At WDW and having trouble with DAS

[Mrsjvb]

Where in that did you get the clients preference from? In DLP, the disability accommodation is given based on disability (what you explain, corroborated by the proof you have to provide) they issue a card with a code and colour designating which type of assistance you are entitled to. This card, by the way, also tells you which attractions your disability will render impossible, and which you will be turned away from. There is no preferring involved. Although I will say, that, what this client would prefer (and I assume what MANY others would *prefer*) is that their child can access and enjoy holidays, without the extreme compromises and additional pain they have to deal with. NO DAS is providing that, so the idea of client preference is laughable.

The OP. Has stated that their child cannot wait in a line that is longer than 15 minutes.
their ‘preference’ would be to access the FO line and not be in that line for 15 minutes once their DAS time has arrived.

under ADA, Disney is not required to provide a personal preference to x issue. They just have to provide ‘a’ solution.

a big thing people seem to want is a DAS for stamina and mobility issues( can’t stand long, etc). But Disney’s answer to that is wheelchair, ECV, or rollator. That’s all they are required to provide. So while you may want a DAS that allows you to wait the hour long line having a Mickey Bar sitting down somewhere, so does everyone else. Line has to be drawn somewhere.

 

[DisneyOma]

The quicker access the OP is looking for is one of the complaints against Disney by that lawsuit that got shot down, isn't it? It's a hard question to answer - what exactly is equal access? I don't think time waiting in a queue was in the original process when ADA was first created. From what I remember, most of it was based on physical barriers, and I can't think of anything dealing with time besides health related issues and time given at a job to take care of it (like having to use a nebulizer, or other procedure at work)

The part online on the Disney site that mentions limited time at the park - I think someone at Disney/website development goofed on that. I don't think that's part of ADA or Disney policy.

 

[sharadoc]

That is completely understandable to want to feel "normal". It is a harder route when you have someone in your family with a disability. My niece is autistic so we know first hand. I guess the question is, what is normal? The "normal" families are waiting in line. But that obviously does not work in your case. It is hard for them to be able to say to a family like yours that you can just skip all lines entirely because then it will come down to every one wanting that access. It would turn into a "my kids is more disabled then yours" type of thing. This is a very emotional subject, of course. But emotion has to come out of it and it has to be looked at rationally. It is easy to think and feel, "my life is hard every day so why not make it easier for me here". While perfectly understandable, it is not practical with the amount of people that go to WDW every day. Everyone can pin point their life down to it being hard every day.

All I mean is the ability to not feel stress every minute of the day. I get it how dare I feel that? I'm out.

 

[Heather07438]

Disney has the power to affect this without any changes to DAS.
Open both sides of some rides instead of only one for the first 2 hours of park operations.
Add more hours, especially at MK during party season.
Stop giving out FPs like candy. With so many recent price increases, people are more inclined to gripe. WDW answer is 'have some FPs'

^These are some reasons FPs lines are hitting 30 minutes and normal waits keep rising. The parks are more crowded maybe, but definitely exacerbated by current operations.

 

[cobright]

I'll start with the OPer first because I know I'm going to wander a bit on my message as this gets put down...

(For anyone coming in late, the kiddo has autism, can't walk or help transfer, severe epilepsy, a feeding tube, is incontinent and cognitively disabled, we are not trying to get a free ride, but just make the vacation possible.)

Oof. I will admit, it's easy to read your opening lines and think this way. It's something we see often enough and the stories of people gaming the system are matters of high drama entertainment. I'm sorry to have fallen into that thinking often enough, but I think most of us understand what you're looking for (if not what you're going through.)

So here's some practical advice... Get to the park and do your best. After a few hours go to guest relations and just lay it out for them. GR CMs really, more than anyone else in the park maybe, really want to fix your day if they can; and they have the power to do it. There is a great YouTuber named Jenny Nicholson, a former CM, who worked in GR for time and the sort of things GR does for guests on the regular is just impressive.

Tell the GR person you've got the DAS and what problems you're hoping the DAS will mitigate, and you are doing your best but you've been in the park this long and have not been able to get kiddo through many lines. She's missing out and she's hurt by that.

As an parent and advocate for a disabled person a lot of people, especially parents, get steely eyed and stone faced when dealing on behalf of their kiddo and sometimes you really need to communicate the feelings. Put it into terms of how you feel and how the kiddo feels because those aren't quantifiable things. There's set of numbers, rule, law, or policy that can be brought back in reply to a person honestly doing their best and failing.

