Disneyland ultrasound beam measures height for kids tall enough to ride

Very clever idea. All parks should have this implemented. This will definitely take some pressure off of the ride ops.
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"The Peoples Elbow" or "The Spinaroonie?. Cant decide which is the most electrifying move in sports entertainment!!! LOL

the peoples elbow

I absolutely HATE when kids wait in line with their families for an hour or so only to be told "you're not tall enough to ride".  Measuring kids BEFOREHAND so you'll KNOW in advance what they can/cannot ride is an idea whose time came long ago...just being implemented now.  Ride ops come in too late, after the whole family has waited, and it slows down operation WAY too much to have the poor ride-op explaining (at length, sometimes) how come the kid can't ride...Kudos to Disney for fixing this problem!

oh, and definitely The People's Elbow - I saw Hakeem drop a few folks with that move...

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PoTP acolyte - remove fear to reply
Son of Drop Zone - PKI CoasterCamp I Champions!!!

Getting yelled at by families whose kids were too short to ride were among my least favorite memories at Great America. I had parents getting in my face all the time no matter how nice I was about it. This is a much better solution than placing signs out front which leave the measurement up to the discretion of the guest only to discover that the final discretion is up to the ride ops 1.5 hours away. (I guess this is even better than my idea of cubby holes for children ;) )
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"I'll bet that thing hits 5 Gs going through that loop.....faaar ooouut!"

I don't know the cost factor, but I think all parks should install the system who can afford it.

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Until you get a parking space with your own name on it, you're still part of the GP.

This is the greatest thing since height sticks. Having had to deal with those things this is a welcome addition to making every ride ops height checking dream come true.
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BMCOASTER

bmcoaster@wi.rr.com

Bunch of Disneyphiles here, I see...

As I've said on two other forums already in regards to this system...

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"Leave it to Disney to take a system that parks all over the country have been using for DECADES and (a) be the last to adopt it, and (b) make it complicated."

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A project consultant doing some work with Disney summed it up nicely:

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"those Imagineers sure like to crack nuts with big technical sledgehammers. :)"

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--Dave Althoff, Jr.

All they need to do is require children under a certain height say 2 inches over the highest height requirement to have an wristband to ride a ride.  No wristband no ride.  No wristband of appropriate colors, no ride.  Have wristband colors clearly posted at all ride entrances.  Kids can then look at their wristbands and tell if they can ride a certain ride or not.  You also don't need an ultrasound measuring stick at the entrance.  You post a couple kiosks inside the entrance to get these wristbands and have employees there with various sticks at different heights to determine the appropriate color wristband to issue.  Putting this inside the entrance keeps the entrance lines from getting backed up anymore than they already do at any given park.  I could see this being implemented at SFGAm(home park) and working real well.

 

Cheers,

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Bob Hansen

"Excuse me while I kick the sky!"
kickthesky@hotmail.com

 I am not one in favor of change for change's sake, but I don't think this is the case here. I like the idea of having a central place to go to get measured (although I am not sure ultrasound is the way to go). It is like getting your ID checked at the door. Once you're in, none of the employees have to take time away from their duties to check you again (and again and again and again). It should save time and make things run smoother.

I don't quite get how this system will solve anything unless there is an attendant at the ride entrance making sure kids have the correct wristband on.  If that's the case, then couldn't they just check the kids the old-fashioned way with a stick or pole? I'd bet that most parents and kids that get turned away from rides using the conventional height check methods already have a good idea that the kid is too short to begin with, but figure they can get through if they try.  If there's no attendant, what's to stop kids from getting in line regardless of the wristband they have on?  *** This post was edited by chris on 12/20/2001. ***

Well! Believe me, even if the parents don't wait 2 hours before telling them  that their child is too short, they get VERY frustrated. I left Space Mountain at DLP because of a 55 inches height limit to enforce! I decided to go to Star Tours, where there are no thing of height, just, "you have to be 3 years old to ride".

