How the Rich skip the lines at Disney - rent a disabled tour guide.

[Castle2Castle]

Here is a photo I took on an average Saturday of the wheelchair/accessible/alternate/GAC entrance (there is only this, which is also the ride exit and the standard queue which has stairs. This is a Saturday DURING THE OFF SEASON!

It took me 3 photos to try to get the whole line, and I still missed some of it.

This line is crowded, loud, and long. Longer than the standby that day. Also, there is a store on one side of the line, and the exit crowds on the other.

Convenient how the NBC report never showed things like this...

Nobody can say with certainty due to editing, but perhaps NBC didn't experience lines of that magnitude on the two days they visited -- I don't recall if they said what day of the week they went. Still, if you trust what their editing showed and the waits they reported, it does appear that the GAC on at least the rides they showed afforded them near FOTL access.

That being said, reading over some of the more recent posts, a lot of people seem to be speaking to wait experiences referencing only their use of wheelchairs and ECVs. It might be worth pointing out that the "guides" in NBC's report used only the GAC and did not use either a wheelchair or ECV. Do those using wheelchairs and ECVs generally bypass obtaining a GAC due to your circumstances being more visibly evident? I'm not sure whether or not the rides they rode in the report have mainstreamed lines or not, but they certainly didn't seem to be waiting in them if they did, which could help explain differing reports here from those using wheelchairs and ECVs without reference to a GAC.

IF that is the case, then the abuse of the system is in effect facilitating line jumping ahead of both AB guests and those guests with more obvious limitations through the use of wheelchairs or ECVs. I don't think that NBC has much to gain from falsifying their report or being overly selective with their editing, and what they did show seemed to indicate the ability to use a GAC as a FOTL pass (certainly relative to the standby line lengths reported). And so long as that's the case even 50% of the time, there's incentive for people to take advantage of that. Reading about one guest's experiences in DLPR, and thinking about the possibilities opened up following the roll-out of FP+, Disney may soon have a way of amending their policies to both avoid splitting up families and put an end to offering de facto FOTL access, such as it may exist today.

 

[Castle2Castle]

Have not read all the posts but having traveled with a person in wheel chair for the past 25 years to Disney World a lot of what is written on here is BONK. The Guest pass works but is not with out a wait and you might some times get a quickly line but rarely. Disney does a pretty good job of helping special needs but there is alway someone that tries to find a short cut. Have a great day.

Everyone can have different experiences on different days, but for what it's worth, over in a topic for GACs in Disneyland, another poster speaking of the GAC in WDW said, "I don't think it means front of the line. And we only use it when Fastpass isn't an option. However, at WDW, we rarely ever had to wait more than 5 minutes to board any attraction with it."

*Poster stated in a later post that they've been utilizing GAC at WDW for 4 years

 

[MonorailLime]

The GAC system (for Walt Disney World, at least) is rumored to be changing prior to July 4th. No word on what it will be, but the speculation is that it will mirror the "industry standard models employed by many of our competitors."

 

[doconeill]

The GAC system (for Walt Disney World, at least) is rumored to be changing prior to July 4th. No word on what it will be, but the speculation is that it will mirror the "industry standard models employed by many of our competitors."

Sadly, if this is the case it is Disney conforming to industry standard vs. leading the industry.

So, what are the industry standard models?

 

[magicbob]

Here is a specific example (works for both Disneyland and WDW): I want to ride Buzz Lightyear. I get in the Stand-by Line (there is no FP in DL and the regular line is accessible in WDW). I wait in the Stand-by line with all the other people, just like a normal person. I have a part in front of me (We will call them Bob) and there is a party behind me (we will call them Sue). I go past the Galactic maps and see the animatronic Buzz Lightyear. When we get to the part where people step onto the moving walkway, CMs see my wheelchair and route me though another door, which takes me to the exit area. While I am going through that door, Party Bob and Party Sue have gotten on the ride.

This is so the CMs do not have to move my wheelchair, and wheelchairs are generally not allowed on moving walkways while they are still moving. It is also where they load wheelchairs directly into the wheelchair car for those who cannot transfer.

Once I get to the exit area, I now wait in the "disability line." There can only be a certain number of people with disabilities in the line at any time. It is not uncommon for me to wait so long, I see Bob and Sue get OFF the ride before I ever get on. Finally I get on the ride.

I am already in a ride car when the ride moves past the loading area. The people waiting to board there have never seen me, do not know I have already waited in TWO lines, and think I "cut" the line or entered through the exit.

No, instead of cutting the lines, it is common for me to wait in 2 or even 3 lines before I get to ride.

