Originally Posted By tashajilek So a few weeks ago i was inline for BLAB and i was at the point in the line where it was where the fastpass people cut infront and a a cm was standing. Anyways there were these teen boys one in a wheelchair and the other pushing who cut through the fast pass line infront of everyone. I said to the cast member i wondering if some of these people are faking and he said "yea thats your classic case and they probably didnt even pay for the chair, but isnt anything we can do about it". I waited in line for ablout 40mins which gets me steamed that there are sick people willing to fake a disability to get on rides quicker. The more i looked around the park i noticed soooo many people that seemed like they may not have needed the chair. Doesnt disneyland have a system that after you pay for the chair rental you have a card or something to provide before going on a attraction that you paid for the rental? They should have special lanyards to wear around your kneck or something. Its not fair for everyone else to wait in the line ups to have sick people cutting infront.
Originally Posted By TempestsPrince A curious side effect of us not acknowledging or even talking about a person's disability is that it makes this sort of cheating difficult to prevent. It also poisons attitudes against people whose disabilities are not that obvious. I had a friend that had a leg surgery and could walk only short distances, but used to get disapproving looks when she parked in a handicapped spot.
Originally Posted By mousermerf <<<Its not fair for everyone else to wait in the line ups to have sick people cutting infront.>>> This is a major issue at DL in general. They need to mainstream the lines so that there doesn't need to be special FP-access for wheelchair parties. Very few lines at WDW aren't mainstream accessible. It's a matter of pretty basic renovation too in most cases. They simply don't want to invest in it. Go to WDW and it's night and day. You see how nearly identical attraction manage to make it work while DLR claims it's impossible. More "tradition" they're not willing to change.
Originally Posted By mousermerf And for reference, even the queues that do need a special wheelchair loading area branch off at like 5mins or less from loading - so even if it's not totally fair it's close enough that no one complains.
Originally Posted By friarthe Boys will be boys. A friend of mine in high school got a wheelchair because of a football injury and immediately called me to see if I wanted to go to Disneyland. Yeah, it sucks, but no more than the wheelchair users at WDW acting like they own the park and frankly causing danger to others by poor "driving". The issue here across the board is a lack of respect, and a grab for whatever you can get. I agree, lines that do not require special wheelchair entrances would fix this entirely. But so would a sense of honor and respect for others, which I'm not holding my breath for.
Originally Posted By tashajilek Well the thing is that people at DL leave their wheelchairs in the park and then some kids snag it. Wheelchairs are for people who need them and its to bad that DL doesnt have a system where special id is givin to people who rent the chairs. Its just sad that people can take the chairs that other people have rented and then cut lines.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros "You see how nearly identical attraction manage to make it work while DLR claims it's impossible." While the attractions may be nearly identical, that's not the issue. It's the queue spaces. Since DL is older and almost completely built before the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), many of the queues aren't wide enough (almost all of Fantasyland), don't have enough turning space (FL again), require guests to go up and down stairs (Big Thunder, Splash) or use ramps at too steep of an angle (Splash again). In addition, there is no space to store wheelchairs while the guests are on the ride, as the loading areas are usually pretty compact (Splash is a perfect example of this). Unfortunately, due to the more compact nature of DL, there's really no way that most of the attractions can be retrofitted to have larger queues that meet the proper requirements. That would be akin to tearing out all the stalls in a restroom and replacing them all with handicapped-accessible ones. Yes, it would give a more equal opportunity, but it would also require a prohibitive ammount of space. WDW has the advantage in two ways here. First off, the parks are all simply larger. They built on a bigger scale, so having 3'+ wide queues everywhere isn't as big of an issue. Compare queue spaces for Epcot attractions with those in DL's cramped Fantasyland, and you will know what I'm talking about. The other advantage WDW has is that a very large portion of the resort was passes after the ADA was passed or shortly before when builders were aware of the regulations. Because of this, all queues built in the last 20 years have to be fully wheelchair accessible. As a point of comparison, DCA was completely built after the ADA, and all the queues are fully accessible. Yet one of the big complaints that people had when the park opened was how spread out it was in comparison to DL. The queues for TSMM and Peter Pan are a really good way of seeing how very similar tasks were tackled before and after ADA. While all new construction (or major renovations to existing spaces like the Castle Walk Through) in DL has the new regulations, everything older was grandfathered in. Even if there are major renovations, they can simply opt for an equivalent experience, like the video rooms for the walkthrough and the Subs. Yes it would be nice if they could go back and retrofit all the queues to be fully wheelchair accessible, but it isn't that easy. It's more than tradition being a limiting factor, there's also the cost of construction (both in dollars spent and time the attraction is closed), and the plain fact that many attractions simply can't be reconfigured to allow for larger queues. While not ideal, I'm not sure what other options they have for most of the attractions. As a side note, I would just like to point out that due to evacuation procedures, there are a limited number of wheelchair guests allowed on an attraction at a single time. This, paired with high demand, can often lead to a longer wheelchair line than standby line, especially on attractions like POTC where the regular queue moves quite quickly and the attraction is fairly long.
