used both universals new gac and disney`s during the worst crowd week ever

[dsdeleon]

Also appreciated the info here! I am currently planning our 1st Universal trip and am getting excited that it may actually be enjoyable. We decided not to deal with any more new Disney roll outs with FP+ and DAS based on feedback in the autism community. It's just (sadly!) not the right fit for us anymore.

 

[Mrsjvb]

Can I ask how it works if the only accomidation you need is wheelchair access me and my son can wait but obviously need accessible line

So would we be penalised at wdw or us would if count as a timed thing if no wheelchair access in normal linesand accept we need wait bit longer often for wheelchair access carts on rides that have them so almost a double wait for us but compared to uk where not theme parks accessible its a no brainer its orlando for us

Just want it clear in my head how works for wheelchair users so can plan the holiday will probably pay for express passes at US/IoA

since 98% of the lines are mainstreamed if the only need is for a wc you will not qualify for a DAS at all. the DAS is now only given if you literally physically cannot wait in a line due to sensory issues or other physical issues such as crowding causes severe pain or anxiety. if there is a non mainstreamed line you will either be given a hand written return time/FP at the entrance, or *SOMETIMES* you get sent immediately to FP/alternate entrance. if you cannot transfer, you an be waiting forever.. many rides only have one or 2 HA cars.

even if you can, you do not always get to skip ahead of the 4 people ahead of you who cannot transfer. ( I am ambivalent about this, on the one hand I guess it could be seen as line jumping, which is poor form, but on the other I also wish the CM could see that they could thin out the line a little faster by letting those of us with limited mobility take a regular ride car. TSM is a biggie )

you can always use FP or FP+ regardless of your other needs.

 

[skyp4WDW]

It really too bad that Posters with valuable information regarding their personal experiences with the new system are bashed by those who don't want to hear the "truth". It's just a shame that some people are unable to allow anyone else to express an opinion that they disagree with...

 

[joanchris]

If you needed an accessible vehicle that wouldn't apply to you. Anyone not needing one went straight into the FP line with a significantly decreased wait. FOTL is not meant literally.

The DAS does not solve handicap vehicle waits and I do hope they change that.

This is what I'm concerned about, as we need to wait for the handicapped vehicle...if we show up at our T-10 minute time, what if there are 4 other wheelchair users waiting in front of us? Then our time could end up being another 40 minutes. Still not planning our next trip yet, though I'm getting antsy. Hoping for some of the dust to settle before we head back.

 

[OurBigTrip]

It really too bad that Posters with valuable information regarding their personal experiences with the new system are bashed by those who don't want to hear the "truth". It's just a shame that some people are unable to allow anyone else to express an opinion that they disagree with...

No one has been "bashed" on this thread in any way, shape or form.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

I think the elephant in the room that no one is addressing is that Disney no longer makes accommodation for guests who have to ride a ride RIGHT NOW. Universal does offer that accommodation in the form of the Express Pass, which can be bought or gotten as part of a hotel package.

 

[4DisneyNUTS]

Reading this thread, and just finishing up a holiday week Disney trip. This statement is one that I find interesting, and one of the big flaws of the new DAS. If we just waited our 110 minutes, for a 120 minute line, why should I have to wait in an additional FP+ line? Ran into this situation a lot during these busy weeks.


Happy new year to all!

you are right I think that is why the 10 minutes was allotted. In actuality the DAS makes our waits longer because you are definitely not getting the FP line time factored in. We used FP for space mountain and that wait was 40minutes on the FP line. If we used the DAS it would have been the actually posted wait time (which was 180 minutes) minus 10 minutes plus 40 minutes. Making the total wait with the DAS 210minutes.

 

[OurBigTrip]

I think the elephant in the room that no one is addressing is that Disney no longer makes accommodation for guests who have to ride a ride RIGHT NOW. Universal does offer that accommodation in the form of the Express Pass, which can be bought or gotten as part of a hotel package.

Allowing people who want to "ride RIGHT NOW" do so is not an accommodation, it's a privilege that Disney has rightfully ended.

 

[4DisneyNUTS]

why should a GAS guest be allowed to skip even the FP entrance? again it was never a FotL pass, nor should it ever be considered as a way to circumvent lines at all. the new system just 'moves' the line someplace else.

FTR on those rides I am sent directly to the exit in my wheelchair, I often sit there for a good 20 minutes before the CM notices me( or is able to break away and let us in)

if you need instant gratification/ride access with no wait on several rides boom boom boom, then pay the money for the tour that has the CM escort you to the FOTL on every attraction.

