Here now .... wow so disappointing from 20 years ago

[xlsm]

Unfortunately, this was our experience at DisneyLAND this summer. The CMs were pretty awful, including one at Plaza Inn breakfast who sighed so hard she spit on me when I asked a question, broken glass in the Pinnochio line, and trash everywhere. I took pictures of the trash, because it was almost an attraction in itself.

So...it happens. Bad days happen. It did color my opinion of Disneyland, but we go to WDW frequently and the good always outweighs any bad.
Everyone will have different experiences, and I'm sorry yours wasn't good at WDW this year.

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

OP, was it pretty crowded while you were there? I only ask because you said that even after getting to the loading spot, you waited an additional 15 minutes to get on the ride. I don't remember ever waiting that long, after I had reached the loading area.

As lanejudy said, they can only allow a certain number of disabled people on the ride at one time. So, it is true that you will wait until you are allowed to load. But unless it is very crowded, it shouldn't take 15 minutes.

Again, I'm sorry you have had a bad trip. I wish you could have been there with us. Every cast member was so friendly and helpful.

 

[disnut8]

I am surprised by the comments on the wheelchair access and having to wait to board a vehicle that is equipped to handle that passenger. My father, in the last years of his life, was finally diagnosed with Multiple System Atrophy (MSA). He was in a wheelchair pretty much for the last three years of his life and we went to Disney World once during that time. However, my stepmother, a breast cancer survivor, pushed him all around Disney World not only during that time but also other trips they took since they lived so close. They both said (when my father could speak), that there was no other place they'd rather be taking a break than at Disney World. On the trip we took with them, they both wanted to go on the Safari and since, at that time, my father could transfer from the wheelchair to the jeep, we needed to wait for the handicapped jeep. I thought it would take forever as there's only one place to board the jeep but the group was "divided" by who could transfer and who could not. The jeep was brought over to the loading platform (separate from the regular one) and those who could not transfer were loaded first and there were a few who had to wait but then the ones who could transfer were then loaded on at their own speed. No one was rushed, families were able to stay together and the Cast Members were friendly and helpful but let the families decide what help was needed. And once we were seated, the loading Cast Member turned to the ones who were still waiting and said that they would be bringing another jeep around for them very shortly because it would take us two weeks to get back. When we did return to the loading platform (we had to go through where the jeeps get their tires cleaned off so a bit backstage), everyone who had been waiting were on another jeep so they didn't have to wait for us to get back at all.

Also, on several attractions, my father had to slowly get into a vehicle, especially if he had to go down and sit. Each Cast Member was there to help if he needed it and once or twice even slowed down boarding so he had the time he needed to get comfortable.

That was one of the last times I saw my father smile.

 

[van_axl]

Thank you all for your replies and opinions. Just to clarify, my daughter CAN transfer, just not walk the 3 - 4 minutes they would prefer she does so she they don't have to move the wheelchair. Thus, the type, style, etc. of the car does not matter and the face you have to wait until the "last" person in a wheelchair gets off even though you are able to sit on a REGULAR seat is discriminatory. I do agree and see a LOT of abuse and it frustrates me and kudo's for trying to make it better. However, there are 2 of us, not 8, and since I have clearly been pushing a wheelchair up and down the hills I would think they would realize that it's not something I enjoy nor does she as people push ahead of her, step over her, whatever it takes so they can be first. We are always very thankful and polite to each and every person and thank them over and over. I believe CM's have become jaded but also again, that they can clearly see that we are legit. As far as the rope incident goes, the CM's were rude plain and simple and spoke VERY loudly as the above mentioned regarding her father to try and single us out. Really??? Does it make you feel sooooo much better to single out a 54 year old mother pushing her disabled 29 year old daughter around in a wheelchair as if you just caught someone stealing Disney's jewels? It was a ROPE...we were LOST...we didn't realize that the other side was the exit as we saw others walking. We thought it was blocked off for an event and the others were walking the path to the ride we were going to. Again, we do NOT expect nor want special treatment, we would like FAIR treatment.

 

[Dug720]

And we're not even talking about a little exploitation here. It had become an actual strategy for many, many people on a daily basis.

OP, I'm not accusing you of this. Clearly you are not abusing the system.

And it wasn't just any strategy - there were people in the Orlando area who would "sell their services" as someone with a disability to people willing to pay to be able to jump the line.

And I'm not accusing the OP of this either! Just saying how the system got abused to the point they felt they has no choice.

I did think there was some kind of way to get at least a limited pass though...I seem to remember it wasn't the most convenient thing, but it sounds better than nothing.

