GAC to Become DAS

[englanddg]

Not to beat this topic to death, but I just want to say that yes, as a parent I've seen temper tantrums from "whiny/tired/hot/angry/upset/gripy" kids. But I can assure you that a meltdown from an Asperger's child is entirely different. I used to feel the same way that all they need is some strong discipline, but having dealt with some of these kids up close and personal, I can attest to the fact that this is like comparing an M-80 to an atomic bomb. It's a whole different ballgame, and it has to be handled much differently.
Just my 2 cents.

I agree. They are completely different.

However (and you knew there was gonna be one)...the comparison is apt.

The issue with these diagnosis (Aspergers and Autism) is that the public isn't well educated about them, as they are rather new. When I was growing up, I was diagnosed with ADD. That later became ADHD (to be exact, there is a difference, but I won't expound on it here), and toss in a compulsive disorder, and you have me. However, that didn't stop my parents from taking me to Disney...I went...a lot.

I was chided by my Mom who said I had "trouble changing tracks". That was her catchphrase. Like a train "changing tracks", so you can get the analogy.

I was eventually put on drugs (ritilin was popular at the time)...sent to therapy, etc. as a teen.

Way TMI, but, my point is...I evolved. I learned to control my issues, mostly because my issues weren't coddled, and in many cases see them as a benefit today. Given what I've seen about autism, odds are I would have been diagnosed with that as well.

I turned a DIS-ability into an Ability, in fact in some cases an advantage. Then again, I was very light on the "scale".

So, taking it back to the discussion at large, after my personal exposition...should someone who is lightly Autistic get a GAC? The fact I threw tantrums, ran away, screamed obscenities at my parents, etc...does that mean that I'm "disabled" enough to require special consideration at Disney simply because I have that condition?

I say no. And for very good reason. Had I been allowed the easiest path for my Parents (and trust me, it wasn't easy...), I would never have learned how to control my behaviors to interact in the real world. It would have left me a shunted adult, without any consideration of what my chemical (at least that's the current theory) impulses tell me to do.

My point is simple. It's not a critique of anyone elses parenting style, that's up to them. And, were my parents perfect? Heck no...but I wasn't a perfect child either.

But, it is admittedly based on my own experience. You do your child no favors by teaching them that they are "special" (as my parents did for a large portion of my life). You are not special. You need to learn how to interact with society, how to "behave".

Going back to your original point about meltdowns...I was light...there was a huge difference between me and say, the kid I worked with in high school who hit puberty and thought that ankles were sexy, and would randomly attack girls ankles at school and then start to hump the floor. He was autistic (among other afflictions). It was so bad that for his "integration" classes (like Drama class) we asked that all the girls wear pants or high socks.

You are 100% correct. It's a different ballgame, and must be handled differently.

 

[englanddg]

And now this gets tasty. Thank you for the response. It's on! <grin> Lets have a well spirited debate (not personal, none of this is personal, I'm assuming a role here, not stating my personal opinions necessarily...)

But you can force movement with legislation. Hence laws to outlaw discrimination going all the way back to the reconstruction period. Without those laws there never would be a framework to PUSH individuals off their rut. No a law is not going to change someone who has always thought of a black person as a 'colored person' but you will force change.

You make many incorrect assumptions with this part of your post. Where shall I start?

"But you can force movement with legislation."

First, no, you can't. You assume that locality was incompatible with disability / race, which is a generalization which if you read historical texts (including popular literature of the time, is frankly...a false assumption. Disabled people (or colored people, since you brought that up) were never "swept under the rug" as you imply.

You are incorrect. Perceptions change laws, and laws are a reflection of perceptions. Not vice versa, as you stated.

You attempted to set up a straw man with the "black person" comment. Civil Rights laws (including the 14th Amendment) were passed NOT because there is an altruistic group of politicians. There was major social dispute about this, and it even led to a Civil War. Read your history more deeply than a movie you watched sometime.

With respect to ADA, it's because medical advances allowed people who couldn't, previously, participate in general society. What made them suddenly able? The afflictions certainly were not new. It was medical advances, medical science.

Though the politicians crafted the law to make it seem as if they were blazing new trails (great marketing), that's not at all what was really happening. It is not justification of the underlying political motives and support. NO politician who wants to get re-elected is going to go against the general mindset of their voting base.

