rdour@techminds
New Member
I am about to take a trip to WDW Feb 12-17 and am staying at the Pop Century resort. I have a unique situation that could first be explained by a fun little story.
I was at the All Star Movies in November. I had put in a request for some minimal accomidations, because I am very visually impaired. In fact, my vision doesn't help at all when it comes to navigating around outdoors, indoors, lines, etc. I am a cane user. I was traveling with my girlfriend, but even she has some vision loss. However, she has enough vision to not need a cane.
We asked for help finding our room after a return from the Magic Kingdom. We were helped by a very nice CM. My girlfriend wasn't feeling well, and so after an hour I decided to go get a drink myself, because she was already asleep for the night. I ventured out of the room, read the braille room number, and then from there things go down hill. I couldn't figure out which sidewalk to take. My goal was to walk past what had sounded like the pool area and into the building. I was in a northern room of the 101 Dollmations building. After about what seemed like forever getting lost I retraced my steps back to the room. I was going to call the front desk and get a bit of help finding the central building. Oh cr@p, my key doesn't work. I tried it over and over again. Now, I knocked on the door, and second guessed myself as to the correct room number. I was positive though, it was the right room, and she's out cold for the night. A call to her cell didn't do anything either, though I couldn't hear it through the door.
I go on my way again, hoping a second attempt would work out. After again what seemed like forever, I thought I wouldn't find the central building in time to get my drink, because it was about 11:50 PM. A few nice hotel guests asked if I was lost, and I said "oh yeah, I'm confused, am I heading toward the central building?" One of the nice people, I determined they were just hanging out in front of their room, helped direct me to the building's sliding doors. I was familiar with the lobby layout, so I thanked the guy and he went back to his room I suppose. I went up to the desk, and that same CM was there. She asked if I needed help. I ask for help finding the drink mugs, and orientation to the order of the fountain drinks. I seriously wish Coke and Pepsi would just make their labels for the taps with built in braille. It isn't that hard, just make it a separate pull off sticker for the label, and have arrows on it to direct the proper orientation of the sticker. But oh well, that must be too much to ask. So she helps me out with getting a mug, and lets me know what the designs are for each mug type. I pay for it, she helps me as I memorized the drink order.
Now I've got the drink, and they're closing up the thing right behind me as we leave the cafeteria. She asks if I need additional help, and I explained that I honestly didn't have a good grasp on the layout of the resort, and needed assistance once again finding the room. But this time I explained that I needed help finding perminant objects I could use as points on my way back to the room. We walked out of the sliding doors, and I started trailing the edge of the sidewalk with my cane. This is a normal skill that is professionally taught by an orientation and mobility specialist. I am quite good at independent travel, but this place has twisty sidewalks, and almost no auditory queues. If Paul from Window to the Magic Podcast were to do a sound seeing tour of this resort, it would be quite boring. Anyway, I've become distracted. We're walking along, and she indicates that there are 3 sidewalks crossing my path on the way back to my room. the trick was, each one was wide enough, and the sides sloped gradually enough to get "sucked in" if I wasn't paying attention. So at each point where the trailing edge began to slope off to the right side, I asked if this was one of the sidewalks to be crossed. She was excellent, and with a few more tries, this was easy. I found the room, tried my key, dead. She also tried my key, didn't work. She ran back and replaced my key, and gave me another new key for my girlfriend. We tried them, nothing. She went back again, and returned with another CM, a techie. The guy inserted a data card, and reprogrammed the door. Then we tried the card, it worked. But with further testing, we realized that the card reader itself was pretty poor at reading the strip. If you didn't do it at a very slow controled pace, it would fail. They made plans to replace the card reader. I went into the room, grabbed the other dead card, and gave the CMs my old cards. They were very nice, thanked me for my patience, and left.
OK, so with all of this story explained, which building at the Pop Century is going to get me a reasonably easy path to travel back to the central building with the cafeteria and front desk? I need to put in a call to the "special request" reservations department in order to get anything accomplished. I need people to think hard about this one, excluding "preferred room" locations. I do not need to be on a ground floor, and in fact, an elevator hall is quite easy to find. They are large, and echo usually.
Side note, if anyone sees me at WDW between Feb 12-17, let me know. I am 5ft 11, white hair, almost always wearing a hat, and use a cane. I am ryan. Our last trip photos can be viewed in this slideshow at <a href="http://rdour.tm4h.com/disney2005">this site</a>.
