PHOTOS - Disney adds metal detectors at park entrances along with ban on toy guns and costumes for adults

Dec 17, 2015 in "Magic Kingdom"

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Magic Kingdom metal detectors and new entry policy

Posted: Thursday December 17, 2015 7:36am EST by WDWMAGIC Staff

Disney has today deployed metal detectors to the park entrances and introduced a new policy prohibiting toy guns and adult costumes.

Three metal detector are now in place at the Magic Kingdom alongside the bag check area. A random sampling of guests will be sent through the scanners, which are being operated by a third party security firm, CSC.

Magic Kingdom metal detectors and new entry policy

A new policy also now states:

Costumes may not be worn by guests ages 14 or older.
Weapons or objects that appear to be weapons, including toy guns, are strictly prohibited.

Disney has also removed from sale toy guns at its retail locations around the Walt Disney World Resort.

Magic Kingdom metal detectors and new entry policy

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larryzNov 02, 2018

Reported.

celluloidNov 02, 2018

Charging more for parking and not being a political target/under same scrutiny?

larryzNov 01, 2018

Intent doesn't matter in a world of zero tolerance.

Marc Davis FanOct 30, 2018

Oh that’s a good point; would be a heck of a lot of dogs. Glad to hear the “Itemizer” would not be difficult. I wonder why they don’t do that, then? Perhaps even with cars?

Liberty6Oct 29, 2018

No they tracked him from his cell phone that showed he was at Disney Springs. His wife said as they were planning the attack that the police presence deterred him.

AndyS2992Oct 29, 2018

This is how Disneyland Paris works, everyone and all bags go through scanners and it works very well. Surprised the American parks haven’t adopted this.

EOD K9Oct 29, 2018

The Itemizer (or as you call it "swabbing") is fairly easy to have. However, the amount of K9s needed to search the volume of people at each gate is a lot more than Disney has. The amount of resources needed for that is staggering.

dreamfinderOct 29, 2018

One of the recent results indicates in the neighborhood of 80%. https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188 Time and time again, even in internal tests, TSA has shockingly high failure rates at detecting things such as weapons. But yet they are remarkably good at detecting and confiscating rogue food.

s8film40Oct 29, 2018

I’m not saying Universal is better than the airport. I would assume that Universal is not as good as the airport, but maybe pretty close and well ahead of Disney. I don’t know the failure rate of the TSA, the numbers you give seem awfully high. I do know the failure rate on someone who doesn’t even go through a metal detector will of course be significantly higher. All I’m saying is what Disney does is pure theater, at least what Universal does is consistent and doesn’t have a long wait.

lazyboy97oOct 29, 2018

I wasn’t asking about speed. Internal testing shows airport security to fail 80 - 90% of the time. In no other field is that considered an effective success rate. What is Universal doing differently that makes their scans actually effective?

s8film40Oct 29, 2018

Well that’s what makes airports effective, it would be much worse if they adopted Disney’s security measures. Just imagine if TSA had to manually search all the bags, the wait would be hours and then if they just randomly sent a quarter of the passengers through metal detectors there would be lots of people carrying weapons on planes. Theme park guests are carrying less luggage and security should naturally be easier and more efficient than airport security. So that’s why Universal is quicker than the airport, Disney on the other hand at times not so much.

lazyboy97oOct 29, 2018

What makes Universal effective but not airports that do similar scans?

s8film40Oct 29, 2018

Yep, and you can also figure out the pattern enough to avoid the metal detectors.

Marc Davis FanOct 29, 2018

Ironically, the threat of negative press about inadequate security measures might be what motivates them to do more. We know that sending 100% of people through the metal detector and simultaneous bag x-ray is feasible, as Uni shows. But also, why are the sniffing dogs only around intermittently? Why not make their presence - or a swabbing/puffing device - a permanent part of all security entrance areas? They can do similar swabbing/puffing of vehicles at all of the areas where they’re already being stopped (parking area entrances, resort entrances...). Yet here’s the big problem: They really don’t want the negative publicity that TSA gets about inconveniencing people and even making people feel uncomfortable. (For example, what happens when the metal detector keeps going off on someone? How about people with metal braces and such? There’s no pat down team, is there? So what do they do?) One day, superior screening technology will surely solve this, but until then...?