Showing ID?

[psimon]

I am staying at OKW this week and noticed an interesting phenomenon....

When you check into the resort, you are given a "parking pass" that identifies you as a "resident". This allows you to park for free at the parks, but it also allows you easier access to any of the other hotel properties here. When you pull up to, for example, AKL, you show them your parking pass, and then they as to see additional ID, such as either your matching room key, or a photo ID. This is to verify that you are who you say you are and can be at that resort. This is Disney's way to add a layer of security to moving around the property.

This whole system fails when you as an outsider park at any park, and then hop on any bus to any resort. No one asks to see any ID to verify that you should be there.

I guess my question is why go through the 'show ID' issue if you can get to any resort using Disney transportation and not have to show any ID.

Any thoughts?

 

[tjkraz]

I assume it's little more than a visual deterrent. In many locations, Disney does want to limit theme park guests from parking at the hotels. Think of what the parking lots at the BoardWalk or Contemporary would look like if they didn't do anything to discourage locals (not to mention out of town guests) from parking there when visiting Epcot or the Magic Kingdom. Simply creating that face-to-face encounter with a security guard will discourage most would-be abusers.

In many ways its similar to the bag checks at the main gates which were instituted after 9/11. Those checkpoints may give guests an added sense of security within the parks, but a determined individual could breach that level of security with ease.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I agree. I don't think it's so much a security measure as it is a parking violation issue. Lots of folks try to use the BCV parking lot to enter Epcot. For that reason, they give you are allowed to park there with your ID sheet in your window, but you are given a 3 hour limit. That is ostensibly for a "dining" permit of sorts. I understand this measure too. If everyone parked at a resort lot to gain entrance to a theme park, where would the resort guests park?

If you get there by bus, there is no parking issue. Besides, it's easier for a terrorist to make threats with a vehicle than with their body. (at least I hope we don't have any suicide bombers on site)

 

[3DisneyKids]

Actually, the "bag check" at the park entrances has little to do with security. Anyone who has been through bag check can tell you that it is a cursory glance, at best.

The reason for the bag check is (1) perhaps to help guests feel more secure; and (2) the main reason...it helps control traffic and flow into the parks so that there are no stampedes at the turnstyles.

 

[Robo-Daddy 3000]

I am staying at OKW this week and noticed an interesting phenomenon....

When you check into the resort, you are given a "parking pass" that identifies you as a "resident".

Any thoughts?

Over the summer, when I checked in at OKW, they gave me the parking pass too. I told her that I didn't have a car here so I didn't need it. I tried to leave it with here but she insisted that I take the parking pass with me.

What was I supposed to do with it anyway... I know maybe I should have had it taped it to my back while I walked around the resort for easy identification?

 

[fishermouse]

The parking pass is just that, a parking pass it has little to do with security, you can walk, or bus into any resort with WDW's blessing. They all have stores and resturants as well as the possibility of attracting a new hotel guest or DVC customer.
As far as the bag checks go, security has been trained what to look for and when to look a little extra. It's easy to sit back and say they won't see anything but try to carry a bomb or large gun in and see. They are not going to catch a small gun or knife, that's not what they are looking for. The idea is to prevent a large scale terrorist type event by alerting the proper department. It serves to make such attacks a little harder to pull off. They are not homeland security but they do add an extra line of protection, they are also trained to be pulled off the tables and assist in a lock down in the event of a child abduction.

 

[Mtnman44]

Sorry, that is not the purpose of those checks. They are purely business decisions, not for actual safety. They are to help people "feel" safe and thus come and spend and also to provide some kind of legal defense in something ever does happen (civil lawsuits). Grandma and Grandpa asking you to unzip your purse are not preventing anything.

Personally, I wish they did away with the whole thing. Stuff can happen anywhere. Those checks aren't going to prevent it. Instead, let's apply all the searches and scrutiny to who we are letting into the country in the first place.

As far as the bag checks go, security has been trained what to look for and when to look a little extra. It's easy to sit back and say they won't see anything but try to carry a bomb or large gun in and see. They are not going to catch a small gun or knife, that's not what they are looking for. The idea is to prevent a large scale terrorist type event by alerting the proper department. It serves to make such attacks a little harder to pull off. They are not homeland security but they do add an extra line of protection, they are also trained to be pulled off the tables and assist in a lock down in the event of a child abduction.

 

[salmoneous]

The ID check at the resorts does nothing as far as I can tell. Anyone who wants can drive up to a resort, ask to look around, and they will be let in after showing an ID. If everyone who doesn't have "Osama bin Laden" on their license is let in, what's the point? It wastes the guard's time; it wastes the guests time; why bother?

 

[Mtnman44]

Reminds me on a visit I had to D.C. recently. Several of the publicly accessible buildings required ID to get into (along with metal detector of course). You had to show the security guard an I.D. in order to get in. They didn't record the ID or check it against a list or anything, you just had to show that you had an id. I asked a security guard what exactly this did and my simple question was too confusing. Apparently you just have to exist and have a card that says you do and that was sufficient. ...government

The ID check at the resorts does nothing as far as I can tell. Anyone who wants can drive up to a resort, ask to look around, and they will be let in after showing an ID. If everyone who doesn't have "Osama bin Laden" on their license is let in, what's the point? It wastes the guard's time; it wastes the guests time; why bother?

 

[BroganMc]

I don't quite understand what the fuss is. I have been an offsite/onsite guest at Disney since '01 (onsite stays starting in '06).

We always have a car and routinely spend a week offsite then a week onsite. And all the while we visit the resorts as well as theme parks.

The only difference between being an onsite and offsite guest is what we need to show to get free parking. Offsite, we have to whip out our APs. Onsite, we just oint to the sign on the dashboard. All the resorts do some sort of name check, either checking a clipboard to see our name on an ADR with a photo ID, or just the photo ID. Several of the deluxe resorts give us an extra parking pass for the dashboard (timestamped for our allotted 3 hours). That includes AKL, Poly, GF. Beach Club and Boardwalk only check photo IDs and neither an ADR list nor give us a parking slip. So we can park and stay there all day, no one knows the difference.

As for the baggage checks, I go through them at my local NFL games as well as Disney. They are the same. My purse is searched as well as the backpack on the back of my wheelchair. Some screeners are more thorough than others (my bags may be half emptied, squeezed like lemons, rooted through with flashlights and sticks, or else just a cursory glance. It's always a pain because I cannot easily get out of my chair and walk around the back to unzip or zip my bags, but the screeners are very good about doing that for me.

The one difference at the NFL games are that drinks are confiscated as well as umbrellas. And the major difference from airports is that my bags aren't X-rayed and my chair cushion isn't swiped for a chemical test.

It's all about trying to monitor who's coming and going at a given time, why and what they have on their person. The gate screens are the only visible part of the security process you see. In talking to security, I've been told there are many other hidden layers throughout the park. Guests are watched 24/7. But what they're watching for is not parking violators as much as those big, bad mass murderers and drunken idiots who pose a danger to others.

This kinda reminds me of the debates over the summer about DTD security. DISers noted there was no security in sight there. Then I went in October and was practically tripping over them.