I completely agree with you that people who were the original (and current?) intended target for DAS were not cheating anything and I’d go a step further and say everybody else approved for DAS (without lying or exaggerating) wasn’t cheating anything either— the horrible problem is that plenty of people were cheating (either outright lying or significant exaggerating) because the DAS experience is so much better than G+ if you can also wait in 15-30 minute queues all day with or without other medical problems. The total number of people (DASholder and boarding group members) was unsustainable for Disney— so Disney dramatically narrowed inclusion to families who they think can’t/won’t use it to get on more rides than the average non-DAS guest.
Unfortunately, in addition to the outright cheaters, Disney now created this new class of extremely entitled ex-DAS user who genuinely believe they deserve to be able to use DAS (often doubling up with Genie+ or ILL) and that Disney made an illegitimate choice because: “AQR just won’t work for me” or “how can you expect my medical condition to prevent me from doing 7DMT at the exact same time as my kids and their spouses and their kids in our party of 8?”, etc. We’ve already seen people on boards shamelessly suggest they will manipulate their friends and family on their account to try to get around new DAS restrictions and I’m certain that many users with children who meet criteria for AQR or other limited accommodations are going to claim their children are much higher needs levels and they won’t even see themselves as fakers. I know someone who told me her daughter needed it for her ADHD and said daughter had an IEP so they had legal documentation…that might sound reasonable but that daughter is also currently attending an elite university, I pushed back gently and she told me that everybody does it and it’s Disney’s fault for making trips so expensive. Many people have convinced themselves it’s a victimless crime and/or they’re going to “stick it to the mouse” as an act of social justice. Others are saying they will sue because their medical issues don’t get the exact same treatment as major developmental disability limitations.
Because so many people are sure they are morally/legally entitled, I don’t think that just tightening the rules is going to be enough to save the system—I fear Disney will ultimately end the program and point to a 500% rise in severe [DAS qualifying conditions] in the inevitable litigation. I don’t know what the answer is, but Disney has access to a lot of data to do a better job sorting the outright fakers and liars from the new target audience and I hope they start making examples of people who used to travel as parties of 8 and are suddenly now “6 parties of severely autistic adults, 2 of whom have caretakers.”
I truly hope that DAS stays available for people (especially children) who genuinely can’t get on most rides without them, and the best way to do it is to make the product less desirable for fakers or seriously deter the people looking to exploit the system by enforcing real consequences. I don’t think they need to catch everyone—just identifying 10-25% of people who claimed a condition that one or more people in their party don’t actually have and banning them from the parks for a decade would seriously cut down on abuse.