It's a reflection of the general attitude of society. One that is not surprising considering the wealth of disabled coming from years of US wars abroad and the veterans they brought back with disabilities.

Though you attempted to make it seem that way, this will come up later...

Most reasonable people would actually look at it the other way.. that its ILLEGAL to discriminate against protected classes WITH THE EXCEPTION of ability to do the job. Not go off saying 'its perfectly legal to discriminate against protected classes...'

What isn't illegal is legal. End of response to that piece of misdirection.

I mean.. just read the freakin law. It's right there in the PURPOSE part of the law...

" unlike individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or age, individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of disability have often had no legal recourse to redress such discrimination"

"the Nation's proper goals regarding individuals with disabilities are to assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for such individuals; and"

etc..

I have read the law, thank you. There are V titles to it and it's been vastly warped through judicial precedent. You can't state that the premise is effective at all, as the premise to the Affordable Care Act was that healthcare would be affordable, but it's grown 30%+ in many markets (due to the reinsurance market hating it) and it's led many employers to cut hours and drop healthcare insurance altogether.

But, here's their premise!

"This Act puts individuals, families and small business owners in control of their health care. It reduces premium costs for millions of working families and small businesses by providing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax relief – the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history."

READ THE LAW! I work for a company of around 70 employees, and we came about as close as a hair to cutting all benefits for all employees. The law accomplished nothing but political maneuvering. I don't want to get into a debate about that law, I merely use it to point out that the "mission statement" of a law is not evidence of it's actual impact.

*facepalm* 'he did just fine?' - The man had to LIVE A LIE and HIDE his disability from the public.

I'm sure he would be quite happy to say that his Polio caused him to be stupid (sarcasm intended), and therefore he needed a GAC to get the Presidency. I frankly find your assumption that he's less able insulting. "He had to live a lie"...no, he lived how he wanted to live. That wasn't your choice or mine, and it's quite ignorant for you to assume otherwise. He was vastly successful, far more than either of us will probably ever be.

And yet, if only he could have wheeled his way into the White House. <sigh>

How did other people do? Well they were treated like **** and had to live life as 3rd class people... confined in what they could do and where they could go. Can you imagine being a poor child with physical handicaps when you can't even find a bathroom to use or need to have someone carry you most of the time because your chair or walker is unusable pretty much everywhere? Or if you lived in the city you couldn't even ride public transit at all.

Dicto simpliciter. There were and have always been in a city of that sized disabled people. The fallacy is to assume they were always relegated to social inaction. History proves this is not the case.

I can honestly saw that is the most blatantly ignorant thing I've ever read on this site.

Thanks ad hominim.

Jesus.. this is something even in your own generation you should be able to recognize. Just remember how kids treated kids with mental disabilities when you were a kid.. and you called the kid a '' and picked on them.. and how special ed was looked down upon by every non-special ed kid in school.

Do you think the current generation who thinks that snooki is worth watching and that twerking is cool makes any different distictions?

People's needs were flat out IGNORED by businesses.

Um, no. If you run a business, you make money off it. Restaurants, in particular, would be keen on inclusion. But, again, you make a generalization and an assumption.

They were considered 'a hassle' and excluded from participation or even access. It wasn't like in the 90s someone woke up and said 'oh man.. there are people with wheelchairs now? They can go outside?? Cool! lets embrace them'. These people were treated like crap.. tossed aside as burdens and something you were told you had to tolerate and then you could walk away and forget them.

So, who treated them like crap? Oh...their families, so shame on them. Do not conflate that to the general public.

Again I'll point to FDR. His condition was in no way a secret. His family didn't say "well, if only he had a Presidential GAC".

The justification for these laws are WRITTEN RIGHT IN THEM. Is it really that hard for people to google and look at the text of a law?
Justification for the original version of the ADA Act - http://www.ada.gov/archive/adastat91.htm#Anchor-Sec-49575

I mean.. we're not talking the 1800s here... this is society that most adults in this forum would have actual lived through.

I've already addressed this. Thanks for the link.

