New DAS System at Walt Disney World 2024

[Disney Analyst]

I'm just gonna throw this out and I'm genuinely wondering if this would be a fair change to the system

"You cannot book another ride until you are completely off the ride you previously booked."

Logistically a nightmare to implement I think, but that aspect of the system where you can book the second after everyone scans does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of power use. My idea was to use the same tech as the ride photos at Tron or Dinosaur to verify you were off the ride and then you could book.

They way it worked when I've used it(not me, but for my cousin who does have autism. I was the guide for his family), was that if a ride had let's say 30min wait, then you would get a return time for 20 minutes from the moment you hit confirm. This is because Disney removes 10min off the standby wait metric due to travel time. Then you are allowed to scan in 5 minutes early to that time.

So in reality, the 30 minute standby wait is actually only 15 minutes to get into the LL(This is why CM's are told to just look at the DAS pass on a phone and let ppl in without booking if the wait time is 15min or less. Because booking would just let them in immediately anyway)

Then, after you scan, you could immediately book another ride while waiting in the LL. So if you book another 30min wait ride, then in only 15 minutes you could scan into your next one.

This exact scenario happened to our group at MK. I booked Jungle Cruise and then by the time we walked down mainstreet we walked right into the Jungle Cruise LL, then I grabbed Pirates and then before we were even done with Jungle Cruise our Pirates time was ready.

I think allowing people to grab a pass and do other things is completely acceptable. Because grabbing a pass for the 90min wait and doing a few other no/low wait things is fine. I just think more could have been done to make the pass actually a replacement for the standby wait. Cause it really wasn't. It made anything 45 min or less essentially a test to see how much you could cram in while G+ ppl did a quarter as much as you.

It's a good point, if they really wanted to treat it as as a standby queue, realistically you should only have been able to join the line once you got to the attraction, just like everyone else. Perhaps it's a simple as geolocation, can only get a return time for an attraction you are next to, or even a QR code you have to scan, once you reach the attraction line.

Then it's more like regular standby, you get to the attraction, get in your virtual line, and you can go and do something else until your return time is up?

This would of course result in a lot more work to get return times, and a lot of travel time to get back and forth, which may not work for all.

 

[Club Cooloholic]

No, people have been responding to hypothetical situations people choose to post as examples of cheating where people without these disabilities have said "if this is true, then so is this" and people with disabilities have been saying it's not that clear cut.

Again, I have not been Arguing against the needed change to DAS at all. I've in fact said the exact opposite numerous times. Anyone choosing to read into it otherwise, well, thats not my responsibility

Maybe they didn't see this as an endorsement

And for those that need it, it's incredibly frustrating as the crack downs will inevitably lead to people that actually need these accommodations being denied.

 

[Angel Ariel]

Maybe they didn't see this as an endorsement

One can both understand and accept that changes needed to happen to the program while also acknowledging that how this is being done is going to leave behind people who have legitimate need of it. More than one thing can be true at once. I'm certainly not the only poster in this thread who has acknowledged both pieces of this puzzle.

 

[Basil of Baker Street]

Sadistically speaking, Disney needs to catch some cheaters, make it national news, publish names and give lifetime bans. Do that a handful times and the DAS issue would drastically correct itself.

 

[Figgy1]

Sadistically speaking, Disney needs to catch some cheaters, make it national news, publish names and give lifetime bans. Do that a handful times and the DAS issue would drastically correct itself.

Disney's legal and pr teams wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole. All it would take is for one so called cheater to have a medical condition and Disney would be buried in the press

 

[Basil of Baker Street]

Disney's legal and pr teams wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole. All it would take is for one so called cheater to have a medical condition and Disney would be buried in the press

Yeah, I know....but no consequences is why so many have no problem doing it. That and no conscience.

 

[Chi84]

Please stop arguing with each other. Your personal arguments do absolutely nothing to advance the discussion in this thread.

 

[C33Mom]

Disney's legal and pr teams wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole. All it would take is for one so called cheater to have a medical condition and Disney would be buried in the press

Disney has most people’s magic band history and extensive surveillance footage…it might be risky for them to assume some people are lying/faking, but they absolutely could catch others and make an example of them with minimal risk.

 

[Figgy1]

Disney has most people’s magic band history and extensive surveillance footage…it might be risky for them to assume some people are lying/faking, but they absolutely could catch others and make an example of them with minimal risk.

I'm not sure how that would work now that das covers mostly invisible disabilities. What exactly would they be looking for

 

[natatomic]

I’m sure Disney has this data, but I doubt they’d ever release it - but I’d love to know the percentages of DAS holders among APs, CMs, and day guests. That would probably tell quite a story…

 

[KrzyKtty]

I’m sure Disney has this data, but I doubt they’d ever release it - but I’d love to know the percentages of DAS holders among APs, CMs, and day guests. That would probably tell quite a story…

What story?

