I appreciate people’s insight on this. On one hand, his daughter was very close to the height requirement, but, on the other, it feels weird to put platform shoes on.
As I said, I’m not a parent so I was looking for feedback on this. While I was at WDW, I saw more than one parent, when asked for their child to be measured say, “oh, it’s fine, she/he is tall enough.”(I saw that three times actually), and I wasn’t sure if parents are just ok with the potential for safety issues because they realize the padding involved. The CMs did not take that as a valid reason and still measured the kids.
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Agreed. The requirements have taken into account that you’ll get about an inch of height while in shoes. This is the built in “wiggle room” people talk about. If you are at / near the requirement height in shoes then you are fine in bare feet.
The only times I’ve ever asked guests to remove their shoes for a height check is when it is obvious that the child is too short and the parents are not being reasonable. More often though I had to ask guests to remove hats and place the height bar flat on top of the skull to push down 3 - 6 inches of hair. 
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I believe there was a park that tried that (Six Flags maybe?) but people were figuring out how to get out of the wristband and transfer it to a shorter child - so they would measure the tall-enough kid at one station, get the wristband, go elsewhere and remove the wristband to put it on the shorter child and then go back with another adult (or send the kid back on their own) to get measured and get a wristband.
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This is why we can’t have nice things. 
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Yup.
I used to work at Opryland when it existed, and they had the hand stamp thing for same-day re-entry. They discovered that some people would get stamped and then sell the stamp to people waiting to get tickets - they would wet their hand and roll their hand to the sucker’s hand. So they got stamps that said a word - but backwards - so when someone bought “a stamp” and ran their hand under the UV light, the word would read correctly and they had to tell the person they had been conned.
Scummy people ruin everything!
Screamin’ Delta Demon was the best. It was my Matterhorn growing up!
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But if you won’t let kids on first thing in the morning who are millimetres too small - which they don’t - then it has to be consistent.
Just to be clear, a few mm was what I meant by a tiny boost. Certainly not an inch.
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Loved that one!!
I worked at the Ice Cream Place in State Fair - but also did the “cart” by Grizzly River Rampage. I was working at the hotel in reservations when they opened The Hangman and a group of us got picked to ride it opening day.
(My dad did a part-time weekend gig at the admissions turnstiles - which is how I know about the stamps.)
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I live in Memphis, so we’d go up there at least once a year. I remember Grizzly River Rampage being one of the few “EMH” rides that operated before most of the park opened. Nothing like starting the rest of your day in soaked socks.
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Haha!
That “cart” (it was considered a cart though it was stationary) was my “home” after Nashville schools had started but the park was still open during the week (my college started after Labor Day) - so much that I knew every single word to every bit of Country Music USA.
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I once worked at a Warner Bros theme park that had a Will Smith “Wild, Wild West” themed log flume. They played that theme song on a loop with cast interviews all day while loading. (Song / interview / Song / repeat)
I still know every word to that song. I can probably recite good chunks of Kevin Kline’s interview too! 
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So annoying.
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Remember in the good old days when the moment a light turned red the opposite direction turned green? But then, people would try to push the yellow light and lead to sometimes fatal accidents. So, to prevent accidents they introduced a delay so that after the light turned red, the other direction would stay red for another 1 to 2 seconds.
Now, knowing this, people go ahead and go through a red light on purpose knowing there is extra time built in.
So, Disney knows there are cheaters and so they are overzealous with their height restrictions to accommodate for it. But despite this, people still try to get around the rules even more. The fix is if people just stopped breaking the rules!
At one amusement park they would measure the kids without shoes on and then give a band PLUS a hand stamp.
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Came here to say this.
My biggest safety concern is rides with a single lap bar for 2 people. That combined with the rule that kids under 8 (I think? ) have to ride with an adult means I become the safety device for my kid.
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Agreed!
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I feel your pain!
(I also got to observe parents berating the height checker at the GRR entrance who had to inform them that their child did not meet the height requirement. So I have ultimate sympathy for those cast member! It was NOT pretty!)
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You quickly can recognize when a kid is tall enough, but is going to slide around due to size. If I put the lap bar down and it hits your adult legs, but isn’t touching your child it isn’t going to do them any good. Whenever I saw this I would tell Moms & Dads, “This ride is pretty rough. I know you just waited an hour+, but maybe consider just doing a parent swap and leave DS/DD at the station.”
Whenever they didn’t, I would spend the next few minutes doing my work just waiting for the train to come back so I could check on the child. Often I would see a parent huddled over the kid rushing them to the exit. I was always relived when it went well, but why risk it?
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We were just at Six Flags this past weekend and they gave my son a 48" wristband on a ride after they measured him.
Interesting. I thought they had stopped that due to people switching bands.
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I think they may still check at the ride, but make sure the height matches close to the band.
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