Then issue the ask. And make the ask reasonable. Two things tops, whatever they are. "If there were just some way to get her to see Cinderella she would smile about that for months.", "We're probably going to have to leave for the day early, is there any way we could get onto the Peter Pan ride before we go?"

You give GR an opportunity to pull your vacation out of the tank and accept whatever help they can or can't give you. There simply may not be anything they can do. Any help they could provide would require GR communicating at some length with one or more attractions and if the park is very busy, they might just be stretched too thin.

If you get some help from GR, try your best to leverage that against your kiddo to get her to maybe put forward a little extra effort in the lines of a couple other attractions and just like that you get a couple attractions instead of none. Yes, you're asking for special help. But if your day is going like you describe then you're already not in the lines much at all. It's hard to hold wanting two or three experiences a day in exchange for your cost of admission.

How do you.manage waiting for anything and everything else in your life? Certainly the wait can be longer than 15 minutes! Being in a Car for example. Did you fly: there is lots of waiting in that. How did you.manage the line at disney Security? Probably the transportation to the Parks took 15 minutes or longer....

I'm not an autism expert by any measure, but if it's anything like having a panic/anxiety disorder the problem may not be the waiting at all. I suspect the problem comes from the child's reaction to proximity to the other people in line and/or exposure to sensory and perception stressors that exist in crowded and exposed spaces.

Hopefully you can get some things accomplished but there is no DAS accommodation to impatience (autism-based or not).

Sometimes something we are about to say or type totally doesn't sound offensive while it's inside our own head. Perhaps describing the special needs of a non-ambulatory epileptic autistic child as impatience is that sort of thing for some people sometimes. I don't know. I do believe, or at least would like to believe, that I'm not the only one to find such a thing, written out like that, distasteful.

And repeated exposure in order to acclimate the person, is the only solution if you aren't going to lock them in their house forever!
...
Oh I know. But unless you *are* Bubble Boy, it is a disservice to expect that everyone cater to your special needs so that you can remain in your "bubble".

The quicker access the OP is looking for is one of the complaints against Disney by that lawsuit that got shot down, isn't it?

Quicker access ~is~ a major part of the lawsuit v. Disney. But what the OP was describing (as I'm understanding it) wasn't so much the wait but the requirement for the child to be present in line for the entirety of the wait.

 

[Mleach]

Hi, we're home now and I wanted to tell you what we worked out with Disney. We figured out that the real crux of the problem were kid lines at MK. Those were by far the longest, loudest and most claustrophobic lines - also the hardest to get back out of with the wheelchair. So they put on 3 blank fast passes that excluded the Mine Train and Peter Pan. Really the kiddo only wants the kid rides anyway. So that way if we saw Winnie the Poo or Dumbo were a normal length fastpass line, we could duck in there. We still rode perhaps just 2-3 rides per day, but they were low stress. We "rope-dropped" Mickey. Someone said to be really specific and that helped. For instance, we had a scheduled fastpass for the Safari ride, waited a few minutes and realized the kiddo needed a diaper first. Asked a CM if we could duck out at the stroller exit and come back in after going to first aid, and he said sure! We did go to a character meal and enjoyed it very much. It helped a lot for us to pay attention to what the problem was and propose a solution as CMs were very happy to act whenever it was within their ability to do it. We also kept what I would have considered too much room in line around her wheelchair, for instance (maybe 3' on either side) and no one seemed to mind. She has unusual movements and this eliminated surprise touching of strangers too (wheelchair is about thigh level).
We found the DAS worked much better at other parks, just didn't work for us at MK.
Disney is near 100% on ADA compliance. We hardly ever notice any problems with the wheelchair, usually just transient stuff with construction or whatnot. Never had a complaint. Our kid's issues are not only autism by the way, as she has serious and continuous medical issues that sometimes require us to know how long we will physically be in the line to anticipate her care. She has spent almost a year's worth of days at the hospital in her life as a first grader. It does make one impatient. As her childhood has been eaten up by illness and disability. I never even knew this could happen to a kid before, I never knew a kid's life could be all doctors and therapy, and Disney is definitely our escape. I realize they can't fix everything.
Thank you guys for your kindness by the way.

