Tips for visually impaired?

[alabamaalan]

Our family is planning an early Dec trip to WDW. My wife and I went with friends in 1996 but now we will have our 5 year old daughter!

My wife is blind and I am wondering if there are any attractions that are particularly accessible or any park policies that we could take advantage of.

I will travel as her sighted guide so the tape narration is not necessary. We checked on it on our last trip just out of curiosity and discovered it was horribly outdated.

She normally uses a guide dog, but we will leave him with good friends. The only places she does not take him are zoos, fairs, loud concerts, and theme parks. We would rather leave him with friends than kennel him for so many hours.

We were very dissapointed at the sensory section of EPCOT during our last visit. In an attempt to demonstrate braille, there was a message to interpret and it had been printed backwards and upside down!!!! There was print on it that was correct, but the braille had been placed backwards. We were shocked that it had not been checked before being so prominently displayed.

The only problems she has encountered in the past was boarding the constantly moving attractions like the Haunted Mansion. She did not tell them she was blind and tried to board quickly like everyone else, but was in fear of missteps and head bumps. Will the CMs stop an attraction to allow boarding? I assume they have to for guests who must transfer from their chair or other device.

It would be nice if WDW did offer a discount since so much of the magic is in the stunning visualness of the place, but we are not looking for handouts. I was just wondering if there are any programs or particular areas that she may especially enjoy.

 

[SueM in MN]

Welcome and here's some Pixie dust for a successful trip. Sorry to hear that some of the Braille items weren't done with the care that they deserved.
Unhappily, the Search function on the site isn't working right now. We have had some good posts in the past and you may want to check every once in a while to see if search is working.
One thing that would be useful for you is a Guest Assistance Card (also called a GAC). If you look at one of teri's posts, she has a link in her signature to FAQs about GACs. The GAC is not meant to let you bypass lines or give any special priviledge, just to give you some extra assistance that you need to enjoy the parks. In your family's case, the GAC could allow you to board some rides at the wheelchair entrance. Often, wheelchair or ecv users board rides at the exit. This allows some extra room to board without worrying about other people boarding at the same time. For some rides, they can stop or slow the moving walkway. Some can slow, but not stop, it depends on the ride. CMs can accomidate that if you are boarding at the exit.
Go to Guest Services in any of the parks to ask about a GAC. You don't need any doctor's letters, just be able to explain about the disability in general terms.

 

[SueM in MN]

I forgot about shows she might enjoy:
One of the best shows at the Studio is the Hunchback show. It is really a good show visually, but the music is also wonderful. The performers are actually singing during the show and they are very good.

Beauty and the Beast at the Studio is also very good with good music.

If you like loud music, the Tarzan show at AK is pretty good.

 

[LWQuestie]

Hi,

I've been to WDW numerous times with my mom, who is totally blind. We've experienced the parks with and without her guide dog.

We have never used the GAC. When my mom and I traveled sans dog, we found that having her white cane was clue enough to CMs to notice us, and make an attempt to help. She had her collapsible cane, and would just fold it up as we got close to boarding the ride.

As her sighted guide, you can usually see the ride structure and loading procedure far in advance of actually boarding the ride. I would suggest really paying close attention to how the CMs are directing Guests, and how the Guests tend to enter the ride car. Also, you will notice that many rides load similarly (i.e., It's a Small World, Pirates of the Carribean, Maelstrom, and El Rio del Tiempo are all boat rides, and the boats are quite alike. However they are different from Living with the Land, also a boat ride.)

Regarding the Haunted Mansion, which you mentioned as a concern, it is possible for the CM to slow the moving sidewalk to allow for slower loading. Keep in mind that that will also slow the entire ride (but don't let that make your decision). Sometimes I've noticed that line control CMs will direct you right to the exit door, but you will miss the preshow in that instance... You might want to see if you can see the preshow, and then be directed down the hallway to the unload area to board. It might be less stressful since there wouldn't be any (or many) people behind you rushing to board.

The thing that is ticking me off right now is that a lot of the movies/shows are rear-window captioned for the deaf and hard of hearing (not that that's a bad thing, don't get me wrong), but none of the shows are audio described for the blind or visually impaired! That's a huge gap in service, and a huge opportunity to make the parks more accessible. There's no excuse to completely exclude a group of people like that, especially when they are so great in services for folks with other handicaps.

 

[SueM in MN]

LWQuestie, your comments about the audio desciptions sounds like a wonderful suggestion to make to WDW.
They just recently added the reflective captioning. I don't know how difficult the technology for the audio description would be to make it "hearable" just by those who need it. It seems like it wouldn't be that hard. Just some sort of receiver tuned to receive a specail audio feed.
Our local Public TV station broadcasted one night with the audio descriptions enabled and it was really interesting.

 

[LWQuestie]

Audio Description is available in a handful of movie theaters across US and Canada. I don't know specifics on how it is implimented, I just know that a signal is sent out from something in the enabled theatre, and the patron accessing the AD has a headset that picks up the signal. I know that the cost for producing AD is not prohibitive (approx. $2500 per hour described), but I have no numbers in front of me regarding price of equipment required.

I'm going to a conference in about a month about Audio Description because I am really interested in it. I know they are going to be covering how to grow an audience for AD, and I would like to hear suggestions for that before talking to WDW about implementing AD.

You can find more about movies shown with audio description in theatres by going to http://www.wgbh.org/mopix (I think) and if that doesn't work, try http://www.wgbh.org/dvs and follow links.

Does anyone know exactly when the reflective captioning was added to WDW attractions?

 

[alabamaalan]

You are right about descriptive video; it does surprise me that Disney does not incorporate it, but I suppose they assume every VI guest will have someone with them to do that *sigh*

(Not that I mind, in fact, I love it, but not everyone is cut out to be narrators )

One of my VCRs is equipped with the SAP (Secondary Audio Program I think) option which allows us to pick up the descriptive service offered on certain PBS programs. It is great to be able to toggle it off or on so that you have the choice for description.

We purchased a DVS copy of Dumbo several years ago, and the description is so good that I don't know what to do with myself when we watch it. It drives me nuts! I hope one day the park will be able to offer that option the way some theatres do.

Alan