 

[CinderDuffy]

And it wasn't just any strategy - there were people in the Orlando area who would "sell their services" as someone with a disability to people willing to pay to be able to jump the line.

And I'm not accusing the OP of this either! Just saying how the system got abused to the point they felt they has no choice.

I did think there was some kind of way to get at least a limited pass though...I seem to remember it wasn't the most convenient thing, but it sounds better than nothing.

There is a new program for guests with disabilities, but if your disability is one that can be accommodated with a wheelchair or ECV, you are not eligible. It basically works like a FP+ though, so it would not have been a benefit to OP given what her issues are.

 

[G.Goof]

We just returned from a 5 day trip to DL. It was our first visit with a family member in a scooter. We had a lot of concerns, but none of them were needed. It was a wonderful trip! Every CM we dealt with was amazing. I'm sorry to hear your DW experience was not up to the same standard. While we love DW, and I personally prefer it over DL, I agree that the CM's at DW are not as helpful or friendly as the ones at DL. We have had fantastic CM interactions in DW, just not as regularly as we do at DL. Sorry for your unpleasant experience.

 

[dreiwhit]

I have no idea what the training looks like at WDW but perhaps the CMs need a little more in depth training on how to empathize and help guests with disabilities?

My son has a disability where it makes it harder for him, for us and for everyone around him when he has to wait in long lines. Before our trip last March, we read about DAS and on our first day at Epcot, we went to Guest Relations to see about getting him one. I had only uttered a couple of sentences before the friendly CM suggested a DAS card and set us up. And it did help his and our enjoyment immensely!

On our trip two weeks ago, we went to Guest Relations at MK. This time, even though I explained that my son had a DAS on our previous visit, I had to give the CM a lot more of my son's medical history and reasoning as to why he has problems waiting in line. I had thought that CMs didn't want that? I felt like I was having to make a hard sales pitch to get something my son had only 8 months ago. We did get the DAS, but I kept thinking to myself "what are we going to do if we don't get one?"

I'm not sure what the difference is, but it really bothered me that I had give out a lot more information this time than I had to back in March.

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

Okay, it isn't that they prefer she walk so they don't have to move the wheelchair. They have to move the wheelchair either way. Just like they have to move my scooter, and I can transfer and walk.

Every time I would get to a line, and there was a different loading place, I was asked, "Can you transfer?" Or, "Can you walk 10 feet?" Or, "Can you go up and down 10 steps." Or whatever. I use a scooter for stamina, stairs and standing. I can't do those. So as long as I didn't have to stand for a long time, go up or down stairs or walk a long distance, I can transfer.

The cast members were helping me. They were trying to see what I needed.

 

[LilyWDW]

Had to fix since everything got messed up.

As I said before, waiting for the last wheelchair rider can have two purposes. One can be the wait for an accessible vehicle. However, the more important reason is the fact that Disney will only allow so many people on an attraction who may need assistance in the event of an evacuation.

OP, you say yourself that your child would not be able to walk but a very short distance (3-4 minutes in your own post). This would mean that CMs or emergency services would be needed to assist your child off in case of an emergency or evacuation of any sort. As such, the child would count towards their maximum limit. It is 100% a safety issue and is NOT discrimination.

Honestly, there seems to be a lack of understanding in the way disabilities are handled when it comes to the actual expectations. Assistance is being offered within the confines of the rules set forth for safety. That assistance that is allowed is simply not matching with what you expect to have happen which is causing you stress.

 

[North of Mouse]

So living in the Pacific Northwest we always went to Disneyland...and then discovered "The World". It beat the "Land" hands down in each and every way and although I became a single parent I always dreamed of coming back to the "World". Well, now is the time...I have come with my 29 year old daughter who is disabled and in a wheelchair. Here is what we have experienced in 3 days here compared to Disneyland.
Customer service right from the car rental agency to Walmart, there is an unfriendliness and feeling of just get your things and leave
Cast members at the World are soooo much more unpleasant as well as unhelpful with disabilities. They do the bare minimum and sometimes not even that.
Wait times are 95% of the time longer for us with a disability compared to if we were not. We are not asking for shorter wait times, however when it becomes our turn we are ushered to another place to board and then have to sit and wait at least another 15 minutes if not more because they can't have more than 1 disabled person on the ride at a time
Cast members look like they are barely tolerating you - they literally watch as you try with one hand to keep the disability exit door open while pushing the wheelchair with the other
The bathrooms are filthy and some you have to spend all kinds of time trying to even get the wheelchair in and around the door
Tonight at Epcot we somehow missed a turn off for Nemo and ended up at the exit. We saw there were people walking on the other side of the rope and thought it was the path up to that side. I ducked under one (there were two) and realized that it was outside of the entrance and immediately ducked back and started to push the wheelchair back up around the building. A cast member came running and yelling at us to see if we have just "jumped the line". We said no and explained. She told us we have to leave through the proper exit and come back in and re scan our ticket. As we were doing this, another cast member glared at us and yet another said "the rope is there so you can't jump in". At this point I turned and "lost it"...I am pushing a wheelchair!!! DO I LOOK LIKE I WOULD JUMP A LINE??? I told her she was rude. After 3 days of rude people we left. We have another 4 days here and if I could leave tonight I would.
Disney World has lost its charm and is no longer a class act. Sad to say but I will never come back. Disneyland has got this place beat in all categories