 

[lanejudy]

I’m so glad you were able to salvage some of your trip! Thanks for reporting back. I hope your next visit is smoother.

 

[maxiesmom]

Disney has the power to affect this without any changes to DAS.
Open both sides of some rides instead of only one for the first 2 hours of park operations.
Add more hours, especially at MK during party season.
Stop giving out FPs like candy. With so many recent price increases, people are more inclined to gripe. WDW answer is 'have some FPs'

^These are some reasons FPs lines are hitting 30 minutes and normal waits keep rising. The parks are more crowded maybe, but definitely exacerbated by current operations.

So either hire more or staff more. Which means more money spent, and look there goes another raise in park ticket prices.

 

[Heather07438]

So either hire more or staff more. Which means more money spent, and look there goes another raise in park ticket prices.

They said they needed to raise ticket prices to help alleviate crowds, not because they were unable to turn profit. Then after that they went and cut opex of hours and staff, making it more crowded again. ???Perplexing

 

[Endoragrace]

Thanks everyone. To clarify, the issue for me is that my kiddo just can't wait in a line that is 30 minutes long. We don't mind waiting outside the line, and aren't trying to get some super quick front of line treatment. The disney website specially says that DAS may not work for guests who have limited time in the parks, and to discuss the need for alternate accommodation with guest services, but it sounds from what you've all said that there simple aren't any other arrangements. Touring Plans estimated this week as 1-3 crowds, which is why we planned this week (from 2000 miles away). I think Disney is handing out a ton of fastpasses at MK in particular, resulting in longer and longer lines, which dilutes the accommodation that was set up several years ago for everyone who may need a DAS.
(For anyone coming in late, the kiddo has autism, can't walk or help transfer, severe epilepsy, a feeding tube, is incontinent and cognitively disabled, we are not trying to get a free ride, but just make the vacation possible.)
Thank you all for your good wishes and excellent suggestions.

Where does it say on the Disney website that the DAS may not work for guests who have limited time in the parks, and to discuss with Guest Relations about alternate accommodations? I can't find that anywhere, and
perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place. I've assumed that is the one thing that Disney cannot help with.

 

[Mleach]

Where does it say on the Disney website that the DAS may not work for guests who have limited time in the parks, and to discuss with Guest Relations about alternate accommodations? I can't find that anywhere, and
perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place. I've assumed that is the one thing that Disney cannot help with.

Here you go, it is a pdf that is linked from the Disney website: https://secure.cdn1.wdpromedia.com/.../wdw-disability-access-service_2015-04-30.pdf

 

[Endoragrace]

Thanks so much. I'm surprised by this because when GAC turned into DAS one of the issues that was brought up was families who could only stay a very limited time each day before they had to leave the parks. Here it reads that Disney will help accommodate that issue. I wonder how Guest Relations could help. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[seashoreCM]

Maybe the problem the OP ran into using Disability Access Service could be alleviated by this change: If the guest has to leave the line before riding then he may come back and "re-use" the DAS time after the calamity is resolved as opposed to getting another DAS time for the same ride. Some logistics would have to be worked out to make this work smoothly. I would expect that the guest would not be able to get a DAS time for something else until after the DAS time in question was used or abandoned.

 

[Heather07438]

Here you go, it is a pdf that is linked from the Disney website: https://secure.cdn1.wdpromedia.com/.../wdw-disability-access-service_2015-04-30.pdf

Sounds frustrating. I sympathize with you and also WDW because it's a hard act to balance between policies that serve and policies that invite abuse. I'm glad they were able to accommodate your more unique situation before your trip was over.

Reading these posts (very informative, thanks) makes me think a good strategy would be visiting attractions that are prone to FP back-ups during less affected times, like very early or during parades/shows. MK is the biggest challenge in this dept., may not help much.

Management's point of view (and GR by proxy) might be that nobody's having an easy time getting what they'd like to accomplish at MK anymore, especially during party season. They don't mind it's come to this and it might even be a bit by design, as it helps sell EMMs & DAHs, Character Meals & Dessert Parties. From that perspective, meeting the needs to have DAS experience on par with average experience is less. It's harder for all of us now unfortunately.

 

[gap2368]

Maybe the problem the OP ran into using Disability Access Service could be alleviated by this change: If the guest has to leave the line before riding then he may come back and "re-use" the DAS time after the calamity is resolved as opposed to getting another DAS time for the same ride. Some logistics would have to be worked out to make this work smoothly. I would expect that the guest would not be able to get a DAS time for something else until after the DAS time in question was used or abandoned.