 

[Basil of Baker Street]

I'm not sure how that would work now that das covers mostly invisible disabilities. What exactly would they be looking for

I was thinking along the lines of someone in the interview says they cant wait in a line longer than say 20 minutes and you catch them in a 90 minute line through cameras and MB tech.

 

[John park hopper]

Does WDW have CTV cameras?

 

[Disstevefan1]

Does WDW have CTV cameras?

I am sure they have all sorts of surveillance tech including cameras, undercover security and as been said, tracking magic bands and I am sure these systems are only used to keep guests safe

I honestly think they are not going to spend manpower, bandwidth, resources to police DAS.

They did the initial purge of the DAS users, they made significant changes as to who qualifies now.

Like anything where humans are involved, there WILL BE CHEATERS, they can only hope there will be LESS CHEATERS.

In my opinion there will no significant change in wait times in LL and stand by wait times.

The only significant change that they will see in my opinion, is that they will sell more Genie+ and ILLs

 

[Purduevian]

I'm not sure how that would work now that das covers mostly invisible disabilities. What exactly would they be looking for

I understand that for a significant portion of the DAS users and the reason that they have DAS is invisible. Wait tolerances for these individuals can vary significantly based on a variety of factors including as simple as the mood of the individual. For people that receive DAS for these reasons (and it sounds like your family falls into this bucket), it would be near impossible to distinguish a cheater from an individual that is have a good day.

However, I am confident that there are still guests that have a pretty black and white tolerances of what they can and can not handle inside a theme park. For those guests it should be pretty easy to find cheaters that got DAS through this method if Disney wanted to.

For Disney to follow through it would have to be extremely obvious from the DAS call that an individual said something like "Due to X I cannot ever do Y" then they have footage of the person doing Y.

There are a lot of arguments I see (mostly political so I won't get into them) that say well we can't catch/stop everyone doing this bad thing, so we shouldn't do anything to stop it. However, as someone earlier in this thread mentioned a few key life time bans could stop a lot more people lying in fear they would get caught.

 

[ConfettiCupcake]

I think the only people who would ever have to worry about being tracked by Disney on an individual level regarding DAS are those who attempt to go after Disney in court. Just more points otherwise.

 

[John park hopper]

It's truly unfortunate that we have 357 pages on DAS abuse because some people suck and abuse the system for their own gain.

Put abusers in stockades in Frontierland for a few hours (sarcasm)

 

[natatomic]

What story?

My theory - and it’s only a theory - is that APs and CMs have a higher rate of DAS use than day guests.
Visitors who are here just once every few years just sort of add the G+ to their budget and make it work. APs and CMs who visit every week might have a harder time justifying the additional cost EVERY visit, but they also don’t want to wait in the standby line EVERY time either.

Granted, I fully acknowledge that even if we have the percentages, it won’t “prove” anything. Maybe, by random chance, all these locals just happen to have a higher rate of disability. But regardless…it’s interesting how the days that APs are blocked out, the lines don’t seem as long. Or at least that seems to be the case the last few weeks.

 

[JMcMahonEsq]

It's truly unfortunate that we have 357 pages on DAS abuse because some people suck and abuse the system for their own gain. View attachment 789812Put abusers in stockades in Frontierland for a few hours (sarcasm)

I would honestly be surprised if this was the whole story though. Yes I am sure there was abuse of the system, and yes absolutely people suck. But it would not surprise me if the system itself was being impacted from too much "proper" use.

As attendance has grown, and as awareness and treatment of many types of disabilities has increased (which in my mind is a good thing) the use of DAS has increased. As use of the program increases, including not just individuals who need the accommodation, but other members of their traveling party as well, i suspect (guess) (although if I Disney i wouldn't highlight it) that the system was being effected not just by abuse, but also but just the shear number of people, who under the past system, were validly using it. Which is why it would make sense that under a new system, less people are qualifying than were before. It's not just weeding out people who were gaming the system or cheating, its also to functionally limit the intended group of people who are qualifying.

Now that doesn't mean that you don't provide some form or reasonable accommodation to people that need it. But what it would mean is you have to be more targeted in what that accommodation is, trying to limit it to what is needed/required, and not what might be the largest/best accommodation possible.

 

[Touchdown]

Well it’s a fine day, at every park that isn’t DHS (and Pandora) guess everyone had the brilliant idea to do DHS today after it closed early yesterday. 12:50pm