Ask MOST smokers, and they will sympathize. In a situation like a Veranda, if you run into someone next to you smoking and inform them or ASK NICELY (nicely being the key word) about an allergy, and they will try and work with you to help you both enjoy your vacation.
But when you try and demand, guilt, or otherwise force a smoker, who is doing what they are allowed to do based off the rules in place to not smoke around you, That's where it becomes a problem.
Tell someone up front that they can only smoke in certain areas.... And they will be aware of the conditions placed upon them, and will try and abide by those rules. This includes the DSA's (which are likely to become MUCH smokier due to all the smokers now being directed to this location).
But when it comes to allergies, You can't depend upon someone else protecting you from what you are allergic too. Just like with a nut or food allergy you can't expect all potential allergens to be eliminated, You will need to take personal responsibility and make sure you are aware of where your allergen could be located, and take the precautions needed to avoid them.
Smoking is legal... so it could be considered a right, just like the right to drink alchohol, or drink soda, or any number of other not-so-healthy habits that people have.
But Disney, as the Private Property owner, also has the right to set some rules in place to try and restrict where you can partake of that habit. It's just like "No Food or Drinks allowed" zones for your soda habit, or other limitations they can set for other perfectly legal activities.
The issue that I believe most smokers are having with this policy change isn't the removal of the ability to smoke on a veranda and being forced to move all smoking activity to a DSA. If you smoke in this day and age, you are pretty much used to having limitations in place on where you can smoke. The issue is the drastic, and virtual last minute, change in the smoking policy.
If you smoke, It's pretty much a given that you are going to do the research to find out where you can smoke. This information can be a factor in your decision making process. Such as... Do you pay the extra couple hundred dollars for a Veranda room so you can smoke from your room without going to the public DSA?
But Disney has decided to apply this new policy change after MANY MANY people have made their deposits, Cruise related travel and trip arrangements have been made (airline flights. hotel rooms. etc), some cruises paid off.... and all of these decisions have been made with the understanding based off Disney's policy that smoking was allowed on the balcony.
With such a major change to a policy that can be a huge deciding factor for many smokers on who they cruise with, or what catagory they pay for... and to make that change with no warning after so many people are past a point of no return (without forfeiting money already spent).... That's what the complaints are about.
Think about it this way.... What if Disney decided that starting in 3 months no alchohol would be served or allowed onboard? I don't drink as much as I used too, so I could easily enjoy the trip without drinking on the ship. But there are MANY MANY people who do enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, or a nice cocktail by the pool on their vacation. . If they knew in advance that they couldn't get their drinks on a
Disney Cruise, Would they still have booked that Disney Cruise?
(And seriously... Don't go pulling the "they are doing you a favor by letting you do this" line. It's not really contributing anything to the discussion, and doesn't touch upon what I feel is the biggest factor here in that Disney made a big change to policy that impacts a group of guests after they'd been selling the rooms to those guests with the understanding of the old policy.... and with so little notice that many of those people cannot realistically change their plans based off the new policy's impact.)
Extremely entertaining and funny thread. Now we just need to merge the smoking, short in MDR, and kids in the adult areas into one thread where people can rant/ troll. That way I can toss my TV and go to that thread for entertainment.