 

[flynnibus]

Don't know what world you live in @englanddg - but if you honestly believe even half of what you wrote there is no way I'm wasting any time trying to right that ship. It is so ridiculously off course I can't even imagine anyone saying it. Technology advances is why we decided the disabled deserve to be treated with equal opportunity?

You say businesses are inclusive... well they excluded the disabled because the return wasn't worth the investment. Who would put in an elevator for just a 2 story building just so a few cripples who couldn't walk the stairs would be included? They wouldn't spend 30-100k when they knew they would never get the return for it. The disabled were excluded because they weren't fiscally worth it. Hearing assistance? Money down the drain...

Imagine being rejected throughout life in virtually everything people do.. from taking a leak to going to a movie.. and being rejected day in and day out because including you cost more than you were worth. How the hell do you think that made people feel? And you think medical advances somehow in the 80s and 90s is why all of a sudden we thought these people were worthy of being seen as equals? Did medical advances somehow make the disabled spend so much they become a new untapped market? Do you hear people today going 'oh man.. if we build that accessibility ramp we're gonna be raking in the new clients!!!'. Why is it so many businesses rely on grandfathering to NOT update their facilities? BECAUSE ITS A COST.. a cost most will never recover. They do it now because it's the law.. not because business somehow figured out this is a new ripe market to capitalize on because now science makes these viable customers.

Equality movements followed the social unrest of the late 60s.. from civil rights, to feminism, to accessibility. There was push for social change. When incumbents pushed back, people turned to legislation to try to force the country forward. Anti-discrimination laws were part of the social agenda. The period brought about the first laws requiring equal access in federal services/employment.. and guaranteed education programs in schools for disabled children as well. This was the 70s.. it wasn't freaking technology or medical breakthroughs that somehow made this feasible then vs before. Activists drove the agenda.. not capitalists.

The ADA was pushed through on the platform that previous laws weren't doing enough, and the disabled still were 3rd rate citizens kept from living normal lives by being excluded and discriminated against.

There wasn't any medical breakthroughs that somehow made a disabled guy a more viable worker in 1988 vs what he was in 1978. It was social pressure that made it unethical to discriminate against that guy simply because he was disabled. It's the same type of 'moral elevation' that makes it career suicide to be insensitive, sexist, racist, etc even in jest. None of that has to do with 'oh those classes are now viable! they should be protected'

I don't know where you got that train of thought about science being the enabler that made anti-discrimination laws viable... I must say I've never heard ANYONE say such a thing... let alone repeat it. The handicap still pretty much used the same wheelchairs in 1988 that they did ten years prior.

 

[ml123_9]

Ok, disclaimer: I'm sure this has been covered about 80 times in this post, but who has the time to read 80 pages of facts or opions? My main question is this, what about people with wheelchairs? Not all lines are wheelchair accessible, so do the people in wheelchairs get a DAS or how does that work? I haven't really seen a clear explanation for that. Most examples for the DAS used autistic as the handicap and not walking disabilities. Thank you

 

[Mr Bill]

For non-wheelchair accessible lines, guests in wheelchairs will get a return pass similar to what's used out in California right now for rides like Radiator Springs Racers. It'll give a return time similar to what's given for guests using the DAS, and they'll come back and use the alternate entrance at the appropriate time (generally after whatever the current standby time is minus ten minutes).

 

[natatomic]

Yes, I do remember that now, so I apologize for my jumping the gun. But they did admit that they knew a violation was happening and did nothing about it. I didn't make that part up, just that I did accidentally, relate it to the one posted. But still there is a problem. One allowed to "easily" abuse the system means that they will do it again and let all there friends know as well, and there it goes. So, sorry about that particular card, but I think that the basic problem still exists.

No, that's not at all what I said. I simply said that I was not the one who confiscated this particular card. Probably because I was inside on break at the time that it came through. Another girl in the FP Return position took it - AS I WOULD HAVE DONE - instead. I just got to hear the story from her. I would never let such a blatantly altered card through. Go back and reread my post.

However, this card was taken in the middle of the afternoon. I can almost guarantee you those boys had used it at least a handful of times before coming through our line, because so few CMs bother to look closely enough to spot even that level of alteration.

