jess posted: I promised to write about Disneys new disability program. Ive been avoiding it. Im not entirely sure why. Its overwhelming, I guess. Trying to find the threads within the fabric - to unravel our trip into days and the days into moments and t Respond to this post by replying above this line New post on a diary of a mom disney das by jess I promised to write about Disneys new disability program. Ive been avoiding it. Im not entirely sure why. Its overwhelming, I guess. Trying to find the threads within the fabric - to unravel our trip into days and the days into moments and to somehow deliver it to you in some kind of manageable form. It feels hard. Im also afraid that because I didnt exactly love the new program, Ill sound overly negative. And I really dont want to. But the truth is what we all already knew - the DAS (Disability Access Service) is not the same as the GAC (Guest Assistance Card.) Its just not. And it makes me kind of sad. In the past, Disney was a place where we were not just welcomed with open arms (as we still, absolutely, positively, whole-heartedly are), but supremely accommodated. Wait times for rides and attractions were made extremely minimal for our families, while others waited a long, long time. It was a gift to our kids - and our families - to be in a place that went out of its way to make itself accessible to us. For us, and so many others, it was never about entitlement, but access. But some people being what they are, they decided that it wasnt fair. That if anyone could avoid lines, no matter how valid the reason, they were entitled to avoid lines too. Not because it was the only way that they could access the parks, but because, ya know, theyre them. So they lied. And cheated. And found stomach-turning ways to exploit the system. Eventually, they made it impossible for Disney to accommodate families like ours in the same way. The DAS worked differently in some ways than had initially been described to me,or at least the way that Id understood it. Most saliently, there was no disability kiosk at which we signed up for rides. Such a thing did not exist. (It might at other parks; I can only speak to WDW in Orlando.) This is how the system worked for us: On the first day of our trip, we went to Guest Relations at the first park that we attended. For us, its Epcot, because, well, its always Epcot. Thats what we do. We ride Spaceship Earth and then the Test Track and then Spaceship Earth again. Cause, ya know, we do. We tried to get the pass ahead of time to avoid the waiting time for Brooke, but we were told that one cannot set up the pass anywhere other than any of the Guest Relations locations INSIDE the parks. Not in the hotel, not online, not in any way, shape, nor form could we do this ahead of time. As it turned out, the line at Guest Relations moved very quickly and the wait was relatively short, so it wasnt a big deal. When we told them that we had come for the pass, the cast members at the desk asked what type of accommodations we needed. We explained that Brooke is autistic and, as such, has a great deal of trouble navigating crowds and withstanding long waits. That was the sum of our conversation. They snapped her picture with an iPad and printed out a photo card for her (and three companions) to use throughout our stay. They explained that we would use it by going to one ride or attraction at a time and asking for a return time. The cast member manning the line would write the name of the attraction on the card along with the time at which we could return. It was typically the current time plus the estimated standby (walk-up) wait time minus ten minutes. So, if it were noon and Brooke wanted to torture her mother and go on Soaring, which had a 70 minute wait, they would write Soaring -- 1:00 pm on the card. We could then return any time after 1 pm and proceed through the Fast Pass line, which typically has a much shorter wait than the standby lines. In the meantime, we were free to use the Fast Pass Plus to schedule up to three rides a day online. With park admission comes access to Fast Pass Plus. In theory its a great system, though it still has a lot of limitations due to volume. Lets back up a little. Upon making your reservations to the park, you can log onto My Disney Experience, which has both a website and a mobile app. If youre staying on property (or are an annual pass holder), you also get a MagicBand, an electronic bracelet which acts as your room key, park pass, photo pass, charge card, and Fast Pass Plus ticket aggregator. By using the Fast pass Plus app, you can schedule up to three attractions a day for the length of your stay. You can also log on at any time to make changes to your schedule, but, as it turns out, this can be nearly impossible to do as reservations fill up quickly and some rides (particularly the popular ones for which the Fast Pass is most necessary) have no availability at all. For instance, one day we logged on to change our schedule because we had decided that we wanted to stay at Epcot instead of go to the Magic Kingdom as originally planned. We logged onto the app at 11 am. The open slots for any combination of rides that we wanted were 1:40, then 3:20, then 6:50. Right. Once youve used your Fast Pass reservations (meaning youve ridden the rides, the time windows have expired OR youve gone to the ride to physically cancel your reservation), you can then go to a Fast Pass kiosk in the park to schedule another one. There are often long (like very long) lines at the kiosks. Confused yet? If not, dont worry, you will be by the time Im done, promise. We scheduled rides for the trip as soon as we had the ability to do so (this was complicated for us by the fact that our park passes were a gift, so we couldnt schedule anything until we were there, but you can typically do it pretty far in advance, which is both wonderful and why availability is limited). There were a couple of times that we got it right. One morning, we hit the park right in time for the first ride, then, in between the first and second rides, ran to a fourth to get a return time using the disability pass. That took enough time to chew up most of the wait until the second rides window opened. Unlike the disability passes, the Fast Passes do expire. The windows, if I remember