Kevin Federline apparently won’t be getting any awards for Father’s Day this year. Seems he managed to lose five year old daughter Kori at Disneyland. Kori was wandering around by herself near one of the rides, when an employee asked her where her parents were. Fifteen minutes later, a NANNY, not Kevin, came running over. And we’re told there were two nannies present, two Disneyland ushers, and a bodyguard. And they still managed to lose her! - Hollyscoop.com, May 30 2008

Since we’re on the subject, let’s find out what happens when kids get lost in Disneyland. I mean, I’m sure it does happen a lot, so they must have some sort of standard procedure for reuniting lost kids with their parents /guardians. Adrienne Krock, editor of MousePlanet, has a perfect article which details what systems Disneyland has in place to deal with lost kids, and has some great tips for parents to make sure that a) it doesn’t happen, and b) If it does happen, what you should do.

Once a Cast Member (CM) finds a lost child 12 or under, (s)he is released by his / her lead to help the child. Immediately, the CM contacts Lost Children (LC.) LC registers the child’s name, age, location, and the name of the adult in charge of the child. This way, if the adult notifies a CM that (s)he is looking for a lost child, that CM can call LC to see if the child is registered yet. Hopefully, the two can be reunited quickly. After registering the child with LC, the CM is trained to help calm the child. They spend ten to fifteen minutes looking for the child’s adult. They will retrace the child’s steps. If the child was told to go to a meeting place, the CM and child will check that location. If this search is unsuccessful, the CM escorts the child to the Lost Children Room on Main Street. This is located on the north end of Main Street, next door to Central First Aid. - Lost in Disney, Adrienne Krock, MousePlanet.com

And if you want to go hi-tech about it, you don’t need to hang a GPS location device around your kid’s neck. Just do what Erik did.

My family, which includes two VERY energetic boys, five and three, went to Disneyland for a little get-a-way. We decided to buy three 32Mb drives, which are a dime a dozen nowadays, one for each boy and one for us with the same program and ’secret phrase’ on it. We also included our cellphone numbers. Two lanyards with dangling USB drives that had a ‘I’m Lost’ label adhered to them and tucked into their shirts later, we had two boys that if got lost would be found and be reunited with us quickly. We told the boys to cry for mom or dad if they wander off or got lost and then give the USB drive to the person that found them. Our three year old did just what we thought he would do - Disappeared. Within 13 minutes of being ‘lost’ though, my cellphone rang. My three year old whom we thought didn’t understand what we told him about the funny thing around his neck actually did what we told him. - DCoT Helps Find Lost Child, Tim Fehlman, Daily Cup of Tech

Guess K-Fed needs to read this article. And so do you, if you’re planning a trip to Disneyland. There’s many fun things to do in Anaheim, but spending the afternoon looking for a lost child and sweating over nightmare scenarios is not one of those fun things.

Posted on June 2nd, 2008 by PLing
Filed under: Travel News