Divide and Conguer

[Barbaraann]

I visited Disneyland with a mom, her 6, 11, and 14 year old children Now when 5 people get inside of Disneyland, they tend to want to run off in 5 different directions.

I saw many large groups of people, having heated Disney moments where kids wanted to do one thing and parents wanted them to stay together and we will do that later.

I was fortunate enough, that our little group was able to split up occasionally.

Sometimes the 5 of us were all on a ride together. The 5 of us enjoyed all of our "Specially planned character meals and dinner at Rainforest Cafe."

Then I spent many moments with mom and the 6 year old. We rode Small World and Splashed down a mountain together.

The 11 and 14 year old kids loved being able to go off safely by themselves and choose their own rides and kept in touch constantly due to the modern technology of cell phones. I rode Autopia with those two one glorious morning.

The 6 year old and her mom were brave enough to ride both Space Mountain and Tower of Terror together, while us "chickens" were off doing other things.

I spent one magical morning in Fantasyland by myself. We all shared another Fantasyland morning together and the kids were able to spin together in the gold teacup, while I took many pictures.

Disneyland is for families. Families need to be smart enough to know that different things appeal to different people and age groups.

I call it divide and conguer. (did I spell that right?)

Divide and Conguer the best tip for any group visiting Disneyland.

[Druggas]

When my girls were old enough, we would give them a time to meet us at the castle. It worked well for us and they were never late. With cell phones, you can all go in another direction and still come together for lunch.

[travelmom]

Glad you had great time Barbaraann! Yes, you are right, and we use those methods all the time. My kids also have never let us down, they appear right on time at the apppointed spot. We love going with the kids, and we also love just to stroll around just my husband and I, enjoying our favorite place.

[CA_Man_In_HI]

Splitting up is good as long as it is done smartly. When I worked with DL Security 5 years ago I got a lost child call at approximately 8 pm. I met with the mother who made the call and the conversation went something like this:


Me: Hi, you have a missing child?

Mother: Yes, her name is ---- and she's 19 years old.

Me: I see, well we can try to find her, but she's not a minor so we won't be at missing children.

Mother: She's mentally handicapped however.

Me: Ah, I see, when and where did you last see her?

Mother: Over at the Tomorrowland Terrace around noon. We were eating lunch.

Me: Um, that was 8 hours ago, were you supposed to meet with her somewhere at a specific time?

Mother: No, she said she wanted to go ride some rides and left. We stayed and finished our lunch assuming we would eventually see here again.

Me: Okay, well I'm going to check with my comm center to see if they have someone that meets your child's description.

Mother: Ok

Me: Main St. to control-

Mother: Oh! She tends to get violent when stressed.

Aye, aye, aye!

[travelmom]

Wow, lets hope most of us can do better than that!

[Giant Panda]

Splitting up is good as long as it is done smartly. When I worked with DL Security 5 years ago I got a lost child call at approximately 8 pm. I met with the mother who made the call and the conversation went something like this:


Me: Hi, you have a missing child?

Mother: Yes, her name is ---- and she's 19 years old.

Me: I see, well we can try to find her, but she's not a minor so we won't be at missing children.

Mother: She's mentally handicapped however.

Sometimes the apple does not fall far from the tree .......

[twinmom]

Oh! She tends to get violent when stressed.

Just what you want to hear!

[stinkerbell]

Our normal lives are constantly about divide and conquer, having three kids, but we've discussed it so many times before.....and at Disneyland we don't do it. It's our time together as a family. Our oldest is ten and youngest is 4 and thankfully, all three of the kids are pretty gung ho, no fears, good at taking turns choosing rides, etc.

Until our last trip.

Our four year old... is scared to death of Tower of Terror and won't even turn down the street toward it. And the older two are fascinated by it. We've never seen her scared of ANYTHING before. Nada. Zip. Not sure why she hates ToT so much, but she does!! She rode it twice and that was that.

So our last night at Disneyland in December was spent apart, which hurt my heart. My husband took the older two to DCA to ride ToT repeatedly, while I spent the evening with the four year old in Fantasyland and on IASW. We both had fantastic evenings....but it was like looking into the future and seeing our little family growing up and growing apart.

So yeah. We'll definitely have to divide and conquer here and there....but when it's just the five of us, we'll try to stick together as much as possible as a family.

[dramaqueen]

CA_Man- I had an experience like that working in custodial- a very agitated, very pregnant woman came to me and demanded I help her find her husband. She had a young child with her. Her husband had apparantly gotten fed up with her (I honestly couldn't blame him) and taken their nephew to ride rides. She wanted him paged, which is of course impossible, but it took a lot of explaining to get her to accept that fact. Then she wanted me to get security. Well, we were standing by thr teacups and it was about 15 minutes before the evening Parade of the Stars was about to start. The only thing I told her she could do would be to go to City Hall and leave him a message because if he went to a CM wanting help, they would tell him to do the same thing. I gave her very clear directions on how to get there, but she insisted I take here there. It took almost half an hour to reach City Hall because of the crowds and she was walking very slowly. So I endured half an hour of her complaining about what a jerk her husband was and how she was going to divorce him, etc.

I pity the guest relations CM who had to deal with her, but they were better equipped than me!

So yeah, splitting up is not ALWAYS a great idea

[Giant Panda]

Splitting up is not an issue as long as you have specific plans on regrouping later. And you should certainly consider the mental capacity/familiarity with the park of the players. And don't depend on cell phones or radios ...... they don't always work.

[Barbaraann]

Splitting up is not an issue as long as you have specific plans on regrouping later. And you should certainly consider the mental capacity/familiarity with the park of the players. And don't depend on cell phones or radios ...... they don't always work.

We were very fortunate that we did not run into any problems. The children I traveled with were very responsible. We spent a lot of time together, but my vacation became a much better one, because i was able to slip away and enjoy those things that the younger ones had no interest in. I have many wonderful memories of my first time at Disneyland. I just noticed several times throughout my vacation some disgruntled children and adults who were not.

[dlfreak]

I thought this was going to be a dirty thread about that Darva-wanted-to-marry-a-millionaire chick.

[CA_Man_In_HI]

CA_Man- I had an experience like that working in custodial- a very agitated, very pregnant woman came to me and demanded I help her find her husband. She had a young child with her. Her husband had apparantly gotten fed up with her (I honestly couldn't blame him) and taken their nephew to ride rides. She wanted him paged, which is of course impossible, but it took a lot of explaining to get her to accept that fact. Then she wanted me to get security. Well, we were standing by thr teacups and it was about 15 minutes before the evening Parade of the Stars was about to start. The only thing I told her she could do would be to go to City Hall and leave him a message because if he went to a CM wanting help, they would tell him to do the same thing. I gave her very clear directions on how to get there, but she insisted I take here there. It took almost half an hour to reach City Hall because of the crowds and she was walking very slowly. So I endured half an hour of her complaining about what a jerk her husband was and how she was going to divorce him, etc.

I pity the guest relations CM who had to deal with her, but they were better equipped than me!

So yeah, splitting up is not ALWAYS a great idea

LOL! I truly understand that splitting up is often the best way to go sometimes. It just amazes me how irresponsible people will sometimes get. To any of you parents that do split up, if something happens, a miscommunication or whatever, don't panic. Every missing person call I've had has always ended in a happy ending.