correctly, are an hour long. We were able to go on the second ride, then make our way to the fourth at the disability pass return time, then, on the way to the third, sign up for a fifth. You with me? Yes, it was exactly this confusing. On other days, no matter how much we tried, the timing simply didnt work. Especially after wed burned through the three Fast Passes, things began to get complicated. At one point, Luau went up to the Fast Pass kiosk at the Magic Kingdom only to be told that there were no reservations available. At all. For any rides. For the rest of the day. The only option therefore, since standing on a two-hour line with Brooke is truly not an option, was to choose a ride, go TO that ride, get a return time using the disability pass, and then proceed to try to explain to Brooke for the duration of the fifty minute wait that it wasnt quite time yet. Nope, not now either. Soon, kiddo. I promise. Nope, not yet. Yes, we showed her the clock. Yes, we used a timer. It is what it is. Time is abstract, folks. Other than a few scenarios in which we went down in flames, we made it work. We spent a lot more time than ever before in the shops, mostly because we needed to escape the heat during the wait and both of the girls like looking at the various and sundry items for sale. Okay, Brooke likes stimming on the glitter that falls onto the shelves from the costumes, but whatever. We had more downtime in between rides in some cases and far less in others while we ran across a park to make it before the Fast Pass window expired. The truth is that the new system took a lot of the spontaneity out of the trip, and I missed it. I missed hopping on a ride because it looked like fun, or chasing down a character because, of course, we had nowhere to be thereafter. It was, without a doubt, different. I spent a lot more time futzing with the app on my phone and was always aware of the time. But at the same time, I get it. I cant claim thats it unfair. Its not. Its probably far more fair in many ways than it was before. It accommodates our kids by offering a perfectly reasonable alternative to waiting in lines and contending with crowds - waiting wherever we want. Nonetheless, the wait, wherever it is, can be tough for our kids - and the accumulation of waits was, at times, more than our kiddo could handle. The cast members were, as they always are, wonderful. They were warm and accommodating and, as has always amazed me most given the demands of their jobs, patient. They allowed Brooke the extra time she needed, fawned over her sister, and never made either of them or us feel rushed. If I were queen of Disney, Id make some (seemingly but probably not at all simple) tweaks to the system. Id link the DAS pass to the MagicBands so that everything would be accessible electronically. As it stands, you can view all of your reservations (characters, restaurants, rides, etc) online ... except those made with the DAS. While keeping the Fast Pass Kiosks, Id also allow guests to cancel reservations as well as schedule additional reservations (once their three had expired) using their mobile devices. It would alleviate the long wait on a line to avoid a long wait on a line. And Id allow disabled guests to schedule more than one ride at a time. Even two would eliminate much of the limbo time in between rides and mitigate a great deal of the anxiety that Brooke had to manage. I had been told ahead of time by various folks at Disney that if a disabled guest had an affinity for particular rides and would want to schedule them more than once, they would be able to do that ahead of time - that we could, for instance, set up multiple visits to Small World with one request given that Brooke likes to ride it no less than four times in a row. When we asked both at the ride and again at Guest Relations about that, no one had the foggiest idea what we were talking about and told us it wasnt possible. On the flip side, we were thrilled to see that many of the character visits are now officially attractions, meaning that we could sign up for either DAS times or reserve them through Fast Pass Plus, which had not been an option before. That was big. The bottom line is that it was doable. But truthfully, I dont think it would have been two years ago. Brooke is in a very, very different place now than she was then. I cant imagine her handling the waits and the running and the timing and the strategizing and the chaos that this trip, to some degree, entailed. Now she can. And Im grateful for that on so many levels, but so too it makes me sad for those who are now where she was two years ago. It makes me sad that under the new system, we might have had to wait until she was eleven to really be able to make this work. What I will say though is that if its not working for you, go talk to guest relations and tell them what your child needs to make it work. Though we didnt get to the point of needing to ask, Im convinced theyd have helped if we had. As much as it saddens me that its harder than it used to be, it makes me angrier that people out there abused the system. It makes me angry because they didnt see -- or perhaps better said, didnt care -- that there were real consequences for real families to doing so. Nonetheless, I am grateful to Disney for finding a way to work around the abuse and still eagerly welcome our families to the parks as they always have -- to join in the magic, and to, as we did, make memories that will last a lifetime. {image is a photo of Brooke with Chippy and Dull, as she calls them, better known as Chip and Dale) {image is a photo of Katie on Luaus back in front of Cinderellas castle} Ed note: Once again, still, always ... To Papa, Grandma Noe, Jennifer, Rich, Mark, Kim, Naomi, Jen, Kay, Molly, Jen, Ed and Ed, THANK YOU. We will never, ever forget what made this trip possible. jess | May 29, 2014 at 5:42 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: wp.me/pNO8N-4gn Comment See all comments Like Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from a diary of a mom. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: adiaryofamom.wordpress/2014/05/29/disney-das/ Thanks for flying with WordPress
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 00:40:44 +0000
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