SqueakyMouse
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2005
- Messages
- 3,393
I've never had any worries about letting my older ds go off on his own at WDW...until this trip. For the first time, there were many, many teens rambling about the parks, resorts, and DTD on their own. A number of these kids were locals rather than resort guests. (Since I grew up in Orlando, I'm obviously not saying that all local kids are bad; just that this does change the dynamics of the groups wandering about.) While many of these teens were well-behaved, we encountered quite a few that were not. (In fact, I worry that my own were not always on their best behavior when out with some of their new-found friends during the evening hours!) We saw plenty of underage drinking, drug usage (marijuana), and underage tobacco use and heard more than our fair share of bad language. I work in the public schools and my dh works in the social services field (especially with troubled teens); so, while we don't approve of any of this, we're not usually shocked by what kids get up to away from their parents. However, we were disturbed what we saw at WDW, particularly at DTD. Disney's response seems to be to put lots and lots of badge-wearing security guards out and about and have them follow the kids about. Not once did I see or hear them interact with any of the more troublesome kids. Quite honestly, the presence of all the security guards made me feel more uncomfortable rather than the opposite.
