2 way radios and Child Guard Monitor

[robmary]

Was wondering about which 2 way radios work well at Disney? We need 3 to work together, so we would need to buy single ones. Ones that you can hear well with.

Second. Anyone ever use what called the Child Guard Monitor?. One part you put on the child and the other part you have. You set it from I think 3 to 30 feet. When the child goes out of the range from you, yours will beep. Thinking about this for our 2 year old DD. She is very quick and we just want to make sure we have our bases covered with her and such large crowds during the summer. Did they work well?

 

[BevS97]

I think I would prefer a harness/reins on the child rather than the beeper. Your child could be only a few feet away and really hard to spot in a busy crowd - it might work well for an older child, but for a 2 year old I would prefer to know that we were physically attached to each other.

I haven't used the radios, but I have heard good things as long as you get the ones with multibands (she says not really knowing what she's talking about)

Bev

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

Hmm, I'm also curious about the beeper thing. This is the first I have heard of them! They might be a good thing for just a little more peace of mind (especially when you have more than one child- I have 3) when a child has a major problem with wearing a harness. Yes, we're the parents- but who wants to have an unhappy child all day at WDW day after day? LOL Not me....

Anyone ever used the beeper thing?

 

[Pammy_from_WI]

I'd really love to know about the beeper thing too. Who makes it and where can you get one?

We tried the harness last year, she was just about 2 and it was a nightmare. She'd take off, with it attached, and when it got tight she'd fall down. Plus she HATED it, it was a huge battle to get it on her. She did a lot better riding in her stroller and then I'd let her walk when the area was less busy.

I'm super paranoid with her and so I'm doing the necklace/dog tag thing with all her info. I've ruled out the harness, just because it was a pain to use with her. But this beeper sounds like a good backup. She's very quick, but we've never had problems with her getting away from us, even in heavy crowds, but I'd rather play it safe.

Any info would be great!

Pammy

 

[Pammy_from_WI]

Oh and on the topic of the radios, we've used them at other places with large crowds and they do work well. You need to get decent ones though, with multibands and pick your channel and have 2 or 3 back up channels, in case you get other people's chatter. Ours have a range up to 3 or 5 miles. We haven't had too many problems with chatter, only a couple times and then we just switched channels. We're taking them on our trip in Oct. so I'm hoping they work out good at WDW too.

I have heard of others using cell phones and that seems to work out for them, though it is more expensive to do it this way.

Pammy

 

[robmary]

Thanks for the ideas everyone, please keep them coming. On the Child Guard Monitor. Go to like ask.com and put in Child Guard Monitor. Several locations came up with prices ranging from 14.00 to about 25.00. They come in different colors too. That's good if you need more than one. You can set the range anywhere from3 to 30 feet and once the child goes out of that range yours starts beeping. It doesn't look like Toys R Us or Babies R us sells them. My quess it's like a Right Start type product. But, many places on line sell them, some with free shipping. Now we haven't bought it, I was hoping someone used it and could tell us how it went. THis is the only product online I found like that.

 

[Rebecca12345]

I have a clever idea to help keep your eye on a toddler/small child... Tie a brightly colored mylar helium balloon around the back strap of their overalls. If they happen to stray, you can spot them easier in a crowd of people.

 

[mmiller711]

We used the 2-way radios on our last trip. We had two cheap ones and two expensive ones and they all worked the same. I found the range to be less than wonderful. (yes they did have the sub-channels.) You can NOT use them from one park to another and you can't be on opposite sides of the same park. We mainly used them if one group went on a ride the rest of us could wonder and shop and check on their progress. This year we have Nextel phones and with the direct connect now working nation wide it will work perfect (I hope).

 

[Cuchman]

We have used both 2-way radios and child locators.
We have from child locators Fisher Price. They have two functions:
One scenario is when the child moves more than 20 - 30 feet away. When this happens, the adult unit starts beeping.
The second (and more usefull for us) is a button on the adult half which, when pressed, causes the child half to beep increasingly louder until the button is released. It get really loud, easily heard over a crowd (don't put it near your kid's ears!!!
Actually, I just thought of a third function: If the child side is removed, it immediately beeps loud and does so until you put it back on or hook it up to the adult side.
I bought them both on ebay for about $20. If you search there or on Yahoo Shopping for "fisher price child locator" you should find them. We like them and will keep using them.

As far as 2-way radios, they work OK, but not as well as performance in other places. There range seems shorter than the 2 mile norm. I actually had a CM tell me that the radios they use in WDW interfere with the signal and reduce the range. Not sure if this is true, but they only worked over about 1/2 of MK distance, for example.

 

[disneyatl]

I'm hoping the radios work as well. I've bought 2 radios at Best Buy and get this.........the price was $16.99 and it came with a $15.00 rebate so I got them for $1.99 (and that was 2 radios in a pack). Be sure to check out Best Buy regularly for deals.

 

[flywheel]

I do know the two way radios have different frequency ranges depending on the type of radio, and then different channels, do pick alternate channels to connect if your main channel is crowded. Also some have sub-channels or privicy modes. You do get what you pay for, but most are line of sight use, their frequencies do not bounce off the atmosphere so buildings and hills can block them. An option might be mobile phones, you can usually rent them at the airports.