The point is that the wait time is based on the regular lines from the time you get on the line till the time you get on the ride. See my other post. Now the DAS is making the disabled wait longer than those who wait standby because they are not factoring more than 10 minutes for the FP line and we all know that the FP lines are usually longer than 10 minutes.

 

[Talking Hands]

Doing a ride right now is not equal access. It is access above and beyond what is required under ADA. I know it can mean melt downs with children who in the past have been able to get close to front of the line access. It will take time for them to adjust and for their families to adjust. Mentally handicapped and autistic can learn to wait outside the line. It will take some effort.

 

[4DisneyNUTS]

Allowing people who want to "ride RIGHT NOW" do so is not an accommodation, it's a privilege that Disney has rightfully ended.

There never was a 'right now' accommodation except for the MAW families and I would give my spot up in line to any family that is in their situations. My own son can qualify for MAW and we don't apply because I can give him the same thing myself. I would rather people who really need it get it.

 

[4DisneyNUTS]

There is nothing in the ADA that mandates that the disabled should have privileged access, and being able to experience twice as many (or more) attractions is a given period of time is privileged access.

Using your logic, anyone that goes during an extremely busy time at the parks should pay less, because they won't be able to experience as many attractions in a day as someone that attends during a slow time of year.

As I said, we'll agree to disagree - I'm not going to change your mind, and you certainly aren't going to change mine.

No not privileged but reasonable accomatations so we can experience the same for our $$ that those who are not disabled can.

Can I ask something? How many on here just come to debate this issue and don't have disabled children or family members that they go to the park with regularly? If you are here without a disabled family members interest why do you feel the need to be on this board? And why are you acting like something is being given to "us" and not "you"? How does this impact your life at all?? We would still be online in front of you anyway at some point. This was to help make the experience enjoyable instead of miserable for people who are disabled or have disabled children...What in the grand scheme is the big deal if a disabled person wait a little less than you? Most of the park attractions a typically disabled person can't even attempt to do. Trust me you all who don't have to deal with a disability have it way way over on us. You get more out of the Disney experience than my son will get in his entire lifetime.

 

[4DisneyNUTS]

My wife has bipolar disorder and depending on how she is, we don't get a full day in the parks. (She never has tried to get any type of accommodation) But, because she can't always handle a full day, should we get discounted tickets? No!
When you go to Disney, you buy a ticket, and however long you can stay is how long you stay-Every family is different and has different needs and stays for whatever amount of time works for them.

Some families have no disabilities but perhaps are traveling with grandma who moves slower and therefore means they get to do less activities, or perhaps a family with young children who have zero disabilities but just due to being so young they must go back to the hotel and rest a while, etc

People have various reasons for not staying all day, it doesn't mean they should so somehow be bumped up to the front so they can still "get their money's worth" of rides for the day.

You go to Disney, you do what you can do, and you stop when you need to.
Disney does not need to plan for you to make sure you get to accomplish 6 hours worth of activities in a 3 hour time frame.
I've never heard anything so silly.

That's your opinion and thankfully the rest of the world doesn't have that opinion. Most places that want to be inclusive provide accommodations in education, employment and in entertainment. Why? Aside from it being the right thing to do it is law. My son (and your wife) has every right to experience the parks just like someone else who isn't disabled.

Again I am using examples in explaining our experiences. I would never expect my son to do 100% of what a non disabled person could it isn't fair to him but to have an accommodation so that after we wait to get on a ride and he has a seizure right before he is to board that we can come back later and not wait again is completely fair.

What is not fair is to be treated like WE are taking advantage of something or using the disability to get in front of everyone else. The system was abused by the NON-DISABLED remember that NOT the disabled!

Like I have said in previous posts my son would get to experience 50% of what a typical person would and rarely $75% on a great extraordinary day. Yet we all pay the same price...is that fair??

But I have now gotten to the point of beating a dead horse here. If anyone has any questions about my experience that could help their experience or that of a family member PLEASE PM me. I am happy to help

 

[Kay1]

I think the elephant in the room that no one is addressing is that Disney no longer makes accommodation for guests who have to ride a ride RIGHT NOW. Universal does offer that accommodation in the form of the Express Pass, which can be bought or gotten as part of a hotel package.

I almost agree. I think Disney should sell Fast Passes in some form. I would be happy to pay.

