Universal Orlando metal detectors...

You can sit on flip flops but can't "sit" on a wallet in a secured pocket.....?

Well, okay, a flying flip flop isn't likely to injure someone.

It almost seems like Uni Department A is saying "Little metal things will kill someone! Metal detectors are needed, now!" and Uni Department B is saying "Yeah, we got this. Been at this for 25 years. We've got it" -different departments that aren't communicating.

I'm not putting my wallet in a locker. Universal can suck it if they tell me to.

Yeah, if this is going to be an ongoing trend, the only place I'll be putting my wallet... is at Disney.

They weren't doing pat down searches so I am not sure they would have found a wallet if you left it in your pocket. But wallets were included in the list of items they were asking you to put in a locker or leave with a non-rider.

There was a lot of confusion for visitors and staff. Which makes sense knowing Thursday was the first day the metal detectors were in place. At the time, I was trying to figure out why the detectors were not in place Wednesday evening on Dragons but were there Thursday afternoon. Having staff which didn't know what they were doing was made worse by what seemed to me as having too many staff through the process.

GoBucks89 said:

Ride op on Dragons told me I needed to put my wallet in a locker even though it was in a buttoned back pocket. They have you sit on flip flops and a hat but won't allow you to in essence sit on a wallet with a button to secure it.

That's a big box of stupid. Given the accidents that they're trying to account for, I don't know how they can really believe that this mitigates anything. Short of doing strip searches for all object, metal or otherwise, they aren't achieving anything.

I'd have to wonder if this is for insurance reasons, but I find it a bit ironic that Universal is going to such extremes with ride policies while Disney, just a few miles up the road, has probably the most lenient ride policies in the country. I can carry an entire backpack on the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster but I can't have a dime in my pocket on Rockit?

Well, if they hire enough Channing Tatum look-alikes, I'd pay extra for the strip search.

Moving completely outside of my knowledge base, could RCID be a factor in this?

A man is dead in the queue with a stab wound, but the only evidence is a pool of water beside him. What happened?

I love Encyclopedia Brown!

sirloindude said:

I'd have to wonder if this is for insurance reasons, but I find it a bit ironic that Universal is going to such extremes with ride policies while Disney, just a few miles up the road, has probably the most lenient ride policies in the country. I can carry an entire backpack on the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster but I can't have a dime in my pocket on Rockit?

Not sure if this is driven by insurance/legal behind the scenes, but I do know it is being driven by one executive/higher up manager in particular, as well as at least 2 incidents at Rockit alone being the "cause."

Personally, I can't believe they've gotten as far with this policy as they have. Surely someone suggested they ask other parks how they handle situations/preventative measures like this to show just how over the top and ridiculous this reaction of a "solution" is. If the executive in question reached out, he would almost certainly be told the policy is crazy in polite terms by anyone else.

What are these "incidents" you speak of? And why don't Dragons duel anymore? I heard a rumor someone chucked a coin or something at the other train and hit someone in the eye...

I thought the Dragons accident was pretty well documented. More to the point though, unless they intend to have them duel again, what difference does this make? As for Rockit, my understanding is that people have lost stuff out of their pockets on the vertical lift and people behind were hit. No idea how serious any of that was. Still, in the case of the Dragons, it strikes me as a freak accident. In the case of Rockit... I dunno, it's a crappy ride that's horribly designed. That tower feels designed to shake stuff out of your pockets.

^Amen, and I guess as the train shimmies thru the course it's a 2 minutes shakedown. I witnessed the atrocious metal detector fiasco this Saturday. For the first time ever, I waited more than 25 minutes for the Dragons. They wanted everything out of my pockets, but I was able to wear my hat and sunglasses (huh?). At one point they ran out of lockers and we had to twiddle our thumbs for a few minutes until some became available. The already cramped locker area was like a herd of lost sheep waiting for a border collie to direct us.

Fix it Jesus!

So hat's, glasses and flip-flops, the loosest of loose articles, are OK, but your wallet full of cash and plastic cards is not. Do you think the person in charge has ever said that out loud?