Guest Assistance Cards ending, to be replaced with Fastpasses?

[StacyMarie]

Yes, those were the old rules, and they were wrong. Now there are new rules.

I watched a few of the videos from AutismHippie on Facebook, and I was embarrassed for her.

You took the words right out of my mouth OurBigTrip! I felt embarrassed for her and almost as if she bullied the CMs at guest relations. Of course they are going to appease her when she said "I will have to call the cops to help me control my son if he doesn't get what he wants." Her behavior with handling the situation did nothing to help her son in the long run!

Also "I'm a blogger" and "I'm waiting for a callback from CBS". That was poorly handled. Threats will get you no where FAST!

 

[OurBigTrip]

You took the words right out of my mouth OneBigTrip! I felt embarrassed for her and almost as if she bullied the CMs at guest relations. Of course they are going to appease her when she said "I will have to call the cops to help me control my son if he doesn't get what he wants." Her behavior with handling the situation did nothing to help her son in the long run!

Quite frankly, if I were a manager that was watching a woman saying that her son was beating her up and that she couldn't control him, I would have asked her to leave the park.

 

[mrzrich]

The Temporary Tourist on the other hand had a great day at MK

http://****************.com/wdw-disability-assistance-serviccard-das-walt-disney-world/

From what I've been reading around the web today, continuity has been an issue. Some People at Epcot were flat out refused any kind of accommodation. Some were told the DAS is only for Autistic people.

The best stories I've read today seem to be from people who went into it with a good frame of mind. Those who went in fighting, came out crying.

 

[OurBigTrip]

What's sad is that Autism Hippie has no idea if it would have worked for her or not, because, according to her own words, she spent 20 minutes telling 3 levels of management why it wouldn't work for her.

Did she try to tell them what her son needed? Did she ask for help in getting the right accommodations, or did she just tell them "It won't work, I want something else".

Unfortunately, if her sweet son loses Disney, it won't be because of the DAS.

 

[OurBigTrip]

The Temporary Tourist on the other hand had a great day at MK

http://****************.com/wdw-disability-assistance-serviccard-das-walt-disney-world/

From what I've been reading around the web today, continuity has been an issue. Some People at Epcot were flat out refused any kind of accommodation. Some were told the DAS is only for Autistic people.

The best stories I've read today seem to be from people who went into it with a good frame of mind. Those who went in fighting, came out crying.

My observations as well.

I didn't like that the CM in the Temporary Tourist video was kind of leading her to looping on rides, but hopefully, that's a training issue.

 

[mrzrich]

What's more, is that the Temporary Tourist indicates that MK guest services asked her if her child liked to ride over and over again. She got the impression from the CM that there actually is a plan in place for that type of accommodation.

 

[mrzrich]

My observations as well. I didn't like that the CM in the Temporary Tourist video was kind of leading her to looping on rides, but hopefully, that's a training issue.

Like I said before Disney didn't mind when that young man Rode Snow White a bazillion times. His family wrote a book about how great WDW was for their son.

 

[ZehnJahren]

Like I said before Disney didn't mind when that young man Rode Snow White a bazillion times. His family wrote a book about how great WDW was for their son.

You didn't even hear about that until Snow White was closing. I'd say that use of the GAC has probably skyrocketed in the past couple of years; what that kid got to experience will probably never be done again.

 

[OurBigTrip]

Like I said before Disney didn't mind when that young man Rode Snow White a bazillion times. His family wrote a book about how great WDW was for their son.

And like I said before, things have changed.

One of the abuses is allowing a person to ride multiple times with no waits. If they're going to make the same stupid mistakes with DAS that they did with GAC, they should have just stayed with GAC and saved all the drama.

 

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

What exactly is the problem with Disney giving someone a ppas to ride the same ride multiple times in a row?

 

[OurBigTrip]

What exactly is the problem with Disney giving someone a ppas to ride the same ride multiple times in a row?

All of the other people waiting in a long line to ride the ride just one time.

Equal access shouldn't mean preferential treatment. The DAS sounds like a good idea - the holder doesn't have to wait in the line, but still has to wait, just like everyone else.

 

[mrzrich]

All I can say about looping, is that after watching that child drag his mother on TGMR 25 times I was so grateful that I never fed into that type of behavior with my child.


I wonder if it's a only child thing. I have other kids who wanted to move on to the next ride, so we always had to go go go.

 

[SueM in MN]

You took the words right out of my mouth OurBigTrip! I felt embarrassed for her and almost as if she bullied the CMs at guest relations. Of course they are going to appease her when she said "I will have to call the cops to help me control my son if he doesn't get what he wants." Her behavior with handling the situation did nothing to help her son in the long run!

