What to do?

[BELLE415]

Last time I was in DW, my husband and I went on Space Mountain. When we got off the ride, there was a man in a wheelchair in front of us on the conveyor belt on the way out of the building. If anyones been to Space Mountain when your leaving the building, this conveyor belt goes down hill and up hill. We were almost out of the building going up hill when a child tried to push past the man in the wheelchair. This caused the wheels to turn and the wheelchair to flip over backwards. It happened so fast. I jumped past him to get out of the way, while my husband picked up the wheelchair and another man helped the men to get upright. When they got to the end of the belt my husband helped him back into his wheelchair, but the people just kept pushing past. It couldn't be helped though. I was looking for an emergency stop bottom but there was none. The man was fine but I'm sure he was embarassed. All I keep thinking is "Was he suppose to be there or is there a wheelchair exit". I'm sure this isn't the first time this has happened. I been to DW alot and that was the first time I had ever experienced anything like that. It just seemed wrong to put people with disabilties in these situations.

 

[teri]

Well, there is a wheelchair entrance, and that wasn't it. Sometimes the signs to the accessible entrances are not easy to find, and people get lost. The best thing to do in that kind of circumstance is to report what you saw to a castmember at the ride, and also to make a report at Guest Services. That way, they will know who was supposed to be on duty at the time the man got misdirected, or lost, and try to prevent it from happening in the future. You could write a letter, but unless you have specific times and dates they may not be able to do much more than alert teh CMs to a possible problem at the attraction.

 

[LWQuestie]

As far as I know, the conveyor belt thing is the only way out of the building.... I had to ride on that in a wheelchair after I got hit by a car...

If it's not the proper exit... I never saw any arrows pointing anywhere else!

 

[teri]

The CMs should have let you get off the ride on the wheelchair entrance side, not on the exit side, you would then bypass the ramp. Sounds like the CMs didn't do the right thing.

 

[SueM in MN]

I haven't been on Space Mountain since my oldest DD was 6. She was scared to death and I was upset by not being able to be near her on the ride. It was so traumatic, I haven't been on since, so I can't remember anything about getting off.
This sounds like a job for Safari Steve. He is very helpful about finding out accessibility info for rides.

 

[teri]

Now, I might be remembering Space Mountain in Disneyland here, since we have done that more recently with a wheelchair, but my recollection was that we got off the ride on the same side we got on. We bypassed the main line completely, came in through the exit to the loading platform. Then, when we got off the ride, we got off on the loading platform side, not the exit side which has the moving ramp. I am pretty sure that SM at WDW is the same... I think....

At any rate, the CMs are supposed to direct you to the most appropriate and safest exit.

 

[LWQuestie]

At WDW, Space Mountain has two entrance queues.... The one on the left is used for standby. It's narrow and has stairs. The one on the right is now used for Fastpass, but it is wider and has no stairs. There are quite a bit of ups and downs in the queue (both are right next to each other). You go through a VERY long tunnel... when you get to the tower.. it splits, you can go left or right... after the split... there's a gate with the wheelchair symbol on it to bypass the twisty back and forth queue and go over to the right hand side loading area. WDW's Space mountain unloads in a completely seperate area from loading... I think unload is on a lower level, so it's not possible to ride from unload to load (like you can at WDW's Haunted Mansion). On this trip, I noticed an empty rocket going up an incline from unload to what must have been load. The unload room doesn't have a moving sidewalk... you have to go a little ways to get to that.

 

[Tiiiigergirl]

I was shocked last year but every time we rode on space mountain and the ramp was how they directed me to get out. Now I had an ECV and so it was too wide to have anyone try to pass me but it scared me to death. Far more scary than the ride itself. All I made sure was that my family was in front of me because I did not want several hundred pounds of equipment slipping on the ones I loved. I asked a couple of different cm's and they both directed my to the same exit. I sure wish they would change it but I guess they want us to get out via the gift shop too!

 

[teri]

That's just wrong. ????????? hey, Safari Steve..... ?????