Sorry this has been your experience. Have never heard anything but praise for the way those needing extra care at Disney have been treated. This is definitely not the norm, even offsite. Most have a very warm reception in general in the Disney area. Hope your last few days are better.

 

[PlutoTheDog89]

There was a point in history where Disney suddenly stopped employing "Disney Cast Members" and simply started employing "Employees as Cast Members"

A lot of the employees lack that Disney charm. The zest for working at Disney simply isn't there anymore.

Long ago, Disney CMs were cut from a different fabric. I'll give an example:

I played football in high school with this incredibly nice, good kid. The kid was literally always smiling, always saying something positive, etc. He simply loved life. In college, he biked across America just to do it. His junior year, he interned at Disney. I could just picture him, smiling ear to ear, waving at people with those Mickey gloves, giving directions and making some kid's day. THAT is a Disney Cast Member.

On the contrary, we've had several CMs over the past few years with no personality - not smiling, unsure of how to do their job correctly, etc. These are simply employees.

That's not to say ALL CMs are no longer good. You get a few that go above and beyond their job and still carry the Disney magic.

I'm not sure what went wrong. Disney is very much still successful. Frankly, I think they misplaced their mission statement somewhere in the towering stack of financial statements. It's much easier to hire lower-level talent than take the time to weed out the best candidates like they used to.

 

[5kidsmommy]

I'm sorry your experience was so bad. my daughter and I went last November and it was our first trip with her in a wheelchair. Her illness makes it very difficult for her to walk long distances. Pushing a wheelchair for 6 days was quite the experience. Luckily she is small but I never realized how hilly Disney World actually is.

We had the opposite experience with cast members. They we all really great about helping us and I loved that almost all the lines were wheelchair accessible. There were some waits on a few of the rides such as Big Thunder, Space Ship Earth and Space Mountain. Space Mountain is the only one she was miserable with and that had nothing to do with the CMs. It was the rude people behind us on the walkway back up. I couldn't push the wheelchair on the moving walkway and kids with their parents watching tried to climb over us, I mean they literally tried to climb over the wheelchair with my daughter in it. I finally had to turn around and tell them to be patient because there was nowhere for us to go. I can't blame Disney for that, I can only blame crappy parenting.

 

[Dug720]

There is a new program for guests with disabilities, but if your disability is one that can be accommodated with a wheelchair or ECV, you are not eligible. It basically works like a FP+ though, so it would not have been a benefit to OP given what her issues are.

Thanks. I knew it had changed significantly. Did not realize it didn't apply to wheelchairs or scooters.

 

[bumbershoot]

Like at the airport- there is a family line with a wider X-ray.

?

They have family lines to not inconvenience the business travelers. Families generally go through the metal detector va the naked machine so that's where those point. There's no wider X-ray machine for carryons. They are all the same width.

They used to have this. It was exploited, so it was taken away.

Gac changed to das at wdw and dlr at the same time.

And the accommodations were never meant to end up with a shorter line situation, but sometimes it ended up like that.

I've waited with a person with a scooter at dl before things changed and we had to wait through the whole line then go through an extra door to wait longer for Buzz. That was in '09 I believe. While a friend went with their mom in a scooter at wdw *after* the changes and felt they got FOTL access to everything. Experiences vary!

nce things such as policies may differ. If DLR had a problem with disability abuse I'm fairly certain they would be all sorts of tightening the reigns.

And they did. Both parks have the das and someone in a wheelchair doesn't even participate in that.

I have no idea what the training looks like at WDW but perhaps the CMs need a little more in depth training on how to empathize and help guests with disabilities?