Also "I'm a blogger" and "I'm waiting for a callback from CBS". That was poorly handled. Threats will get you no where FAST!

My feeling is she went in there to try whatever she could to get what she used to get.

What's sad is that Autism Hippie has no idea if it would have worked for her or not, because, according to her own words, she spent 20 minutes telling 3 levels of management why it wouldn't work for her.

Did she try to tell them what her son needed? Did she ask for help in getting the right accommodations, or did she just tell them "It won't work, I want something else".

Unfortunately, if her sweet son loses Disney, it won't be because of the DAS.

I agree with everything you wrote.

I could not watch all the videos she posted because a few did not load.
I watched most of them though and her son actually seemed to be having a great time - even in the queue for Big Movie Ride where she was saying he was getting stressed by bring in the pack of people.
I can understand how stressful it would be to be in a line like that with no idea of how the child would behave or how long get would behave, but it certainly was not helpful for mom to be constantly freaking out.

The Temporary Tourist on the other hand had a great day at MK

http://****************.com/wdw-disability-assistance-serviccard-das-walt-disney-world/

From what I've been reading around the web today, continuity has been an issue. Some People at Epcot were flat out refused any kind of accommodation. Some were told the DAS is only for Autistic people.

The best stories I've read today seem to be from people who went into it with a good frame of mind. Those who went in fighting, came out crying.

It does appear that those who went in with a good frame of mind came outrun a good frame of mind.

I think the part I bolded is a misunderstanding. There is one person I know of show posted that and there are other people who got a DAS for conditions other than autism at the same park. The poster also said that it had just changed last night yo only giving DAS out to people with autism.
My guess is that something was said about GACs ending last night and the guest asked some question where the answer included autism.

There ARE people with wheelchairs and ECVs who requested a DAS, but could not explain how their needs meant they needed more than that and did not get a DAS.

 

[OurBigTrip]

All I can say about looping, is that after watching that child drag his mother on TGMR 25 times I was so grateful that I never fed into that type of behavior with my child.


I wonder if it's a only child thing. I have other kids who wanted to move on to the next ride, so we always had to go go go.

That's an interesting thought - perhaps almost a "peer pressure" situation, for lack of a better term.

 

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

Don't flame me for asking this but if anyone can answer this do children with Autism that have siblings that are "Normal" behave differently then those that don't?

 

[OurBigTrip]

Don't flame me for asking this but if anyone can answer this do children with Autism that have siblings that are "Normal" behave differently then those that don't?

I think that's a great question.

On a purely animal level, each of us, as humans, react and adapt to our environment, and having siblings is definitely a different environment than being an only child.

 

[mrzrich]

Don't flame me for asking this but if anyone can answer this do children with Autism that have siblings that are "Normal" behave differently then those that don't?

The only reason I brought up the only child thing is that I'm kinda scratching my head as to why my DS doesn't loop. It is very much in line with other repetitive behaviors that he has.

The only thing I can think is that when he asked to ride POTC again, we had another child who wanted to get to BTMRR.

So we said "No, we're going to ride BTMRR." If we'd been alone with him we might have been more likely to say "yes" which might have fed into a bad habit.

 

[Vidia2]

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[OurBigTrip]

My feeling is she went in there to try whatever she could to get what she used to get.

I think you're exactly right - in her blog, she was very positive about her upcoming trip, and was very confident that Disney would give her what she needed. And she said that all she needed was a pass that would allow her and her son to go to the fast pass line for every ride, with no return time and no additional step.

Well, for better or worse, that's exactly what Disney is trying to stop.

 

[OurBigTrip]

The new "rules" are far superior. I think that's why the protests have stopped - because the people who really need it are realizing that it's actually better than the old system.

If you can see past what Autism Hippie is saying and look at the details of the accommodations (what the new DAS system provides specifically) that she had available to her, in addition to her 33 fastpasses(!!!) for the day, AND access to the regular fastpass system, a typical park guest would say that her accommodations for her son were excellent.

Change is hard until you realize that it's a change for the better.

Oh, I agree. However, I doubt that she would have gotten what she did had she not experienced her own meltdown at Guest Services. Per her blog, she says that she needs to have Fast Pass entrance with no return time and no additional steps. That's the precise thing that Disney is trying to get away from.

I think she got way more than she should have, but I'm also fairly certain that they just wanted her to move on and get out of Guest Services.

If I were using a DAS, I'd be concerned about the fact that there is a QR code on the DAS, which I'm guessing would link to info about the DAS holder, and, again, just guessing, about any issues that arose when issuing the DAS.