ID checking with a season pass.

I watched a re-broadcast of Undercover Boss with the CEO of Herschend Entertainment. The CEO was at Silver Dollar City doing tickets and noticed that they check ID's when a customer has a season pass.

When I had passes for Six Flags and Busch Gardens Tampa, they don't require checking someone's ID. What other amusement park companies require ID when showing their pass?

I think it all depends on their entrance system...ie...CP now has monitors at all most all entrances that can pull up a picture of you to look at. BUT CP did ID me twice...since Kings Island had a bad Season Pass picture taker it put a big blank line across my face (from what CP tells me) So on certain days they ask me for my ID (ie ones that are really bright sunny days and they can't even see the screen)...though all most all Zoo's do (Akron Zoo, Cleveland Zoo, Pittsburgh.) Akron Zoo was having a problem with people passing their passes off to other people. They do not have an updated system yet (though they have gone to plastic passes.)

Busch Tampa (and all the major FL parks) do fingerprint ID at this point. Doesn't require a license, but you do have to be you... ;)

Silver Dollar City is one of the few parks that doesn't take pictures of season pass holders. In fact, the passes are just printed out on paper like regular tickets.

So in this case, it's a primary ID check not a redundant one.

Dollywood (another HFEC park) does not require ID checks, but the passes include pictures of the pass holders.

As long I has been a Season Pass holder there at Silver Dollar City dating back to 1996, they have always checked your ID with your Season Pass. The current Season Passes in their current form started with the 2003 season has the season passes just like the tickets in a credit card shaped piece of cardboard like material which could not be laminated. It's fairly waterproof to a degree. The only information about you printed on the pass was your name and birthdate. The current style of passes originally used a magnectic strip system, but they quit using that in favor of the bar code system they use once again now as they're faster, you can open extra gates with a hand scanner, & they don't get stuck in the machines which was one of the causes of the traffic jams at the gates.

The pre 2003 Season Passes was a folded piece of cardboard and you had to put your Name, Birthdate, Height, Weight, Eye Color, and Hair Color. (Preaty much matching your Gobt Isdued ID) The passes could be Laminated for a nominal $2 Charge. Each year I used these passes they used the Barcode System.

Over the years my biggest complaint about SDC's system was the fact I always have to show ID with my Season Pass. I don't see this getting fixed anytime soon, but it's a efficient system for their small front gate.

In closing I am glad SDC dropped their magnectic strip system and went back to the bar code system. Those tickets getting stuck in the machine were annoying also the gate jams were just as bad. Those Season Passes do get wrinkled up over the Season and did get stuck in those. The Ticket Trunstiles SDC use are still the same Magnetic Strip reader machines but they don't use that part anymore as those machines also have barcode readers on the back. So you will no longer hear beep, tic, tic, tic, tic, when your ticket gets stuck in there anymore.

I like Universal/IOA's system with the fingerprints and all, but HATE how you pay what, $180 for a pass or something and they can not even give you a plastic card? You get a flimsy piece of paper. That is pretty annoying to say the least.

That's how it is around Orlando now. You get paper at Disney, SW, and Universal. I don't know what they're using at Legoland yet.

Found it interesting that my SFGAdv pass for next season does not even have the park's name on it, although they did re-take my picture.

We got our 2012 SF passes at SFA this weekend. I was talking to the supervisor about adding the all park parking upgrade ($20) when he mentioned that they were phasing in a new system that will be using bio-metric fingerprint scanners for 2013.