Occasionally, people ask me how safe their kids will be at Disneyland. This usually sets me off into hysterical laughter, because walking around Disneyland — even if you’re a munchkin — is significantly safer than walking around, say, for example, the Pentagon.
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Well, except for the very real risk of cuteness overload, or passing out with heat exhaustion while standing in line for a ride in Fantasyland. Not much cuteness overload in the Pentagon, or so I’ve been told.
I say this with authority, because I wrote about Disneyland for years, when my job was in part to walk around the park and observe things. Yes, someone paid me for that. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it.
See, my best scientific guess is that there are more security cameras per capita inside Disneyland than inside Fort Knox. There are eyes everywhere. The reason I know this is because I used to be assigned occasionally to go into Disneyland and interview people about random news subjects such as the O.J. Simpson verdict.
No, I don’t know why the editors thought they needed this, but I would obey nonetheless. But the people who run Disneyland don’t want newspaper reporters asking their customers, er, guests, about such things while they’re in the park, which is supposed to be an enjoyable fantasy bubble that excludes the rest of the world.
I understood this, but I was more afraid of my editors than I was of Disneyland security, so I would try to interview folks anyway, usually while they were standing in some long line. Invariably, within nanoseconds of whipping out my reporters’ notebook and pen, I would be surrounded by people in plainclothes or comical costumes, which belied the fact they were actually trained security officers.
By law, they weren’t allowed to detain me, but I couldn’t really do anything until one of the park’s press-handler people came to meet us. Then, they would scold me ferociously for breaking the Disneyland rules. And I would explain to them something they already knew, which was that news reporters have the legal right to conduct their constitutionally protected newsgathering activities anywhere the general public is allowed to go, which includes Disneyland.
Which meant that they actually could not throw me out of the park, and they would acknowledge this. But what they could do was surround me the entire time I was there and make it impossible for me to talk to anyone. So I would generally just leave and interview people on the public sidewalk instead. I mean, I never even wanted to do it anyway.
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My point is that virtually every inch of the park is covered with cameras and undercover security officers, so it’s an incredibly safe environment. I had annual passes for years (back when they were affordable) and I never worried about my kids getting lost, especially because I had Curly Girl on a halter since she had a tendency to disappear.
This always caused her brother to sulk, because he thought it was unfair that she got to wear a halter and he didn’t.
Now, there is crime in Disneyland that they don’t like to talk about, which is stroller theft. And some of those strollers cost more than my first car. I wrote a story about this years ago, and admittedly I haven’t kept up with the latest. But I have no reason to think things have changed. I had quite a hard time back then getting figures from the Anaheim police department about the numbers of stolen strollers, because they don’t like to tell you unflattering things about the Magic Kingdom.
But I quickly found many people whose strollers had been taken — even in my own newsroom — and in some cases they had difficulty getting them back, even when they caught the people who stole them. That’s why I strongly recommend you turn yours over and engrave your personal info on the bottom, so you can prove it’s yours. Or maybe also hide an AirTag in it somewhere it can’t be seen. That way, if you catch someone walking out of the park with it, or find it the next day being sold, you can identify it. And, obviously, don’t leave anything valuable in your stroller except your kids.
Anyway, strollers might get taken occasionally, but kids … never. As you might imagine, a company that has a protocol for what to do when people dump their relative’s cremated ashes in the shrubbery, also has a protocol for lost kids and every employee knows it by heart.
So, don’t worry if your child disappears, he hasn’t been taken by aliens. He’s probably just trying to find Winnie the Pooh. It’s not a terrible idea to put an AirTag in his pocket, actually, but not to worry. You’ll find him soon. And, yes, you have to take him back, no matter how he’s misbehaving. Sorry about that.
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