Buzz Lightyear is a great example where it most certainly is not FOTL. Haunted Mansion is another example. The line is now mainstreamed until AFTER the stretching room (which is good because we used to always miss it). Then we're taken down the "chicken" exit and around to the ride exit where we wait to be loaded. So, yeah, people in standby just see us already in the vehicle when it comes back around to the front.

Another example: we almost always FP Kilimanjaro Safari. My wife can walk for short distances, but they insist that we take the ECV all the way into the loading area and wait until they have a full truck load of wheelchair patrons. We usually end up waiting 15-20 extra minutes. Just waiting for more people to arrive when there's no guarantee more will arrive or when. Eventually, they get enough and then signal for a truck to pull forward to load us. If it's REALLY busy, we still waited less than a 1-2 hour standby line, but we did have FPs and we certainly waited longer than other FP users. There are many times when our FP wait has been longer than standby.

Similar situation with TSMM. We always use a FP. We are diverted once the line reaches the stairs and re-directed to the accessible waiting area. Once there, even though we have a FP and even though my wife can transfer, we have had to wait for the accessible ride vehicle to make its way back around before we can ride. And if we didn't have a FP, we would have to wait in the normal standby line until the stairs. Guests loading the ride just see the wheelchair loading from a special "secret" entrance, but we didn't get to that place without first waiting in the line along with everyone else.

To reiterate, I'm not complaining about the extra waits, just pointing out that that they exist and most guests don't realize it. There are some instances where I felt we did get on a ride faster (still not "FOTL" though), but for the most part, we tend to wait about the same and sometimes a bit longer.

 

[Castle2Castle]

Buzz Lightyear is a great example where it most certainly is not FOTL. Haunted Mansion is another example. The line is now mainstreamed until AFTER the stretching room. . .

Another example: we almost always FP Kilimanjaro Safari. My wife can walk for short distances, but they insist that we take the ECV all the way into the loading area and wait until they have a full truck load of wheelchair patrons. . .

To reiterate, I'm not complaining about the extra waits, just pointing out that that they exist and most guests don't realize it. There are some instances where I felt we did get on a ride faster (still not "FOTL" though), but for the most part, we tend to wait about the same and sometimes a bit longer.

Do you have a GAC, or do you bypass obtaining one since your circumstances are made visible to CMs by the use of a wheelchair or ECV? All the talk here seems to be focused on mainstreaming of lines and the use of wheelchairs/ECVs, whereas in the NBC report the "guides" don't use either and relied solely on the GAC to bypass lines. I haven't been to DL to speak to whether or not the rides in the report are mainstreamed for those in wheelchairs and ECVs, but if they are, it appears the GAC may presently get around what having only a wheelchair or ECV does not. And so long as Disney is legally prohibited from asking about or verifying needs to obtain a GAC, a GAC creates an incentive for people to take advantage of the policies connected to it, whether that be by exaggerating or lying about conditions to obtain a GAC for FOTL access for themselves or utilizing GAC to sell FOTL access to other park guests.

 

[Cafeen]

Do you have a GAC, or do you bypass obtaining one since your circumstances are made visible to CMs by the use of a wheelchair or ECV? All the talk here seems to be focused on mainstreaming of lines and the use of wheelchairs/ECVs, whereas in the NBC report the "guides" don't use either and relied solely on the GAC to bypass lines. I haven't been to DL to speak to whether or not the rides in the report are mainstreamed for those in wheelchairs and ECVs, but if they are, it appears the GAC may presently get around what having only a wheelchair or ECV does not. And so long as Disney is legally prohibited from asking about or verifying needs to obtain a GAC, a GAC creates an incentive for people to take advantage of the policies connected to it, whether that be by exaggerating or lying about conditions to obtain a GAC for FOTL access for themselves or utilizing GAC to sell FOTL access to other park guests.

While the NBC report may have focused on using GAC (I didn't watch it yet...I probably will one of these days), the original story (NY Post, I think?) was focusing on a guide in an ECV (note: said guide needed the ECV for touring due to health issues, so it wasn't a guide getting an ECV in order to pull one over.) Mainstreaming the queues would resolve at least part of the overall issue, and that's the (real or perceived) notion of FotL access*. Resolving the issues with GAC in general will alleviate another part of the issue as well, and that can be handled via custom Fast Passes where the return time is roughly equivalent to the standby time (which, with the "in a manner similar to industry standard" suggests to me).

*Note: Standard disclaimer that the system is not designed for FotL, nor does it usually happen, it just does sometimes, which makes the perception persist.