How do you stay together in a crowd??

[experiment626mom]

Okay we have the lost children threads, so how do you prevent it from happening? Especially when the crowds get a little pressing, you know coming out of Fantasmic, after Illuminations etc.

My dd is short for her age, all ways has been all ways will be. We waited until she was 9 to make sure that she was tall enough to ride everything. Well one night we went to see Fantasmic, and of course got stuck in the crush upon leaving. Holding hands wasn't working and I could tell dd was starting to panic.I wedged her between ds who was 14(and 5'11") and myself. Told her to hang on to the bottom of his shirt and I would hang on to the bottom of hers. DS grabbed the bottom of dh's shirt and off we went.

To this day if any of us feels like we are getting seperated, whether we are at WDW or not, we grab on to the bottom of a shirt. It's actually pretty soothing.

 

[zurgswife]

I prefer to let the masses begin to exit before i even try...It is still very crowded but not like a cattle herd....But when it does get crowded holding hands usually works.

 

[lovethattink]

We take our good old time getting out of Fantasmic. We have AP's, but I can count the number of times we've seen Fatasmic on one hand. It's my favorite show at WDW, but DS just doesn't like it. Either we leave before the show ends, or we hang out until the crowds thin, then exit.

 

[lovinwdw]

Last year we went with my nieces. My DH & I took 1 of them with us to see Spectromagic and Wishes. What we did, because the crowd was so enormous, was he was in front, my DN was in the middle and I was behind her. It kept us all together.

 

[tifandjim]

I thought only my family did the whole "hold on to my shirt" thing!! lol My parents started that when I was 11 and my sister was 6! That is hillarious! Now, I always hold on to my husband's shirt. My sister and I were just joking, yesterday, that we are going to have to teach my neice to hold on to our shirt!

 

[poohlover]

With 6 kids we have lots of experience trying to keep them together. I have dressed the kids in the same color...but LOTS of people split us up. Not thinking that a "family" could be that large.

Holding hands, pairing older with younger kids...when the older ons were "old" enough. We pretty much avoided all the "mass exit times" when they were very little. Even now I make sure my older ones know how to get back to the hotel...use cell phones if separated...and I am always "scanning" my kids.

Teach your kids WHO cast members are...I always told the kids to go into stores...to the "balloon man"...to the pin person if they got separated.

We only lost one once...we split up for test track & I was riding with my 2 older DD's...DH was "watching" my 3 DS's(8,5, 3) & & DD(1 yr) well one DS (the 3 yr old) was "looking at the cars" & got in ONE!!! My DH "lost" him for about 5 minutes before a CM "found" him in the car! FAST ASLEEP!!


this last trip my "little" one was 6...no stroller & we were MUCH more relaxed. With all the trips we have taken the kids know their way around disney REAL well!

 

[orangebreezer]

Trying to keep hold of your kids can be a nightmare, not helped when some people are in such a rush to get out themselves that they start to push in front of you and split your family up. I have been know on occasions to say very loudly but politely "excuse me, do you mind if I stay with my family". Apart from that hubby normally takes the boy, I grab daughter and we meet outside.

 

[ECU Pirates]

When we are in a crowd I usually try to put my daughter in front of me and put my hands on her shoulders. This way I can kind of "steer" her in the direction that I want to go and it keeps someone from walking between us and seperating us.

 

[Luigi's Girl]

Another family of shirt holders here!!!

 

[*Fantasia*]

I only have two, so we just hold hands. We watch the fireworks from afar, and so when we know that it is about to end, we just start heading out, so this way, we are not in the crowd. Also, it's nice to be in a short line waiting for the bus, rather than being in line for half hour.

 

[DisneyVillain]

Link arms and walk six wide -- very slowly.

 

[CarolinaBlue]

Last year, I held my 10 year old's hand while walking through the parks and people would break right through our hands! There was plenty of room for them to walk around us because the place wasn't packed. How rude!

 

[experiment626mom]

Wow I didn't know there were other shirt holder families!! Make sure you wave with your free hand next time you see us!!