At Space Mountain, we had an height stick at Fast Pass machines, Fast Pass entry, normal ride entrance, later in the cue line where we mix the cue line guests with the FP ones ( its an art to do that efficiently, without goggling up the mixed line or cause a 90 minutes wait for what whould be a 45 minutes... I was the best at that. ) and at the loading platform. Even with all these height sticks, say a child goes at normal entrance and see a "45 minutes wait from this point" sign, the child do tip toes and enter the cue line... 40 minutes later, I check him up and see... that he's 53 inches tall! I am forced to make him leave the cue line, with a parent. Now, its gets real tricky. One parent tried to engage me in yelling contests, parents shoved me then started running in direction of of the loading platform, etc. But, we have a system called "Baby Switch". Say the parents are with a child too small to ride. We give a ticket saying "Baby Switch" to the parent who goes in the cue line, the other parent can go to Autopia, Orbitron or visit the Nautilus ( usually, in summer, the lines for Autopia and Orbitron are similar to the line at Space Mountain and everyone can ride these two. ), when they exit the ride, they go back to the station, where usually, the other parent is about to ride. After the ride, the parent give the ticket to the other than stay with the kid. Parent give ticket to cast member at unload, then can ride, without having to rewait!

Chris, the difference is it would be plainly stated at the ride entrance which color wrist band was needed to ride a specific ride.  That way parents will know right away there is NO possible way their child can ride because they don't have the required wrist band.  Whereas, the old system parents would "check" their kids height(You'd be amazed how bad parents are at checking height when they want their kids to ride) and then a ride op checks their height for real when they actually try to get on the ride, and then they cannot ride.

With the new system there will be no guesswork or parents "measuring" their kids.  They will know before they wait in line whether or not their child is tall enough, because of the wrist band color system.

If kids get in line and they don't have the right color wrist band, then they and their parents are not intelligent at all.

You don't want attendants checking people at an entrance to a ride at a busy park(although I know many do), because it blocks up the entrance--and that is just another person you are paying for that you don't really need. *** This post was edited by SFGRAMBoy20 on 12/20/2001. ***

i think its a great idea.

and about the People's Elbow...

Tombstone piledriver.

The most difficult part of a ride op job, in my opinion, is enforcing the height limits.  I actually had a knife pulled on me once. 

The same parents that put their kids on top of their feet to get them on the ride would, without a doubt, sue the park as soon as the kid got hurt!

I am glad to see a park take some of the guess work out of it.

As fabulous as this sounds, don't they measure kids at the start of the queue? I guess I'm not sure I understand why this is so remarkable. At Cedar Point, if it's close, they encourage your kid to get measured and get a wrist band with a good old fashioned pole with the swinging triangle. Beyond that, they check heights at the start and end of the queue for the big rides.

The only thing cool I can see about this is that you the park can say, "Well the machines says so," thereby taking the sting out of the mean old park op people.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

Wont this system be mandatory for  children of short height? If its at the main gate and they enforce it upon all children then each individual ride doesnt have to worry about it. I personally think its a great idea (not rocket science obviously) but still a great concept.
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"The Peoples Elbow" or "The Spinaroonie?. Cant decide which is the most electrifying move in sports entertainment!!! LOL

Posting an additional employee at the front of all major queues is expensive in the long run. Then again, for a park like Disney, it'd be nice to have someone there to not only measure kids, but to interact with guests, answer questions, manage the line etc. I don't know why they would need to check at both ends though. Seems superfluous.
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"I'll bet that thing hits 5 Gs going through that loop.....faaar ooouut!"

I can see a drawback if this spreads to other parks :  Let's say your son or daughter is just a little under the 54" mark and they are really eager to ride (Let's use CP as an example) Raptor and Mantis.  Yet, they don't pass the 54" mark.  Because of that, their parents could say let's just go home (Assuming that you have been on everything else at the park).  Can anyone else see this happening.  I mean, it's not likely to happen but it can.
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Take a good look at Six Flags Worlds of Adventure because in a few years the Sea World side will look exactly like it does, a zoo.

If parks take away the employee at the queue entrance who is going to tell potential riders to put out their butts?
 
Maybe parks already have this sort of system in place and I just didn't know it. CP has a place that issues wristbands? I didn't know that. I don't have kids and haven't been with someone who needed to have their height checked in a long time, so it is no wonder I am in the dark about this. The "pole/swinging triangle" thing does the same job as the ultrasound, but the part that I like is the centralization of the measuring. Maybe parks should simply push this idea more, encouraging families to have this done upon entrance to a park. It would undoubtedly keep ride ops more efficient as they would have one less thing to do.

*** This post was edited by Camel@Work on 12/20/2001. ***