GAHHH! Another "this place isn't like Disney World, therefore we hate it" thread. Universal Orlando operates different from Disney. This was posted earlier, but I want to post it again.
A guest of WDW occupied a rocket car on 09/10/98 within space mountain. When he got on the ride he was a healthy male who worked as a doctor. At the end of the ride he was discovered slumped over in the rocket car unconcsious suffering from a laceration and contusion to the head. The police were called due to the seriousness of his injuries and the ride was closed. An investigation of the inside of the ride revealed that there were at least two items which were believed to have fallen out of cars while guests rode the ride and fell from the tracks through the ride and ending up on the floor of the structure. Disney employees walk the floor of the ride on a daily basis and find items which were not appropriately secured by patrons and fall out of the cars while the ride is in operation. The force of the accident caused the park guest's new sneakers to be almost ripped apart at the seams. The patron was taken to the local trauma center via helicopter and while released after a period he is now suffering paralysis to his left arm, pain in his legs, brain damage, memory loss.
Loose articles, when they come loose, do hurt people and maybe even kill them. Having mandatory free lockers also speeds up the loading time at the attractions. Think about if you were next to board, but a large family was in front of you with each kid having a bag. They try to squeeze the bags in between the seats, between the restraints, doesn't work, so the Team Members gets all of them to give their bags to the TM, who then puts it on the platform. This causes a delay in the dispatch, which causes the line to be longer, which causes more upset guests.
The locker policy is also used so that guests don't blame TM's for missing items if they leave them on the platform. Even if the TM didn't touch the loose articles, but the item was stolen by another guest, they'll blame the TM because "Well the bag was right there, why didn't you watch it!?!" It is not the TM's job to watch your bags/kids/grandma.
Also, the MiB bag policy does seem ridiculous, but it was put in place because of safety for the vehicles, and to speed up dispatches. Bags would fall off, land on the track, vehicles runs over them, breaks vehicles, breaks ride. ALSO, when bags were allowed, it was very common for a bag to come loose due to the spinning of the ride, so the ride would end, and guests would simply get out of the ride like normal, yet they would jump down into the ride track, attempting to receive their loose article. The operator would see that the person jumped into the track, would then have to Estop the entire ride, which kills the power to the ride. (BTW, the track that MIB runs on is fully electrified. Touch it and you die). Anywho, that's a downtime due to a dumb guest who thought he owns the place, the ride is closed, that guest gets kicked out, paperwork, evacuate the ride, get it reset, open it again. Yes it was the guests fault, but it happened so often that it lead to lockers.
I say if you don't like how they operate, then don't go. You'll miss out on some technologically amazing attractions and a step into where the future is for theme park attractions with Forbidden Journey, Mummy and Spiderman. However, if you can put up with their rules of the house, then go and enjoy it! It's like if you went to a friends house. You'd rather keep your shoes on in their house, but they want everyone's shoes off. You don't leave simply because of a rule, you deal with it. It's called being nice.
Sidenote: I worked at Tower of Terror in 2005. In their control room, you watch the camera monitors that watch the vehicles in the drop shaft. Several times per day, a bag would fly upwards, forward a bit, and land on someone else's lap. Of course people would laugh it off, but if it had been a camera bag or a something heavy, and it smacked someone in the head or face, there would be an injury. Of course something of this nature would never prompt Disney to install lockers at their attraction. Haha, we all know that Disney never puts safety above guest satisfaction.
Speaking of safety, go ride a Disney ride (recently, not years ago, recently) and see if the Cast Members check your harness, or see if they ask YOU to do it for them. Lazy? Maybe. I know it is not within their Operating Guidelines to check harnesses anymore. Not sure the reasoning behind it, but they're not supposed to do it anymore, but have the guests do it themselves.
Also, large guests. It's not Universal's fault that the person in question waited in line, only to be turned away at the ride. There's no way to tell someone they need to test out a test seat without being rude. The person in question may not have tried out the test seat, which is his or her own fault.
don't think we expended more than 5 minutes total securing one, despite the extreme crowds i mentioned previously.