I have done just this a number of times I just talk to the CM when I am exiting the FP line they have always made it so I can come back when I am able too.

 

[DisneyOma]

Quicker access ~is~ a major part of the lawsuit v. Disney. But what the OP was describing (as I'm understanding it) wasn't so much the wait but the requirement for the child to be present in line for the entirety of the wait.

No, she said the DAS (which shortens the wait time) wasn't working because even in the FP+ queue it was too long of a wait, right? So they weren't waiting the entire time in a queue, the time they were having to wait was still too long. So that would be quicker access.

Glad to hear WDW gave them some added pixie dust.

 

[cobright]

No, she said the DAS (which shortens the wait time) wasn't working because even in the FP+ queue it was too long of a wait, right? So they weren't waiting the entire time in a queue, the time they were having to wait was still too long. So that would be quicker access.

Hmmm. I read this...

To clarify, the issue for me is that my kiddo just can't wait in a line that is 30 minutes long. We don't mind waiting outside the line, and aren't trying to get some super quick front of line treatment

to mean she was hoping to be able to wait outside the queue until a member of their party is within 10-15 minutes of the end. It's an ask that is not really convenient for Disney CMs to manage at some attractions but it's the sort of thing that, for one or two such attractions in a day, I think would be a reasonable request to GR.

 

[linco711]

Thank you guys for reading and responding. We do the muffs already, it is a help. It's not terribly busy at all right now. So, it's weird that the lines for fastpass are so long. It's frustrating that Disney states over and over that autism can be accommodated, but no one is empowered to do anything. She was all dressed up to meet Cinderella yesterday, so excited, but couldn't make it through the fastpass line and also didnt understand why she couldn't see the princess. It's hard for us too.

I’m so sorry to hear there is no accommodation made for you. I find that very sad! I don’t think Walt would have wanted this, but the truth is Disney is not a friendly place for those with disabilities. We love the parks, but don’t go anymore. We liked the spontaneous days without fast passes and all the necessary advanced planning that has to be done now. But all things change and not always for the better.

 

[DisneyOma]

I’m so sorry to hear there is no accommodation made for you. I find that very sad! I don’t think Walt would have wanted this, but the truth is Disney is not a friendly place for those with disabilities. We love the parks, but don’t go anymore. We liked the spontaneous days without fast passes and all the necessary advanced planning that has to be done now. But all things change and not always for the better.

We've found WDW to be one of the most accommodating places of all; sorry you've found it otherwise. The OP was accommodated.

 

[ladyjubilee]

We are just back from WDW. It sounds like your daughter is much like my son who has autism (non verbal, aggressive, severely impacted), brain damage (which adds visual field deficits), epilepsy (though well controlled post surgery) and PTSD.

But our experience was completely different this year, to the point it's why I came to the forum today. This trip we found Disney really tried to "individualalize" the accomodation. It started way back when I called to ask one question, which made me think of an in park question. I told the phone cast member, "I know, I have to wait and ask Guest Services at the Park"....and she said, "no, I'll call them right now." Then, when we had issues on 2 separate occassions, Cast Members were able to help in ways that before, and frankly here on the forum, we have been told were impossible. In one of the instances the Cast Member saw our problem and offered the solution.

My point is, I found Disney more flexible, the Cast Members more knowledgeable and more empowered to help families like ours than when DAS rolled out. They have refined and nuanced the process.

So my suggestion is decide what are 2 absolute priorities for you child to do in the Parks for the day. Then go to Guest Services and speak to a manager. Explain what the issue has been and ask them to help you give your child those 2 experiences. They aren't going to be able to "make it work" for every ride and every character, which isn't realistic if a child can't wait even 10 minutes, but they may be able to help give at least a little magic to prevent a total disaster.

Knowing there was 1 thing we wanted at the Christmas Party, that really was our reason for the Christmas party, I asked Guest Services a few days before what we should do. The Cast Member gave us a suggestion. When we arrived that day, again out first stop was Guest Services and we followed the suggestion. They were able to help us in a way "everyone knows" can't be done.

Talk to them. Explain the problem. If your child is like mine, they'll see this isn't a trying to pull one over situation. Be clear, and reasonable, let them figure out a way to help.