Disneyland 2013 - Kid's Photos Required

Intro, Door Dings at the Disneyland Parking Lot, Kid photos required, Lost and Found, Trapped in the Elevator, Backpacks on Rides,

Last time I visited Disneyland I realized that there was a fairly steep price cut for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth day of a multi-day pass. When the fourth day is much cheaper than the first, there is a temptation to share tickets, giving two families short visits for the price of one long visit.

Although the tickets are marked as "non-transferrable", that wasn't easy to enforce, because the tickets weren't tied to a photo ID, fingerprint, or even a name.

Apparently a cottage industry had emerged around Disneyland, buying and selling extra days on tickets.

Last fall Disneyland started printing names onto tickets, and checking IDs, but that didn't work for kids. This year, in January of 2013, they started taking everybody's picture. The picture must be associated with the ticket serial number, so that when they scan the ticket, they can check to see if the ticket holder is bearing the same face the next day.

Now, I had heard this was coming, but there wasn't any warning or sign that Disneyland was going to require this for our children. The adults didn't need photos to go along with our tickets, as we were using two-day passes, so it was particularly jarring that only our children were being photographed.

We asked if the pictures would be deleted after a certain amount of time. That started a funny conversion and endeared our group to the gatekeepers.

"Are these pictures deleted after the tickets are used up?"

"Yes, after the tickets expire, the photos are no longer valid."

"So, you delete the photos?"

"Yes, 13 days after the tickets are first used, the photos expire".

"Heh. Ok, I'm sorry, I think I understand, but I guess I am listening for one particular word. Are the photos deleted?"

"Yes. The photos are deleted."

Another funny thing was that the gatekeeper noticed Kevin taking her photo, shown above. She didn't want her photo taken and let him know that it was against the rules to take a photograph of this "security measure". This resulted in a short period of disbelief as we framed the irony of them taking photos of our kids, but being unwilling to be photographed themselves. They demanded Kevin delete his photo before they let him into the park.

I think we can agree that this is a revenue capture measure, not a security measure.

The next day, I checked to see if the kid's photos popped up on the ticket-checkers' screens. They did not.

They were probably retrieving the kids' photos on their handheld devices.

Please Read Part Four of Disneyland 2013 - Lost and Found >

Intro, Door Dings at the Disneyland Parking Lot, Kid photos required, Lost and Found, Trapped in the Elevator, Backpacks on Rides,

1,000 Pictures of Disneyland/a>