Splitting up a party can have a major impact on some children with disability and can create anxiety and meltdowns to the point where the child can not gain access that other children can. Certainly there are many rides where by the nature of the ride the family will be split up at some level and at some point, but each child is unique and how and when this split up occurs and if it occurs after a long time in line which creates anxiety has a major impact on equal access.
I would caution on making broad statements, unless you have extensive experience with all possible disabilities and their impacts.
WDW is required to make
reasonable accommodations not necessarily what the person considers the perfect accommodation.
They can limit the number of guests that the
DAS card can be used with. And, there are situations, because of how boarding is set up, where people will need to split. For example, a DAS user who needs the accessible boarding area at Toy Story Midway Mania with group of more than 6 will be split at the Fastpass merge point with the regular line. This is because that boarding area doesn't accommodate more than 6 in the accessible car. It doesn't matter how many the DAS says, that is how many can be accommodated there.
Some people may want more guests on their DAS card, but what is reasonable?
With GAC, we were waiting to get on the Magic Carpets of Aladdin when a group came up with a GAC for 6 people - but they were arguing with the CM that their whole group needed to go on with their son to avoid a meltdown from being separated from his extended family.
The CM said they could only allow the number on the GAC. The people argued quite a long time for their whole party, but the CM did not back down.
The child and 5 others finally did go on and he did just fine with the rest of the group watching. Their group was something like 15, so their whole group would have taken up a large amount of capacity of the ride.
So where do you draw the line?
Some people would say they need a DAS for 20, but that is not reasonable. Disney has set an upper limit for DAS for both WDW and DL, which they feel is reasonable taking into account park operations and needs.
Even with 20, they would still be split up at times. If there are attractions where they don't want to be split, there are other options besides DAS. For example, the whole group could get Fastpasses for those attractions.
And, there is no requirement that every single thing be accessible if it is not reasonable. For example, Swiss Fsmily Robinson Treehouse is only accessible to people who can do stairs.
The Teacups are not accessible to people who can't do spinning.
So, there are limits to accommodation.
They typically split it in a way to accommodate that.
Example, a family of 4 getting slit 2/2 would be fine since 1 parent would obviously to back to the room with the child. If there's more people they'd figure it out to make it work. But they're splitting people because of guests trying to get two cards with the full party to double up in the ride return times.... So combating cheaters.... Again.
Exactly - it was not too long after the change to DAS when people started posting on the internet that getting 2 DAS cards allowed them to get double the DAS Return Times or double the number of people. So, Disney made a change to discourage abuse.
How the card is split is up to the guest - Disney doesn't say half on one card and half on the other. They can split the number however it would work best for the guest.
People have done that because one DAS holder may go back earlier, but also if one has very different interests than the other - for example, someone who loves roller coasters and one who hates them.
If they all want to go on an attraction together, each DAS holder gets a Return Time for that attraction.