 

[aaarcher86]

That's your opinion and thankfully the rest of the world doesn't have that opinion. Most places that want to be inclusive provide accommodations in education, employment and in entertainment. Why? Aside from it being the right thing to do it is law. My son (and your wife) has every right to experience the parks just like someone else who isn't disabled. Again I am using examples in explaining our experiences. I would never expect my son to do 100% of what a non disabled person could it isn't fair to him but to have an accommodation so that after we wait to get on a ride and he has a seizure right before he is to board that we can come back later and not wait again is completely fair. What is not fair is to be treated like WE are taking advantage of something or using the disability to get in front of everyone else. The system was abused by the NON-DISABLED remember that NOT the disabled! Like I have said in previous posts my son would get to experience 50% of what a typical person would and rarely $75% on a great extraordinary day. Yet we all pay the same price...is that fair?? But I have now gotten to the point of beating a dead horse here. If anyone has any questions about my experience that could help their experience or that of a family member PLEASE PM me. I am happy to help

I'm just curious how you know what an able bodied family spends doing on their day in the parks? Every family sounds their park days in incredibly different ways.

It's been stated that while there were abusers, there are too many people needing a GAC to keep operations running smoothly. It's just not that hard to see when you look at the numbers. In a perfect world a disabled family would just wait a few minutes less than a non disabled family and it'd be all good. Unfortunately, in order for someone to wait less someone else has to wait more. One or two times wouldn't be that big of a deal, but if every family adds an additional 5 minute wait to someone else then just 6 families on a single ride add 30 minutes to someone else. Someone else who also paid the same amount of money you did. Is that fair?

I don't think it's UNFAIR to say, wait your turn doing other things to avoid the compact line that is a given in a theme park. You aren't going to accomplish the same amount of stuff you did with the GAC. Period. But the GAC allowed for disabled guests to far exceed what was possible for a non disabled guest. Everyone can't do everything either due to time or their own limitations or,both. Disney isn't responsible for making up for that.

Your FP waits in addition to standby are no different than traditional FP guests. They get a return time, wait it out, and whatever that FP line is they wait that as well. In your other examples (education, employment), no one else is being effected in order to accommodate someone. That's not the case with a theme park. Sometimes you really can be too close to an issue to be impartial.

The DAS is a tool to let your disabled child experience the park in the way a non disabled guest would. Your experience is line with that. Naturally someone who stays in the park longer will do more things in that time... That's just logical. Expecting to condense a full day into a few hours is not a reasonable request and is not necessary by law. Anyone, disabled or not, does what they can in the time that's allotted. You don't have a personal shopper provided by the grocery store to grab things in the store to turn a 3 hour shopping trip into 1 hour.

I never see any of these types of expectations anywhere but at Disney.

 

[OurBigTrip]

I'm just curious how you know what an able bodied family spends doing on their day in the parks? Every family sounds their park days in incredibly different ways.

It's been stated that while there were abusers, there are too many people needing a GAC to keep operations running smoothly. It's just not that hard to see when you look at the numbers. In a perfect world a disabled family would just wait a few minutes less than a non disabled family and it'd be all good. Unfortunately, in order for someone to wait less someone else has to wait more. One or two times wouldn't be that big of a deal, but if every family adds an additional 5 minute wait to someone else then just 6 families on a single ride add 30 minutes to someone else. Someone else who also paid the same amount of money you did. Is that fair?

I don't think it's UNFAIR to say, wait your turn doing other things to avoid the compact line that is a given in a theme park. You aren't going to accomplish the same amount of stuff you did with the GAC. Period. But the GAC allowed for disabled guests to far exceed what was possible for a non disabled guest. Everyone can't do everything either due to time or their own limitations or,both. Disney isn't responsible for making up for that.

Your FP waits in addition to standby are no different than traditional FP guests. They get a return time, wait it out, and whatever that FP line is they wait that as well. In your other examples (education, employment), no one else is being effected in order to accommodate someone. That's not the case with a theme park. Sometimes you really can be too close to an issue to be impartial.

The DAS is a tool to let your disabled child experience the park in the way a non disabled guest would. Your experience is line with that. Naturally someone who stays in the park longer will do more things in that time... That's just logical. Expecting to condense a full day into a few hours is not a reasonable request and is not necessary by law. Anyone, disabled or not, does what they can in the time that's allotted. You don't have a personal shopper provided by the grocery store to grab things in the store to turn a 3 hour shopping trip into 1 hour.

I never see any of these types of expectations anywhere but at Disney.

Very well said, and I agree on all points.

 

[Vidia2]

No not privileged but reasonable accomatations so we can experience the same for our $$ that those who are not disabled can. Can I ask something? How many on here just come to debate this issue and don't have disabled children or family members that they go to the park with regularly? If you are here without a disabled family members interest why do you feel the need to be on this board? And why are you acting like something is being given to "us" and not "you"? How does this impact your life at all??

I hope these questions get answered someday but I'm not holding out any hope.

Eventually no one will post here who has anything other than a mobility issue. At least there is a lot of support for those issues here still.

