KNOEBELS AMUSEMENT RESORT -- Imagine walking through an amusement park and not being able to find your child, or being a child and not being able to find your family. Knoebels Amusement Resort is taking steps to make it easier for families to reconnect in situations like this.
After a busy season, Knoebels Amusement Resort near Elysburg is now only open on weekends through September. Employees tell Newswatch 16 it was a great summer, but one suggestion kept coming up from parents. They wanted some kind of way to keep track of their children. Employees at Knoebels found a solution and will start using it this weekend. Check out these yellow wristbands. The concept is pretty simple.
"Make a call, contact the family or group, and reunite the missing guest with their family or friends," Erik Beagle said.
When families get to the park, they can pick up these wristbands. Parents will write their cell phone numbers on the back. If a child gets separated from their group, park employees will take off the band and call the phone number.
"Every week we get one or two here and there of individuals who are missing from their party or their party comes to us asking for help. Either they use a phone to make a phone call or we use the number on the back of their wristband if they don't remember their phone number," Beagle said.
Employees say the wristbands will also be helpful because, with all of the rides, it is too loud at Knoebels to make announcements over the loudspeaker.
The wristbands are available at four different locations in the park: Hand Stamps, Lost and Found, Guest Relations and here at Security.
"Those are high traffic areas that guests are going to be prone to go to when they need to locate something or someone," Beagle said.
Katie Waters and her family come to the park often. Her son Aidan is nine years old.
"I think it's good, I mean kids always get separated so it's an easy for-sure way to find them," Waters said.
Employees at Knoebels say the wristbands are not only for children, any visitor to the park can use them.