 

[Lucky]

It all comes down to the fact that was the biggest reason why GAC was re-evaluated in the first place (even prior to all the publicity) which was that all GAC users legit or fake were getting a better guest experience than the average guest. In fact, in most cases, even better than the most prepared preplanned veteran guests who knew all the ins and outs of how to maximize their visit. It just wasn't fair or consistent no matter how you argue it.

The average guest could get X number of attractions in in a day for the time they spent in the park and the money they spent with all the other factors they had to deal with, while any GAC card user with the right stamp would get double,if not all of the park (or multiple parks') attractions done in a fraction of the time for the same amount of money (or in the case of park hoping, for less) even with the added factor of having a disability.

So rather than argue about what a disability is. It doesn't matter about the the disability or ability. It doesn't matter if it's apparent or not. It doesn't matter if they needed the GAC or faked the need. It wasn't fair and this new DAS helps address the consistency issue by putting it on better playing field: one that still benefits guests with disabilities with accommodation and more, but keeps things in check to avoid it from becoming the golden ticket it should have never become.

Anyone who can spend time worrying that an autistic child might be having a "better guest experience" than they are will always find something to be unhappy about, even if they had an entire park to themselves.

 

[natatomic]

Anyone who can spend time worrying that an autistic child might be having a "better guest experience" than they are will always find something to be unhappy about, even if they had an entire park to themselves.

Here's the thing: the alternate entrance GAC provided unlimited FP access. Do you know how everyone else gets that treatment? By spending $300 per HOUR (I've heard it's per person, but someone will correct me if I'm wrong) to have a Disney tour guide escort them. It's the exact same access. So considering a family would need to pay thousands of dollars a day for that level of treatment when others can get it for free, whether they truly need it or not - though again, most would disagree that anyone aside from maybe .0001% truly "need" that extreme level of access - I can easily understand their frustration.

 

[Mark In KY]

Dude, I work in healthcare. I spent about 20 years of my life in a pediatric medical office. My docs, fellow nursing staff, nor I have ever hated our patients or parents. I can not begin to tell you the number of letters that I have written for this or that, which was beyond the scope of medicine, but was parent requested. I looked at it as their need, not my opportunity to judge.

Oh, and drug rep lunches are highly overrated.

The docs never NEVER share their true feelings with the Nazis known as "nursing staff". "Nursing staff" ain't part of the club. Never have been, never will be.

 

[BroganMc]

For non-wheelchair accessible lines, guests in wheelchairs will get a return pass similar to what's used out in California right now for rides like Radiator Springs Racers. It'll give a return time similar to what's given for guests using the DAS, and they'll come back and use the alternate entrance at the appropriate time (generally after whatever the current standby time is minus ten minutes).

My concern is that it takes a lot longer than 10 mins for one to proceed thru the wheelchair line on attractions with limited accessible vehicles like TSM. I've gotten stuck in that line many times because they use both wheelchair vehicles for transfers and non transfers alike.

Trouble is the line is buried inside the attraction so you have no way of knowing its length. And one you're in it you can't easily exit.

When they switched IASW to its current universal access and wheelchair line entry halfway thru the standby queue, it got more complicated and wait R's longer for wheelies. Last Feb I got trapped inside it because I had a dozen parties in front of me and a half dozen behind me with stay dry guests behind them. All shoved together like sardines in a narrow line with space barely big enough for one wheelchair. The line moved so slow because there were only the two boats in use and we all had to wait for the ride to cycle thru them. Meanwhile the standby queue opened up and that moved quickly.

After 30 mins of waiting and traveling about 20 feet in our line I sent the able bodied members of my family out to catch their FP window for Splash Mountain. They could crawl under the metal fence to get into the ride exit. It to me another 15 mins to travel just far enough in the line there was a break in the metal fencing allowing me to bail on the ride. I never did ride that attraction that trip.

I don't think Disney has really thought thru what happens to wheelie folks who have transfer issues.

 

[Goofyernmost]

No, that's not at all what I said. I simply said that I was not the one who confiscated this particular card. Probably because I was inside on break at the time that it came through. Another girl in the FP Return position took it - AS I WOULD HAVE DONE - instead. I just got to hear the story from her. I would never let such a blatantly altered card through. Go back and reread my post.

