During my recent vacation, we went to an ‘eco’ theme park in Mexico, where they charged children tickets based on height, NOT age. At the time, I thought it was interesting, a little bit odd, but interesting. And now, I think it should be done EVERYWHERE!
Last weekend, I took my little one to a water-park, you know, the ones with the wave pool, ‘children area’ and slides… I was flabbergasted (and trust me, I do not get to use the word flabbergast a lot) when I saw how much a kid’s ticket was. Kids THREE and up had to pay full adult fare. Yes THREE!
Now, this would not be so bad, if the three year old can take advantage of ALL the activities at the park, but there is a height restriction on the big slides (not that my little one would have stepped foot on the slide, heck, she did not even want to go on the baby slide, but this is more our problem than theirs.) Back to the problem… why in the world should I pay full price for my little one, when she can only use about 1/3 of the park? Heck, as I was there by myself, I was only able to use about 1/3 of the park - it is not like I am going to leave my toddler alone next to a pool while I go have fun on the tube slide… This was probably the most expensive couple of hours, of sitting in a pool in my life.
I think Mexico had it right; perhaps all theme parks should start selling tickets based on height. If a child can only use a certain percentage of the equipment, they should only have to pay a certain percentage of the price.
Now, I know why my parents insisted that I was 12 for about three years of my life.
photo courtesy of: Kevin Abbott (ka1970)