Thank you for your report and comparison between the two parks. My family has only been to Universal once and we're planning a trip so the information you shared is very helpful.

 

[OurBigTrip]

No not privileged but reasonable accomatations so we can experience the same for our $$ that those who are not disabled can.

Can I ask something? How many on here just come to debate this issue and don't have disabled children or family members that they go to the park with regularly? If you are here without a disabled family members interest why do you feel the need to be on this board? And why are you acting like something is being given to "us" and not "you"? How does this impact your life at all?? We would still be online in front of you anyway at some point. This was to help make the experience enjoyable instead of miserable for people who are disabled or have disabled children...What in the grand scheme is the big deal if a disabled person wait a little less than you? Most of the park attractions a typically disabled person can't even attempt to do. Trust me you all who don't have to deal with a disability have it way way over on us. You get more out of the Disney experience than my son will get in his entire lifetime.

Having to wait your turn to ride IS experiencing what other Disney guests experience. How much you spent is irrelevant, because everyone there paid to get in.

If you feel that under the DAS you aren't getting your money's worth, then don't go. It really is that simple.

 

[mikijunk]

As the mother an an autistic child I have used GAC in the passed and anyone that says it wasn't a FOTL pass (for those NOT in wheelchairs) is a liar. I mean yeah you had to wait in the fastpass line, but there were only a few rides where that line was really long (Soarin, Buzz Lightyear and Toy Story are the three I can think of). Of course it was more convenient for us with the GAC and the DAS pass is going to be a little harder to deal with but oh well we will suck it up and work around it. If we ride less rides then so be it, it will still probably be more rides faster than those without DAS becasue we CAN ride another ride while waiting for our DAS time. I don't see how anyone can't find that reasonable, even if it isn't as great as GAC was (but GAC wasn't equal under ADA, it was BETTER, now DAS is more equal). Now wheelchairs where you can't transfer will still suck because of having to wait for the special vehicles BUT I think most people in that situation go to the park knowing they are going to wait because of the lack of handicap vehicles (they really need to install a few more on each ride)

 

[disneydenisel]

With our DD it will be difficult to plan out every day (rides) in advance. Sue mentioned that she wad able to change FP+ times same day but would that even be possible to do during busier times especially once FP+ is available to everyone? I still haven't booked our
May vacation because of our concerns.

We did change our FP+ during the day or the night before, so it was possible during the busy times. However, not all attractions or time slots were open, so we just took the ones we could get, just in case.

I looked at my DD's DAS card. It has three return times written in for the time we were there. The first one at AK, we never used due to the timing not being so good for DD, so when the second one was entered at MK the next day, the CM crossed off the AK one (as they are supposed to do). The MK one (Pooh) we used successfully two days later (there are no dates on the DAS card that we could see). The third one at AK, we did not use.

I think that the DAS may work very well for some families. It's like an extra FP for one attraction, so added to the potentially three FP+ selections, a person could see four attractions at one park on one day. This would require that the person and family could schedule fairly well and stick to their schedules (some families do a great job of this, with ADRs, etc.), or tour during off hours (plenty of attractions with no wait times after 10PM), but some families (like ours) need to be spontaneous and seize a good moment when we can, not when the FP+ time arrives. I'm not faulting the FP+ system at all, I am just saying that we have not been successful at planning in that way. Yet. I am not saying I will not try this again.

For us, I could tell that the DAS was not working and it wasn't helping to get a return time if we did not use it or did not use it until two days later (though I was happy that we were able to use that one! Thanks!). So that's why we had just three times written in over 10 days. We enjoyed walking around, shopping in stores, going into walking exhibits, riding trains, etc. Our best day was when there were thunderstorms and the crowds at MK were low.

The biggest problem for us was not knowing if there was an alternate entrance to use, even with the FP+ or the DAS return time. This may just be a learning curve for me and is something I am going to investigate. I asked at IASW and was told that there was no where else to wait where it was quiet and that we had to walk through the regular line. The CM told me that they did not offer an alternative waiting area anymore. This created a lot of anxiety and screaming and the wait time was not an issue, just the sensory overload from the hustle and bustle of the queue was the problem. This also happened at HM (though on our second try during the rain, we did find out how to skip the elevator huddle), and on POTC (two aborted tries there due to the queue being quite noisy and anxiety-provoking).

Again, I am not saying that Disney owes me ANYTHING at all. I just need to figure out how to use the system, if there would have been somewhere else to wait (walking around and waiting is often overstimulating versus having a quiet place to chill), whether it can work for us, etc.

Every family is different. I can see how the DAS would be fine for many.