However, this card was taken in the middle of the afternoon. I can almost guarantee you those boys had used it at least a handful of times before coming through our line, because so few CMs bother to look closely enough to spot even that level of alteration.

If you check it out, I retracted and apologized, but you did say in some part of your post that a situation that you had dealt with, would have been given a warning that others might not be "as nice as you". The point that I was making, and at first I was sighting you specifically, but you just reconfirmed the idea that " I can almost guarantee you those boys had used it at least a handful of times before coming through our line, because so few CMs bother to look closely enough to spot even that level of alteration." That is the issue and the problem that I am concerned about. I understand that many either just don't care or are intimidated by something, but, that doesn't feed the baby. There is someone's who's protection is compromised because abuse is allowed to run rampant. If meek lower management is allowing that abuse then they need to answer for that as well and all the way up the line until someone that cares does know about it and does something about it. If that is the media...well that's were it should go.

 

[ddrongowski]

Anyone who can spend time worrying that an autistic child might be having a "better guest experience" than they are will always find something to be unhappy about, even if they had an entire park to themselves.

If everyone had the park to themselves, then this discussion would not even be happening.

 

[Pinkerton]

Here is a Wall Street Journal that I thought was well-written.

Wall Street Journal article on new policy
It's a Small-Minded World, Disney Learns
Because parents scammed the theme parks, now disabled children will lose out.

By
BOB GREENE

If you have ever been to a Disney DIS -1.07% theme park, and have seen a family with a disabled child escorted to the front of a long line to a ride, has your reaction been:

1. To offer a silent prayer of thanks for your own family's good fortune to be healthy and able-bodied;

2. To think good thoughts about Disney for having the compassion to take care of the park's disabled guests this way; or:

3. To regard this as a great opportunity for you to pull a con, an easy way to turn the situation to your own family's advantage?

Apparently answer No. 3 is more common than you might hope, because this week the Walt Disney Co. announced a significant change to procedures at Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California. No longer will families with disabled children or parents be allowed to go to the front of long lines.

One of the reasons for the change, a Disney spokeswoman told the Orange County Register, was to curtail "abuse of this system" by healthy families pretending that some of its members are ill or disabled.

In May, the New York Post reported that wealthy parents were hiring disabled "tour guides" to blend in with their families and enable them to go to the front of lines. As coldly cynical as this sounded, as snickeringly selfish, there was more: Websites serving families with disabled children featured message boards with infuriating tales of healthy people renting wheelchairs to avoid waiting in Disney theme-park lines.

Thus, Disney is initiating a new policy to take effect early next month. Families with disabled children or parents may apply for a variation of a current Disney program that instructs visitors to report to a ride during a specified window of time. But the front-of-the-line privileges extended to chronically ill or disabled boys and girls are over. And few people will be startled if the new passes feature photo IDs, to prevent them from being sold by scalpers to healthy visitors to the parks.

Don't blame Disney for this. The company's long-standing impulse to provide front-of-the-line consideration for customers with physical disabilities has been commendable. Yet, short of positioning a physician at the entrance to every ride to ascertain the legitimacy of a person's ailment, what was the company to do?

The fault lies directly with those parents who evidently think nothing of conniving their way to an unfair edge in the world, including even feigning that they or their children suffer disabilities.

Who is really being hurt if healthy people figure out a way to skip the lines? For starters, the children who genuinely are chronically ill or disabled, the children whose fevers and tremors are real. They may not have been given many breaks in their short time on earth, but Disney traditionally granted them one.

There are other people, though, who, in a more subtle manner, are hurt in the long term: the able-bodied children who have been shown by their parents that gaming the system, that faking disabilities, is what smart people do. That it's the clever way, the winner's way. Only suckers, no matter how healthy, wait in line. It's a lesson that—sadly—will stick.

Walt Disney, long ago, had the dream of building an enchanted place. He built it.

And then the people came. Which begat the current problem. The honor system, evidently, is officially obsolete.

The only surprise may be that it has taken this long. And what of those children who really do need their wheelchairs or leg braces? Those children whose fragile medical conditions make a day at a Disney park a rare and wonderful, but tenuous and wearying, occasion?

Their parents can say to them, truthfully:

The reason the rules have changed is that some other mothers and fathers told their children to pretend their lives are as hard as yours.

