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One or two incredibly interesting stories strike me on a daily basis, the first being this gem out of England.  A theme park there is actually banning the use of PDAs in the park.  Excerpt below.

“Alton Towers Resort will be piloting a “PDA Free Zone” during May Half Term (May 25th - June 1st inclusive), to encourage parents to disconnect from the office and reconnect fully with their families. PDA police will be onsite to enforce the ban and any adult caught using a PDA whilst at the Resort will be asked to report to one of five “PDA Drop Off Zones” where they can safely leave their PDA’s for the day. If the scheme is successful, it will be introduced full time.

Russell Barnes, Divisional Director for the Alton Towers Resort explains; “What we have here is the ultimate short break location where every member of the family can unwind and have fun. We feel it’s so important for parents and kids to focus on nothing more than having the best possible time, we are prepared to take drastic action to ensure that parents really leave their work behind!”

How arbitrary.  Rather than lowering prices, building more rides, or lengthening park hours, the security is actually stopping patrons from using their PDAs.  What a business strategy.

The biggest problem with this ‘ban’ on adults having PDAs is quite comical:

“So the policy allows kids phones for safety purposes.
Who are they going to call? The parents without the cell phones?”

Tag this at Technorati: alton parks, bad ban, dumb adults, family fun, pda, waste-of-money