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Originally Posted By lesmisfan i know that they do have the guest assistance cards with different symbols to let the cast members now were to send the guest. It works well at california adventure seeing that it was built for wheelchair acessibility and the different symbols actually mean something. but at disneyland that is not necessarily true, since it was not built with handicap acessibility most people will get the same stamp since it leads them to the same line for guests with handicaps, so whether you have a wheelchair because you can't walk well or have a child who is autistic they tend to get sent to the same line which half the time is the exit of an attraction over at disneyland.
Originally Posted By mousermerf Even attractions that obviously could be renovated to include mainstream accessibility are ignored.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Can you give some examples of which attractions should be easy to mainstream the queues? Every one that I can think of has some issue at some point (a common one is not having any place to store empty wheelchairs while guests are on board, and no way for them to exit from the same side that their wheelchair is on once the ride is over)
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I think in most cases you are correct. Question though: did BLAB get a pass because the building was old, and therefore grandfathered? Seems they could have made that queue accessible if they'd wanted.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I doubt that, since the indoor portion of the queue is the only part that's wheelchair accessible. I would guess that they just decided that it would be easier from a crowd control perspective (since that area's always a bottleneck anyway) to have guests in wheelchairs enter through the FP queue. The parts of the queue that they actually built (the indoor stuff) meets all the requirements, but the outdoor switchbacks are simply too narrow to allow access. It seems that their only other option would have been to widen the switchbacks to allow wheelchairs to fit in that part of the queue, but there just isn't any room there to do it. With the ammount of construction that they did to build BLAB, that building would no longer be grandfathered in. I'm not sure what the exact border line is, but completely gutting and rebuilding the interior of an existing structure seems like it would qualify as 'major' changes to it.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Okay, that makes sense. If they ever move the AO back to the top of the PM platform where it belongs (even if they have to alter the design to make it lighter), the bottleneck problem wouldn't be so bad, and at least that queue could accommodate wheelchairs then.
Originally Posted By Sparrow I have some friends that thing their AP entitle them to get a wheelchair and cut lines every now and then. I don't like it so I don't go with them when they're planning on getting a chair. Karma is going to get them eventually. The funny thing is when I see a wheelchair queue that's taking longer then the regualr line. Big Thunder and Peter Pan are classic cases of this.
Originally Posted By wachawacha What needs to happen is that people need to complain. Not just one or two people but tons of people. Laughing place is a good start but anyone who has been around the resort for any amount of time will tell you this has been an ongoing challenge. Stop by city hall and complain. write letters, email, talk to the leadership. That is how things will change.
Originally Posted By imadisneygal Please, for the love of everything Disney, do NOT go by City Hall and complain. Disneyland is NOT allowed to ask for proof of disability whatsoever. If Cast Members observe blatant abuse of the wheelchairs, like switching riders in between attractions, etc., then the wheelchairs are taken away. Nothing is going to change otherwise, because asking for proof of disability is against the law. Not just the policy, the law. The Cast Members in City Hall have plenty to deal with on an everyday basis without having to get complaints they can do absolutely nothing about.
Originally Posted By alexbook Thank you, FA and imadisneygal, for excellent posts here. It's also bears repeating that not every disability is obvious. Some people are able to walk a few yards unassisted, but are unable to walk, say, the length of Main Street. Really, how do you know that somebody is "faking"? Do you know their medical history?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 That's quite so, alex. I have seen a couple of obvious cheats on my visits, though. On one occasion a group of kids was standing around the chair ARGUING about who was going to ride in the chair next (!)