 

[TP2000]

The date was altered (might be hard to tell in the smaller resolution I uploaded it in). It was changed to a 28 from 26 or 23 or something. And the number of guests originally said "4 (four)." They wrote a "1" in front of the 4, and drew a line through the right parenthesis to change it into a 'T' and wrote "een" after that. The ten 18-20ish year old boys who tried to use it apparently didn't think to change the name of the person on the card, though, because I highly doubt any of them were named Angie. Lol.

Brilliant! Thank you for proving to us how smart CM's must be in this Entitled Age and how rife with abuse and fraud the GAC program was. CM's like you have my full appreciation and respect, keep up the great work of policing what the TDO executives refused to fix for years.

And for the folks who blame the CM's for sending them back to Guest Relations for an improperly filled out card, I don't have a lot of sympathy. If I was getting a free Golden Ticket Unlimited Fastpass (which is what a GAC with the arrows is), I would study it carefully like I study the contract when buying a new car. Take two minutes and make sure it's totally accurate, and then thank Disney profusely for the over-the-top customer service they provide by giving you the Golden Ticket Unlimited Fastpass called GAC.

The person receiving the GAC needs to take some responsibility for their request for such an extreme customer service courtesy. Not blame the CM who catches the other CM's mistake.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Here is a Wall Street Journal that I thought was well-written.

Although well written, and certainly not anti-Disney, it is incorrect. Those that need that "special" attention will still get it. Nothing about that has changed. It has merely created a couple of steps to help sort the real from the garbage. The only thing that this will prevent when it comes to those with handicaps is the continious ability to ride the same ride over and over while others just wait and watch. That part isn't fair and should not be a requirement regardless of the disability. There are literally hundreds of other things to do at the Parks. It also will prevent the "family" from using Front of the Line if the person that the DAS is attached to isn't with them. Why shouldn't it be that way? It's for them to utilize not a half dozen able bodied cousins. I really do wish that media could get the story right, but, it maybe because Disney hasn't had the ability to let people know absolutely what the plan is. You know their motto... More secrets then the CIA.

 

[fosse76]

My concern is that it takes a lot longer than 10 mins for one to proceed thru the wheelchair line on attractions with limited accessible vehicles like TSM. I've gotten stuck in that line many times because they use both wheelchair vehicles for transfers and non transfers alike.

Trouble is the line is buried inside the attraction so you have no way of knowing its length. And one you're in it you can't easily exit.

TSMM is mostly wheelchair accessible. Since all wheelchairs will now be directed to go through the queue, that should space out the guests through the queue enough so the wheelchair queue line is minimal (as another poster stated previously).

I don't think Disney has really thought thru what happens to wheelie folks who have transfer issues.

Once the new policy is in place, I imagine that many people who don't really need a wheelchair will find the new policy unbearable for themselves and forego that use, thereby reducing those lines.[/quote]

 

[Lord_Vader]

TSMM is mostly wheelchair accessible. Since all wheelchairs will now be directed to go through the queue, that should space out the guests through the queue enough so the wheelchair queue line is minimal (as another poster stated previously).

Our experiences are primarily around the holidays and late summer...

Not sure your assumption would apply here, the total number of guests in wheelchairs is still the same for the most part, one or two parties will drop the wait by 5-10 minutes which is not much. During the times we go, we have waited much longer than the standby line (2 hours once while the SB line was 80 minutes) with a FP in the wheelchair queue. There were so many wheelchairs in the queue they asked us continually to squeeze in as the line was backing up into the FP/SB queues. At that point they were escorting groups to the exit side and placing guests that could transfer into vehicles to move the line forward enough to clear the jam at the split.

Two hour wait with a FastPass was the final straw for us riding TSMM last Christmas. With zero idea of what an expected wait will be, we will simply not ride TSMM anymore which I guess does speed the line up for someone else... TSMM is always a shot in the dark for any guest in a wheelchair as sometimes there is very little wait, more often than not it is borderline madness and the line moves so slowly.

 

[Pinkerton]

Those that need that "special" attention will still get it. Nothing about that has changed.

.
Tell that to those who are wheelchair bound and can't transfer and have to wait an extra 10 to 20 minutes for that one wheelchair accessible ride vehicle (and this will be on top of stand-by queue times).