Thanks everyone!
Ryan
I was at the All Star Movies in November. I had put in a request for some minimal accomidations, because I am very visually impaired. In fact, my vision doesn't help at all when it comes to navigating around outdoors, indoors, lines, etc. I am a cane user. I was traveling with my girlfriend, but even she has some vision loss. However, she has enough vision to not need a cane.
We asked for help finding our room after a return from the Magic Kingdom. We were helped by a very nice CM. My girlfriend wasn't feeling well, and so after an hour I decided to go get a drink myself, because she was already asleep for the night. I ventured out of the room, read the braille room number, and then from there things go down hill. I couldn't figure out which sidewalk to take. My goal was to walk past what had sounded like the pool area and into the building. I was in a northern room of the 101 Dollmations building. After about what seemed like forever getting lost I retraced my steps back to the room. I was going to call the front desk and get a bit of help finding the central building. Oh cr@p, my key doesn't work. I tried it over and over again. Now, I knocked on the door, and second guessed myself as to the correct room number. I was positive though, it was the right room, and she's out cold for the night. A call to her cell didn't do anything either, though I couldn't hear it through the door.
I go on my way again, hoping a second attempt would work out. After again what seemed like forever, I thought I wouldn't find the central building in time to get my drink, because it was about 11:50 PM. A few nice hotel guests asked if I was lost, and I said "oh yeah, I'm confused, am I heading toward the central building?" One of the nice people, I determined they were just hanging out in front of their room, helped direct me to the building's sliding doors. I was familiar with the lobby layout, so I thanked the guy and he went back to his room I suppose. I went up to the desk, and that same CM was there. She asked if I needed help. I ask for help finding the drink mugs, and orientation to the order of the fountain drinks. I seriously wish Coke and Pepsi would just make their labels for the taps with built in braille. It isn't that hard, just make it a separate pull off sticker for the label, and have arrows on it to direct the proper orientation of the sticker. But oh well, that must be too much to ask. So she helps me out with getting a mug, and lets me know what the designs are for each mug type. I pay for it, she helps me as I memorized the drink order.
Now I've got the drink, and they're closing up the thing right behind me as we leave the cafeteria. She asks if I need additional help, and I explained that I honestly didn't have a good grasp on the layout of the resort, and needed assistance once again finding the room. But this time I explained that I needed help finding perminant objects I could use as points on my way back to the room. We walked out of the sliding doors, and I started trailing the edge of the sidewalk with my cane. This is a normal skill that is professionally taught by an orientation and mobility specialist. I am quite good at independent travel, but this place has twisty sidewalks, and almost no auditory queues. If Paul from Window to the Magic Podcast were to do a sound seeing tour of this resort, it would be quite boring. Anyway, I've become distracted. We're walking along, and she indicates that there are 3 sidewalks crossing my path on the way back to my room. the trick was, each one was wide enough, and the sides sloped gradually enough to get "sucked in" if I wasn't paying attention. So at each point where the trailing edge began to slope off to the right side, I asked if this was one of the sidewalks to be crossed. She was excellent, and with a few more tries, this was easy. I found the room, tried my key, dead. She also tried my key, didn't work. She ran back and replaced my key, and gave me another new key for my girlfriend. We tried them, nothing. She went back again, and returned with another CM, a techie. The guy inserted a data card, and reprogrammed the door. Then we tried the card, it worked. But with further testing, we realized that the card reader itself was pretty poor at reading the strip. If you didn't do it at a very slow controled pace, it would fail. They made plans to replace the card reader. I went into the room, grabbed the other dead card, and gave the CMs my old cards. They were very nice, thanked me for my patience, and left.
OK, so with all of this story explained, which building at the Pop Century is going to get me a reasonably easy path to travel back to the central building with the cafeteria and front desk? I need to put in a call to the "special request" reservations department in order to get anything accomplished. I need people to think hard about this one, excluding "preferred room" locations. I do not need to be on a ground floor, and in fact, an elevator hall is quite easy to find. They are large, and echo usually.
Side note, if anyone sees me at WDW between Feb 12-17, let me know. I am 5ft 11, white hair, almost always wearing a hat, and use a cane. I am ryan. Our last trip photos can be viewed in this slideshow at <a href="http://rdour.tm4h.com/disney2005">this site</a>.
Thanks everyone!
Ryan
