TIME FOR A RANT!!!!! Today Show story

[pigletto]

It's twofold. There has to be manipulative and shameful people who qualify for the passes to offer these services, and there has to be equally manipulative and ridiculous people willing to pay for those services. They all stink in my opinion

However as a lowly Disney guest it will not make me look sideways at anyone using a GAC or getting in line ahead of me because that isn't who I want to be. I am going to assume people are using it correctly, thank my lucky stars that we are healthy enough in all aspects to be able to tour the parks without limitations and go about my day.

Last summer when planning our trip my son was diagnosed with stress fractures in his heels from a combination of sports/quick growth/flat feet. His tendons are stretched too tight and a soccer tournament rendered him almost unable to walk. The thing was, it's an overuse condition. So I was worried if he walked around Disney all day, he would need a wheelchair. However, if I put him in a wheelchair to avoid the overuse he would have been perfectly fine to pop out of the chair and run up to the line like the excited 9 year old boy that he is. I knew there would be people looking at me like I was milking some sort of system.

In the end it was a non-issue and he healed before our trip. We took lots of breaks, iced his heels and used orthotics. It gave me a glimpse into how much it must stink for people who have a legitimate need for assistance of some sort being scrutinized. It just reinforced my stance that it's none of my beeswax why someone has a GAC and I'm not ever going to question it unless they are wearing a shirt that says "Please abuse the GAC I don't qualify for and hire me to skip lines"
Unless we want to buy into the paranoia and finger pointing I don't think there's is anything we can and should do as the average guest but follow the rules ourselves and have fun.

 

[darrengs]

It seems easy enough to stop, Disney just needs to book a tour with these guys and then when they get to the gate "book em" and ban them.


http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/trv/3842217751.html


http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/trv/3810331497.html

 

[FireDancer]

These people are despicable but I really don't think the few who are exploiting the GAC are really impacting the parks that much, especially at Disney World. Even if each park has 10 groups doing this each day those parks are big and crowded enough to absorb them without really effecting people that much. The same goes for the situations with the buses that gets everyone so heated. Is it annoying to see a group or 6 people jump the line because someone is in a wheelchair or ECV when you've been waiting? Of course it is. But in the grand scheme of things it is a few minutes of your life and if you let that kind of thing bother you on vacation I suspect you are a generally miserable person.

I hope Disney can find a way to keep abuse of these at a minimum but people will always game the system but that is true of everything from welfare to food stamps to income tax deductions.