As I explicitly pointed out in my post as well as many others. I am not advocating for ride looping. Only commenting on your reactionary disbelief of cognitive and developmental improvements during a visit to WDW. You are lumping all people commenting from a perspective of having children with ASD together unfairly. The riding TSMM 10 times and children speaking their first words are completely unrelated. You are making assumptions that all of us dealing with ASD are in lock step on all comments. That sort of generalization is unfair.
I have never and would never let my son ride anything 10 times in a row. It creates the very dependency people are trying to accommodate by abusing the GAC. But the fact that some people with ASD abused the system, does not make the stories of breakthroughs or developments during visits untrue. It is two completely separate behaviors that both happen to take place in WDW that are being grouped purely because the people commenting on the two issues happen to share a disability.
Maybe you wouldn't. But due to others doing it, this new system is in place.
I know I'm going to be seen as a horse's a$$, but here goes. I have read through all 127 pages of this thread over several weeks, and one thing stands out-everyone seems to feel their disability or their child's disability (be it physical, mental, or emotional), entitles them to no-wait, front of the line access. Folks are forgetting one VERY important fact in all of this-WDW is a business in the end, and the vast majority of their money is made from those very crowds that are standing in line, sans disability. It sucks, but there it is.
The point of DAS/GAC was an attempt to placate and accommodate people with disabilities while still making sure the waiting masses were handled in a reasonable time (the majority that pays the bills). That was not happening. Ride loopers, line jumpers, Tiny Tims (I'm at the front of the line and suddenly cured of needing to sit in a wheel chair), etc brought this system down on everyone. This can be discussed ad nauseum (as it has for 127 pages of people ranting 'my disability trumps your disability' or 'my IBS makes it impossible to wait in a line'-never mind if you can't wait in a line, where do you drop one while you sit on IASW for 8 minutes?) and it won't matter. WDW has made a decision-a business decision. Your choices are as follows-
-Go to Disney and comply (the first rational thing),
-Go to Disney and make a scene a humiliate a cast member that is only tasked by some corporate suit to enforce a rule (the pathetic human response that has become en vogue on these boards and at Disney)
-Don't go (but keep in mind Universal's policy is almost the EXACT same thing). This is the second rational thing.
But keep in mind one thing. As much bad press as is possible has been brought to bear on Disney for this; be it Autism mom on Youtube, to the Orlando printed media, and you know what? No one cares. Because the vast majority of people are standing in 95 degree heat for 40 minutes to ride Dumbo and if this moves the line forward faster, they aren't going to complain or help you. That's the cold, hard reality at the end of the day.
Good luck-but remember-as stated above 'Disney is not there as a therapy session for your Honey Boo-Boo'. It's there for the enjoyment of all, and WDI has made a decision who 'all' is. It's time to move forward and accept it.
An aside-When my family and I were there in September, the lines were short and quick for almost everything in the World. I followed a family one morning out of the Wilderness Lodge. They had a child in a wheelchair. Of course, we all waited at the bus stop until they had boarded. Then we boarded. We arrived at the Magic Kingdom. We hopped off of the bus and proceeded to move towards the entrance. It was while we were waiting to get in something struck me. The family with the wheelchair-required child had magically transformed. It was a miracle!!! Except now it was their poor father that had the disability. I became concerned what this family had may be contagious. Later, as we were waiting to get on at the POTC, the disease had afflicted yet another family member-this time the mother.
My heart of course broke for this family. To have multiple members afflicted in one day by the same obviously crippling disease has to be trying, and to see the (very) brave faces the family wore was so uplifting (such brave faces I wouldn't have known the family was afflicted at all with this musical chairs disability). Then I heard the son (originally wheel chair bound at the bus stop while I was sweating vital fluids onto the concrete waiting to board-but still sympathetic) tell his father 'I'm want to ride the wheel chair when we go back to the bus'. I couldn't believe it! They had been gaming the system the whole time. I wonder why this system was instituted in the first place?
Hopefully, readers will see the dripping sarcasm of the story above. But my point is this-I dropped $6500 for the first vacation my family and I have taken since I was without a job 3 years ago. I haven't had a weekend, holiday, or sick day since for a long time. To have to observe this when that much money is saved and the planning that was involved, is frankly disgusting. Now I know a lot of people will call me heartless, say I'm cruel, or that I don't know what it's like. You're missing the point-Disney made a decision based on people like me complaining about the BS they were witnessing while not gaming the system themselves. And they had to do something. And they aren't going back. That's life. But the sympathetic side of me knows you already know that because of the daily challenge you face with you or a loved one's disability. And for that I'm sorry, but this is the way it is going to be.