The only thing that this will prevent when it comes to those with handicaps is the continuous ability to ride the same ride over and over while others just wait and watch. That part isn't fair and should not be a requirement regardless of the disability.

.
The wheelchair bound never used the GAC as a continuous FastPass because they had to wait a lot longer for an accessible ride vehicle and it was not worth the wait or the hassle of navigating the queue again. It was mainly the "borderline invisibly and physically disabled" who abused the system as a FOTL unlimited FastPass and they are the ones who will cost those with severe disabilities (both apparent and non-apparent) the benefits of this program. I bet these losers get a handicapped parking placard as well !!

 

[Pinkerton]

Once the new policy is in place, I imagine that many people who don't really need a wheelchair will find the new policy unbearable for themselves and forego that use, thereby reducing those lines.

I am hoping this too. As a father of a wheelchair bound daughter with Cerebral Palsy, I witnessed many miracles while waiting for a wheelchair accessible ride vehicle to come around. You would not believe the number of "borderline physically disabled" in wheelchairs and scooters who wheeled down the alternative entrance ramp and then miraculously hopped out of their wheelchair and transferred flawlessly to the first ride vehicle to come around.

Many of these "so-called" physically disabled were obese behemoths who really could have used the exercise walking their fat- around the parks. They disgusted me more than those who flat out faked it because the fakers know they are not disabled but these obese lazy slobs actually considered themselves in the same league as my daughter which is being disabled.

 

[natatomic]

If you check it out, I retracted and apologized, but you did say in some part of your post that a situation that you had dealt with, would have been given a warning that others might not be "as nice as you". The point that I was making, and at first I was sighting you specifically, but you just reconfirmed the idea that " I can almost guarantee you those boys had used it at least a handful of times before coming through our line, because so few CMs bother to look closely enough to spot even that level of alteration." That is the issue and the problem that I am concerned about. I understand that many either just don't care or are intimidated by something, but, that doesn't feed the baby. There is someone's who's protection is compromised because abuse is allowed to run rampant. If meek lower management is allowing that abuse then they need to answer for that as well and all the way up the line until someone that cares does know about it and does something about it. If that is the media...well that's were it should go.

Sorry, I just wanted you to hear from the horse's mouth - so to speak - as to the story behind the GAC. And while I am quite the hard-a** with most GACs, I did want to explain in that previous post - mostly to the gentleman who assumed I worked at Soarin' since that is where he was turned away from the merge point for a suspicious-looking GAC - that I am not above making exceptions for certain situations. Obviously, I have no idea what his specific GAC looked like, so I can't honestly tell him what I would have done with him in his situation. But I would estimate that I turn away 98% of GACs with suspicious/stray markings, and the other 2% I make the exception for only because sometimes a scribble is just a scribble and I know not all GR CMs do their job 100% correctly or thoroughly all the time (just as any other human being). Plus, I kind of read the family - their attitude, their behavior, etc. - and I make the best judgement call I can. Like I said, I am a hard-a***, as one member on this board can attest to (though I'm not asking him to!), but I do try to err on the side of the guest when I think it is an honest oversight.

For what it's worth, I do strongly agree with you that CMs (front-line, management, or whatever) enabling the abuse is not doing anyone any favors and is part of the root of the issue with the current GAC system. I will honestly tell you, though, that probably 95% of CMs would stick to the rules at the same level as I do IF management would simply back them up. But they so rarely do, so then it makes us look like jerks who are just on a power trip. Most CMs who allow such abuse do so only because they are simply tired of being thrown under the bus in front of everyone and find that it's just not worth the argument when they know that a manager will just let the guest in anyway, making them look bad in the process*. I only stick to the rules because I'm stubborn and because if my job isn't to enforce the rules, then what is it?

*There are some good managers out there, but there seems to be fewer and fewer of them as the years go on. In their defense though, managers are usually just doing what THEIR leaders tell them to do, because it's those higher-ups (who never see how CMs are treated by some guests in person, nor see the level of abuse happening in the parks) who want us to appease the guests in anyway we can so they keep coming to the parks and spending money. So if a manager es a guest off, they have their leaders to answer to, and they aren't often very understanding since they never see these situations in person.