I have never had any problems with the CMs in the many times I have travelled to WDW. That is until I took my dad, who had recently been diagnosed with dementia and was having problems with his sight (distance and perception) so he was having a heck of a time lining up the mickey on his MB with the touch points. My family was quick to help but the few times it took dad longer than it should have the CMs got rather snarky and embarrassed him. One man at the FP entrance to dinosaur spoke to my dad rather loudly and centred him out - thats when I spoke up, loudly. This was to be our one and only family trip due to my dads illness. I was not having it anymore.

I'm sorry that kept happening. For others, maybe consider scanning the band for someone who needs help. No one has to wear a mb and someone else could keep the mb and scan it for another person.

Just to clarify, my daughter CAN transfer, just not walk the 3 - 4 minutes they would prefer she does so she they don't have to move the wheelchair. Thus, the type, style, etc. of the car does not matter and the face you have to wait until the "last" person in a wheelchair gets off even though you are able to sit on a REGULAR seat is discriminatory.

I don't really understand. What rides did this happen on?

I had to give the CM a lot more of my son's medical history and reasoning as to why he has problems waiting in line. I had thought that CMs didn't want that?

The cm probably just didn't understand what was needed. You shouldn't be giving diagnoses, but needs. What does he need? Some cms will be better at working that out than others.

 

[Missyrose]

Just to clarify, my daughter CAN transfer, just not walk the 3 - 4 minutes they would prefer she does so she they don't have to move the wheelchair. Thus, the type, style, etc. of the car does not matter and the face you have to wait until the "last" person in a wheelchair gets off even though you are able to sit on a REGULAR seat is discriminatory.

I'm confused. If you are making the call that your daughter isn't getting out of her chair, then why be angry that there's a wait for the vehicle that can accommodate the chair? The rules state the number of wheelchairs that can be on an attraction at once for safety/evacuation reasons. So I'm not sure what you think the fix is for the waits you're encountering.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

Thank you all for your replies and opinions. Just to clarify, my daughter CAN transfer, just not walk the 3 - 4 minutes they would prefer she does so she they don't have to move the wheelchair. Thus, the type, style, etc. of the car does not matter and the face you have to wait until the "last" person in a wheelchair gets off even though you are able to sit on a REGULAR seat is discriminatory.

I am sorry you had a bad time and ar upset, but this is NOT discriminatory in an y way, its a safety issue plain and simple. They HAVE to limit the number of people with limited mobility on a ride in case of an evacuation. Those are legal requirements, not Disney's decision. Being able to transfer is totally different than being capable of walking off a ride under your own power.

 

[glassslippergirl]

The wheelchair abuse bothers me on so many levels, but this time around, it really became apparent that "accessible" isn't quite as accessible as they'd like to think. A lot of the queues still have very tight turns and confined spaces that make it difficult to get a wheelchair through, but because they don't involve steps or corridors that are just one person-width across, they're accessible. This led to a LOT of frustration for my family and a lot of embarrassment for myself--I felt like I was causing a traffic jam so many times. I wish there were a way to utilize the earlier accessible entrances to rides while still ensuring that people aren't abusing the system--I'm sure they could figure something out with MagicBands or something along those lines.

This is so true! My grandmother uses a wheelchair at WDW. Some of those lines that are deemed accessible are really tough to navigate. Buzz Lightyear comes to mind, with a lot of tight turns; sometimes she had to get out of the wheelchair so we could make the turn. I was the only one pushing her, and it's asking a lot for a woman to be able to do that with someone over 200 pounds in the chair. The next time we went, we skipped Buzz Lightyear because, although it was deemed accessible, it was not really "accessible" for us.

OP, you've got to let WDW know of your frustrations. The less-than-helpful CM's are, at least in my opinion, a symptom of larger cutbacks. This summer, I heard two CM's at Disney Springs talking about how their hours had been cut pretty severely in the last few weeks. When you mess with a person's livelihood that way, they are going to show their dissatisfaction somehow. I am sorry it was toward you on the vacation you've been working so hard for.

 

[van_axl]

Clearly I rub some people the wrong way and that's okay. It is my experience and mine alone. I am not here to list the rides, nor defend myself, just telling you my experience. I have been on this site since shortly after its inception and although I just made a profile to ask questions regarding this trip I will now be deleting it. "I" and I repeat this "I" feel that they have become discriminatory. If you don't like that "I" feel this way, then perhaps "you" should look at "your" level of acceptance of others and their views. So long.

 

[hiroMYhero]

OP, I'm sorry your trip has been disappointing and hope the last few days are much better. I know you received some helpful info from DISers prior to your trip and hope you'll still use DISboards as a resource.

Closing this thread for you.