anyone know?

 

[candielips]

I believe I saw one nearly stolen.

I was in line for Peter Pan. Next to me in another row was a family of 3. The wife looked out and said to her husband "Someone is taking our stroller!". He yelled at the person and everyone cleared the way for him to jump over the chains and stop it.

It was a man, woman and child. I don't know if they meant to really steal it or just thought it was theirs but they disappeared really quick.
The husband whose stroller it was stayed with it while Mom and child rode Peter Pan.

Yep - someone stole our son's stroller at Goofy's rollercoaster. We looked for over an hour and had given up. Found it @ Pirates and stole it back ... ARRRGGGHHH It's a Maclaren, but we had a very distinct tag still on there with our names. Idiot forgot to take it off. We left because I am pregnant and didn't want any drama and I didn't want my children to witness a potential argument. Nothing good can come from me confronting them.

A gentleman was sitting right by our stroller so we explained the situation to him and he wanted to stay and see what happened. We exchanged email addresses and he emailed us back, which we got after our vacation was over. The couple and their kid came out and the Dad was looking for "his" (our stroller). The man said, "Looking for that blue stroller you stole? The owners came and found it." He gave a nervous laugh and said "Oh, here's our stroller", and took a random one. Only thing was the real owners were right behind him and called him on it. The guy tried to run but suddenly remembered he was leaving his wife and kid behind. Security was called and the last the guy saw they were being escorted away from Pirates.
Nice example to set for your kids, huh?

We took a Sharpie and wrote our last name in several visible places on the shade of the stroller. We were completely nervous about leaving both our kid's strollers the rest of the trip. Shame that someone can pay for a Disney vacation and are too cheap to even buy a $10 umbrella stroller if they don't have one. Karma caught up with him, though.

Maybe it was the same couple at both incidents.

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

We had a stroller stolen 2 years ago. We had bought a brand new (cheap) $14 stroller at Walmart for DD who was 4 because we figured she might need her own and wouldn't have to share with our 2-year-old DS. We weren't 2 hours into our trip when we came out of Peter Pan and couldn't find our stroller anywhere. We looked and looked and had CMs look too. It was one of those strollers that a lot of people have so I chalked it up to mistaken identity at first. It had our airline id tag on it though. Guest Relations gave us a rental for the rest of our trip. That was nice but it was still very annoying. I kept calling lost and found but no one ever returned it.

I was thinking in Sept. that I would tie a big ribbon and knot it really good around the handle and also buy a balloon the first day and tie it on for the duration of the trip (except in AK). Would those balloons last several days? Does anyone know?

We tied a Mickey Mouse balloon from Main Street to our stroller last week (in addition to our leaving the luggage tag and the airline baggage tag on), and it was still good three days later when we left. Probably could have lasted another day or two if we needed it. It was very helpful as we could spot our stroller from far away distances. Was even able to spot it from Tom Sawyer's Island!

 

[squirrel]

We had a stroller stolen 2 years ago. We had bought a brand new (cheap) $14 stroller at Walmart for DD who was 4 because we figured she might need her own and wouldn't have to share with our 2-year-old DS. We weren't 2 hours into our trip when we came out of Peter Pan and couldn't find our stroller anywhere. We looked and looked and had CMs look too. It was one of those strollers that a lot of people have so I chalked it up to mistaken identity at first. It had our airline id tag on it though. Guest Relations gave us a rental for the rest of our trip. That was nice but it was still very annoying. I kept calling lost and found but no one ever returned it.

I was thinking in Sept. that I would tie a big ribbon and knot it really good around the handle and also buy a balloon the first day and tie it on for the duration of the trip (except in AK). Would those balloons last several days? Does anyone know?

I think you would be better off with a quality tag that is zip tied to the stroller.

I make my own tags and attach them to the stroller. I use mac tac (clear shelf paper, sticky on one side).

 

[Twinprincesses]

When my kids were little we took Umbrella strollers. Someone moved mine. I think what happened is they took it and used it because we found it on the opposite side at the park later that day. So I don't know if someones kid was just tired and they decided to borrow it or what happened, but it was definatly ours.

 

[squirrel]

I think the problem with the cheap strollers is people don't mark them so they get taken accidentaly. There are a lot of the same cheap strollers as people don't want to leave their expensive ones.

Marking them so that they are easily idenified as yours will help with people accidentaly taking them and can also stop someone from stealing it. If it's a $10-$20 stroller, why not mark it with a Sharpie? Unless you have a popular last name, who would want to take it?

 

[jsbrown471]

Been to Disney 20+ times...never had a stroller stolen! But can see how the rentals could be taken in error...there are tons of them and they all look alike!

 

[Twinprincesses]

I had mine marked and a couple balloons on it. Still got taken.

 

[blessedby3]

I think you would be better off with a quality tag that is zip tied to the stroller.

I make my own tags and attach them to the stroller. I use mac tac (clear shelf paper, sticky on one side).

This is what we do. I had dh make a sign out of copy paper and added Disney clip art and our last name to it. Then I had it laminated and used a hole puncher to punch 3 holes in it. I zip tied it to the handle of our stroller....very easy to spot. I also made 2 smaller signs out of 1/2 piece of copy paper with our name and clip art and zip tied those to each side of the stroller. We have never had a stroller taken in our 20 years of taking a stroller to WDW. Definately have had the cm's move them, but not one stolen.
I did have my shower curtain stolen right off the stroller while in the Philharmagic Thanks to the idiots who took it and had their stroller remain dry...while ours did not!