True. My mom has the same problems as the OP. Due to multiple eye surgeries her eyes do not adjust well from light to darkness. She can't even be in the parks after dark. Plus she has alot of problems with arthritis and moves very slowly, so needs time to board any ride. She uses an
ECV down there and does well on it, but takes alot of time to transfer and needs to avoid dark queues. Even with her cane, her knees fequently just give away with her and she falls. She is also a very brittle diabetic, whose blood sugar drops suddenly and very unexpectedly (sometimes even after she's just eaten a good meal), so we have no warning it's going to drop. Consequently she can get confused very quickly and even pass out. She's 80 y/o and has a little dementia going on too. She can't stand being bumped and in very crowded situations, where she is getting bumped into, will have a panic attack and have trouble breathing. Due to the bigger crowds at park closing and her problems seeing in the dark, we just have to avoid the parks during night time hours. She is also on meds that cause her to sunburn really bad and really quickly, so we need to avoid standing in queues that are out in the sun. Traveling through the parks, we always try to cut through the gift shops and inside queues are great, as long as they are not too crowded, but we have to try to avoid long outside queues that are in the sun. When we were there in early Dec, we asked for a DAC just to be able to wait in a quieter area and to avoid dark queues. She was refused. In fact, one CM told her point blank that the DAC was only for kids with autisim and WDW didn't really have anything for the elderly, except to rent an ECV or wheelchair. Fine, we had her an ECV, but the ECV did not meet all her needs. They just refused to listen to that though. We tried at two different guest services and were refused a DAC both times. We weren't trying to avoid the waits either, we just wanted to wait somewhere quieter and brighter, where she wouldn't get bumped, would be able to see, and would have the time and space she needed.
At Nemo we asked the CM outside if she could avoid the dark queue as she has trouble seeing in there. He told us to go inside the gift shop and use the handicap entrance there. We went inside, the CM at the cash register told us where it was and we went and waited, and waited, and waited and waited. We even tried to open the door ourselves, but it was locked. We finally went back to the cash register CM and her comment was, "Oh well, they must not be using that entrance today, you'll have to go through the regular queue." Uh, she can't. The CM said there was nothing she could do, if they weren't using that entrance that day. We just didn't get to ride. Because the moving walkways can not be stopped, she has not been able to ride Peter Pan or the Transit Authority in several years now. She also has trouble stepping up or down into rides and can't do stairs, so hasn't been able to ride rides like Pirates, Big Thunder, Splash, Maelstrom, or the Donald boat ride in Mexico. All of which used to be her favorites. She rides very few rides now, so would only use a DAC maybe once or twice a day, but can't get one. We stay offsite, so can't book fastpasses ahead of time either. In Dec, even getting there at rope drop, we were only able to get one fast pass that had a decent time we could use. She can not be in the parks after dark, so evening fast passes won't work for her.