Disney Land Robbery...

rjk

rjk

Caporegime
Joined
8 Aug 2007
Posts
25,381
hello folks

posting here from my much needed holiday in the USA

just thought i would share the experience with you all.

i have come away from my usual post at OcUK to sunny florida for two weeks of theme parks, unhealthy food and very little excercise.
fantastic

well, it was until last night.

upon returning to our hotel room for the last night [we were waiting for our rented house to become available] my family entered the hotel where my Dad stayed behind at the back door for a smoke.
i would have stayed with him but i gave up 6 months ago and prefer to stay away form smokers to remove any temptation.

anyway, my dad is smoking away when a guy with a pistol leaps from the bushes and mugs my dad, goodbye wallet/money/ID etc etc

after freely giving away his wallet [as you would do if a gun was pointed at you] the guy pistol whips my dad leaving him a bloody mess on the floor

bad times.

so the florida police turn up and do the subtotal of nothing to help the situation.
my dad gets cleaned up, we call the card companies and sort out replacment cards etc

an overall rubbish start to a holiday.

what i dont understand is this...

my dad works in the oil industry, he travells around more than anyone i know, mainly to deprived/hostile areas including Nigeria, China, Rwanda etc

yet in all of these places where crime corruption run rife, he has never had his life put at risk, and never been assaulted let alone held up at gun point.

it makes me laugh how the the one place it happens to him is when he is on holiday with his family at Disney land.

moral of the story...

watch your back, or Mickey Mouse will sneak up on you!
 
Soldato
Joined
16 Jun 2005
Posts
3,154
Location
Back in the UK
I also work in the oil industry and while our company puts all sorts of security in place when they send us to Algeria or somewhere else a little tasty we get nothing at all when we go to the US.

In the last about 13 years plenty of people I work with have been robbed and one was shot (but survived) in the US of A.

Anyway I'm sure there is no way for this to not put a downer on your break but it could have been worse.

Out of intrest where abouts was this hotel?
 
Associate
Joined
26 Jan 2010
Posts
291
Holy hell how awful, hope your dad is alright, its just sods law that hes in a supposedly civilised country and ends up getting held-up
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Apr 2009
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5,398
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Location, Location!
This is probably why the other week when I was in the main bit of Hollywood, and popped into Maccy D's to find they even had a security guard... who also happened to have a gun... pretty shocking that places like Macdonalds need armed security.

Glad I don't live there.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
9 Jan 2007
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164,576
Location
Metropolis
What a way to start a holiday. I hope your dad is ok after his awful experience and that you can all put this behind you and enjoy your holiday.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
28 Nov 2007
Posts
12,736
Sorry to hear that. I lived in Orlando for almost 3 years and have a soft spot for Florida but it does have its fair share of crime in the city. There are quite bad areas in Orlando (i lived in a relatively bad one) with a lot of crack use, combine that with readily available guns and the outcome is inevitable. As a tourist you are for the most part well protected from it but it does spill over from time to time, as unfortunately it has for you.

The odds of anything else bad happening to you are tiny so get out there and enjoy.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Nov 2006
Posts
4,238
Location
Inverkip
I'm sorry to hear that. I've visited Orlando more than a dozen times and I've never heard of anything like this happening to tourists. I suppose something like this could happen anywhere and I hope it doesn't ruin your holiday.

Can you tell us where in Orlando you where staying? Was it a Disneyworld resort, Kissimmee, Lake Buena Vista or I-Drive? I have noticed that the I-Drive area has gone pretty downhill in recent years with the opening of a lot of pubs and nightclubs which no doubt attracts the scum element of Orlando.
 
Soldato
Joined
4 Aug 2004
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2,734
Location
on OCUK
Sorry to hear this just glad hes not hurt critically bit of a bad start to the holiday! When I saw the thread title I thought someone stole some of Disney's...land :o
 
Soldato
Joined
28 Sep 2008
Posts
14,123
Location
Britain
Where was this?

Same thing happened to my family around 10 years ago. Opportunists in Florida. Back then, on the same holiday, my grandparents also got rammed off the road and all their belongings taken from the hire car.

Of course, back then, hire cars ran different plates, easily spotted by theives
 
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