Questions re: Accommodations for Deaf and Hard of Hearing

[MsNewsradio]

Have a friend traveling to Disney with their parents, who are both Deaf. Does anyone here have experience with the handheld captioning devices that are on loan from Guest Services? How (and how well) do they work?

Also, does anyone know which specific attractions have written scripts available for them? It's listed as an option on the Deaf and Hearing Loss Services page, but there's no real information other than "ask at the attraction".

Unfortunately it looks like the days they are in the parks are not days the show interpreters are on at their respective parks, so that won't be an option for them.

Are there any other tips/tricks for them while they are traveling that someone with firsthand experience being Deaf or hard of hearing would recommend to them?

 

[GrandMum]

I've traveled with my daughter who is deaf for several years. She tried the handheld device once and it wasn't the best. Some shows it wouldn't work or would stop in the middle. You do have to go to Guest Services which could be a long wait and put a credit card down as a deposit. When you return, it is cancelled. You have to do that at each park.
She had asked for scripts but CM's would not know where they were. She has used an app called "AVA" which worked very well on a tour we did this year.
We plan our day based on what shows we want to see that had interpreters. They are great and we feel like we know them now. This year they told us that you can request an interpreter for shows on other days, but you need to give Disney 2 weeks' notice. They will not follow you around the park but will do some shows. We were not aware of that.
We have seen many of the shows and the only ones we do every year is the Festival of the Lion King and Feathered Friends in Flight. Also, check the name tag of CMs, there are several that know ASL.
Feel free to ask any other questions.

 

[mistysue]

My son is single-sided deaf, So he likes to get the closed captioning device because he often can't distinguish words from background noise.
They are activated by location but there is also a menu so that you can read the scripts wherever or push forward/back to skip around if you want . We have found that they often get the timing really inaccurately. The text will be correct but it might be telling you the thing that it is going to say 20 seconds from now or something that already happened a minute ago. The rides that it does work for you can be sitting at a restaurant going through the scripts on the device , so you can read them at other times. We basically keep getting the device to turn in those surveys as cast members have encouraged us that the more people fill in surveys telling them that the things are inaccurate the higher the chances are that someone will care and fix something.

All of that said, I have very seriously considered opening up a blank email on my phone and turning on speech to text to see how well it will give a live print out of what's being said by the ride.

There are things like the jungle cruise where it has a script but then the skippers say different things so it's kind of weird. I believe this link filters for the actual rides that have a script on the device - https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/attractions/#/handheld-captioning/sort=location/