The discount just for disabled people for MULL/SULL is a non starter. Disabled accommodations can not cost extra, giving the discount is tantamount to stating MULL/SULL is an accommodation and therefore must be free.
Ultimately the here’s the fundamental problem. The average first time guest only goes on 4-6 attractions per day. Super fans, planners, people who pay an obscene amount of money and previous DAS users get on 4-5x that amount. Let’s call that group super users. Since Covid, the amount of super users has gotten so large that the first time guest rides per day is dropping, leaving that group (the most lucrative customers for WDC) unsatisfied, couple that with price increases and the word of mouth is out that going to a Disney park is no longer worth it and too hard and expensive to get your moneys worth. This is a fundamental, life threatening, problem for the company. Continuing on the path we were on previously will lead to the end to the parks. They are losing “family from Denver” business. Super users were growing too quickly that they are overwhelming park infrastructure and the main growth was in DAS users. Disney has tried limiting super fans with AP reservation rules, educated users with VQs and one ride per day G+ restrictions, and they are never going to limit whales. It was not enough the system was still breaking. There were too many super users and they continued to grow. There was only one group left. And said group was growing exponentially by the day
If Disney caves on this, it will lead to the business failing, Americans have shown they are increasingly willing to claim a disability in order to get perks, the public stigma is gone. This will continue in the future. It hurts everyone else who is playing by the rules but it especially hurts the actual disabled who used this system. Increasing capacity won’t fix this, and so long as DAS or whatever else they want to call it is a better experience then what you can get as a base guest people are going to attempt to get it. Somehow, Disney needs to make the disabled accommodation give the same experience as a base guest to discourage people who don’t need it to fake or overinflate their issues to take it. That means that disabled users should only be getting on average 4-6 rides per day. Thats the only way this works. Otherwise the disability program will be a hack to easily and cheaply become a super user.
This is the fundamental life threatening (I’m not making this claim lightly, I’m completely serious about the literal use of this phrase) problem facing park operations. It’s why they are doing this, without going into the specifics of the girls disability (and without knowing her, just from what the equipment I see in the video I know that they are severe and her life is incredibly tough) it does not change the fact that she was a super user and is unwilling to pay to remain one at the current prices.
She wants a premium experience at a price lower than what Disney is willing to offer. I would love to live in a world where someone with those difficulties could get their wish, because she has a much more difficult life then most and I personally wish she could have that accommodation, but our world is full of horrible people who will exploit our compassion for people like this and steal that privilege by claiming to need it when they don’t. And those people are slowly killing the parks we love.
Increasing capacity by adding attractions only kicks the can down the road, unless you build enough attractions that everyone can be a super user but that only works if all the attractions are home runs and most guests don’t flock to a select few (skipping others wasting that capacity.) Decreasing costs starts a positive feedback loop that kills the parks. Super user numbers need to be culled. They have already cut super fans and highly educated guests as much as they can, and they were a minority. Something must be done with the disabled accommodations.
