waiting room

[tinkerbell423]

Hi can anyone describe the "waiting area" guest with a GAC use. I know each ride is different. I want to get a feel for the area/rooms so I can decide if it is right for my daughter. She has ADHD and SID. During the day her medication keeps her pretty stable however after four all bet are off. Lines will be hard however, I am imagining a "boring" (that would be her description) room where she will bounce off the walls. But at least she wouldn't be bothering anyone but us.
Thanks

 

[Cheshire Figment]

There are no special "waiting rooms" at attractions. Generally if a person can't wait in line use of Fastpasses is recommended. Under some circumstances you may be given a slip of paper telling you to return at a specific time, equal to the current wait time. I have had that on some attractions; if the standby wait is 30 minutes, I would be given sa slip of paper that would allow me to use the Fastpass line 30 minutes from when I was given the slip of paper, even if the Fastpasses are two or three hours away.

 

[tinkerbell423]

Thank you I was envisioning something entirely different.

 

[SueM in MN]

There are a few places that have waiting rooms that are more private. It's too late to think of them right now, but they are mostly in shows where there are limited numbers of wheelchair spots and they need someplace to 'hold' the correct number of wheelchairs until the show loads. It is usually just an end of the preshow/holding area that is blocked off with chains or ropes.
I'll post more tomorrow.

 

[ireland_nicole]

o.k. this is my first reply, so if I'm doing it wrong (I'm not really savvy at this stuff), please let me know. We last went to WDW in June. I have to kiddoes w/ multiple dis. ASD, BIP, ADHD,dyspraxia and GDD. At spaceship earth there was a "waiting area" with benches inside with a ramp to where the loading area was. In Pirates of the Caribbean, we waited outside on a bench and were shown around back when they were ready, on the hub and spoke rides we were waited at the exit. Some of this may have changed, but that was our experience fairly recently.(we had a GAC). We also used our stroller as a wheelchair and being able to have a familiar "den" was really helpful for our 5 y/o. It also helped him with endurance, he has hypotonia and stamina issues. HIH. Nicole

 

[tinkerbell423]

Thank You Nicole you info is very helpful

 

[SueM in MN]

This shows the waiting area at Spaceship Earth. It is at the ride exit, inside the building. Even when there is a short wait to board the ride thru the regular entrance, you may have a long wait here.

Some attractions have a sort of 'parallel' waiting place for people with wheelchairs and ECVs. You could use these waiting areas with a GAC that allows you to wait in a quieter place. This is an example of a parallel line - this one is from Circle of Life at Epcot.

Here are some of the places with 'parallel' waiting areas. Many of them are shows and even if you got into the very next show, you will need to wait the time between shows (like if the show is 15 minutes long and you just missed one, you will be waiting 15 minutes):

MK
Tiki Room
Monster's Inc.
Country Bear Jamboree

Epcot
Circle of Life
Living with the Land
Turtle Talk (a very boring separate room)
Honey I Shrunk the Audience (in the preshow area; may be very full if there are many wheelchair parties and they sometimes don't even always let the entire wheelchair party wait there)

Studio
Great Movie Ride (once you get into the Preshow area)
Muppet Vision 3D

AK
It's Tough to Be a Bug
Kilimonjaro Safari ***people with wheelchairs wait in the regular line until almost at boarding; the wait for boarding at the wheelchair area may be much longer than the 'regular' line at the same time

A better bet for you than a GAC would be to make some plans to be where it's not busy. Some things that will help:
- Fastpasses: Someone else in your party can take all your park passes to the Fastpass machine to pick up Fastpasses for everyone. When the time comes to use the Fastpass, you will usually be in line 10 minutes or less.

- Touring Plans: Plans like those found in the Unofficial Guidebook to WDW and from TourGuide Mike (a Theme Park Board Sponsor) can help you to be in the places that are not busy. That helps with the wait in lines, but also helps with just the general 'busyness' of the park.

- Getting to the park early: Even during busy times like Easter, if you get to the parks early you can usually see many things with little wait. MK is especially good for this- we've been to MK when you can ride everything in Fantasyland before 10am with waits of less than 10 minutes (we even went on some things more than once).

- Staying at the parks late: AK is especially good for this. Many people go there in the early morning and leave by about 2. We've been able to go on Kali River Rapids 3 times in a row, pretty much as fast as we could get off and then walk back to the exit again. Spaceship Earth, Honey I Shrunk the Audience are often an hour wait in the morning, but by mid afternoon, you can walk right on.

- Using EMH (Extra Magic Hours): there are limited numbers of people in the parks, so you might have much shorter waits. Last March, oldest DD, my niece and I went to EMH at Epcot. We went on Mission Space twice without waiting and went on Soarin' 4 times, going in just as fast as we could walk.

ALSO, there is one thing we have found touring with my nephew who has ADD and my younger DD who has ADD, in addition to other things.
They can wait much better for things they are interested in than things they are not. My nephew did not want to see Country Bears. Everyone else did, so he made sure we knew how very BORING he thought the wait was. Same thing with Splash Mountain, which he didn't want to do. But, he wanted to go on Big Thunder Mountain RR and would have waited much longer than he did.

 

[tinkerbell423]

Thank you Sue your photos are great and you really helped me understand the whole process.

 

[SueM in MN]

Thank you Sue your photos are great and you really helped me understand the whole process.

you're welcome.
I've been taking accessibility photos for quite a while, but I haven't had time to pull them out and post them on the internet where I could use them until recently.