I am terrified to post this, for fear there will be those who will think I was the one who was totally at fault, but here goes.
Last week we were at WDW, DSs 7 and 10 and DH and me. This was our run-away short trip, just the four of us. We have been to WDW or cruised on DCL at least once a year, often with at least one wheelchair, sometimes two. A g'ma who is 87 with spinal fractures and a mentally impaired cousin with a bad hip were not invited, as were none of the other extended family, often numbering up to parades of eight. We were looking forward to an easy trip, a well needed break from a recent very stressful time. Well, DS10 wrecks his knee at baseball and the doctor says no long walking for the trip, so wheelchair again. Mind you, he was not totally confined to it but was supposed to be up and walking sometimes, and with the leg brace off so he does not lose function. So we probably looked like fakers, at least that is the only explanation I can think of for what happened.
All of our trips to WDW and DL we have toed the line, kept the group together, sat where and when they told us to and nearly always in the back row. Any of you on this board know a wheelchair is not a perk, it slows progress through parks, earns you dirty looks when someone cuts you off and they get rammed, usually means waiting longer on any ride for the wheelchair car or spot, missing pre-shows and the like, getting to any parade well ahead of time, and then waiting forever for crowds to thin, pushing chairs up steep inclines and carefully avoiding the idiots who screw around in front of you. Now that most of the ride lines are the same, it usually means a longer wait, especially in slow times, while you wait for a CM to show up and let you in the wheelchair load. (We once waited, forgotten at a DL HM inside hall, for 20 minutes before someone bothered to show up.)
So, we are going to see Philharmagic for only the second time in our lives, and the DS10 starts begging while we are in the waiting room to go down front, instead of being stuck in the far back corner. So I ask the CM as we enter if we can cut down to the front, he says yes. DH takes other DS and wheelchair and sits in back row corner as forced. My son joyously runs (stiff legged, because his leg hurt to bend it that day, no brace) to about the third row and plops down in the center, I tell him to stand up, as the rest of the crowd pours in, I try to wave folks past us, the first woman starts yelling at me to move down, and I try to explain to her what we are doing, she gets really nasty with me, I just keep explaining as everyone else kindly flows past. There was plenty of room for folks to move past without even any body contact. Then a CM comes down the row yelling for us to move on. By now a large Asian family (who obviously didn't understand the CM yelling at them to get up and move) has gone past DS and I and sat down next to us, but the CM pushes past them and gets in my face, yelling that if I do not move, he will call security on me. I explain to him that another CM told us it would be O.K. Since everyone around me is seated, just my son and I standing, I sit and just tell him to go ahead and call security. He then rages down the row, yelling that he is getting security, that no one would have told me that and that I was lying. I got up and followed him down the row and told him that, yes someone did, and they had better get their stories together, that just this once, we were not going to sit in the back row, corner. I was totally polite, I never raised my voice to him, just told him he needed some retraining, that he should be required to either be confined to or push a wheelchair for a few weeks and then, MAYBE he would understand. I returned to my seat, shaking, funny, with more than enough room in the aisle, even with everyone seated. I wish I had a better way to explain to you how totally out of control this guy was, he was scary. A perfect personality for a gestapo, not a WDW CM.
Well, needless to say, my son is terrified that security is coming to haul me out, but I just hold his hand and tell him to watch. Suffice it to say, I did not enjoy the film. Security did not come for me. So on exit I note the CM giving someone a hard time at the Fastpass kiosk, telling them they cannot have another, pretty nasty. I got his name and place, and have sent it to WDW.
We also went in to see Asimo, chairs set up in about a 10th of the space in the old Millennium area, and got to sit near the front, but a CM there yelled at my son for getting out of his chair and sitting on one of the chairs closer to the front, I told her I would sit on the chair if it messed up her "count", the stupid theater was only half-full anyway. I cannot believe the attitude lately! On many rides we left the chair outside, because we did not want to appear to be taking advantage. Early in the week DS had limped painfully on to Haunted Mansion just because we had never had the opportunity to see Madame Leota's tomb, he did not want to be in that chair one more time. And he kept talking about how everyone looked at him and embarassed him. (We told him to remember that when with cousin and g'ma.)
We had another CM yell at us last trip because, even though our group was the first in line for Flights of Wonder, as per DS7 request to be in front to feed his bird adoration, the CM tried to put us at the back even though there are WC spots down front.
We have noted poorer treatment in general for wheelchair families lately from many CMs. Not the older, experienced ones, but the younger ones, the guy at Spectromagic was one of the College Program kids. What do they train them these days, that anyone without an obvious reason to be in a wheelchair is to be treated as less than human? So many of them are so testy, acting like police to get you just where you are supposed to sit. If it is so stressful for them to accomplish that in the allotted amount of time, then they need to increase the time between shows.Some are also very pushy and grim, if the show is nearly empty, why must the rest of the group sit in the far back corner, too?
And just so you know, I have NEVER stopped in the middle of the row before; we are always the good little Doobies who do exactly as told. Plus I did not see one other CM approach any of the MANY groups who stopped in the middle on MANY other attractions this trip.
And yeah, just for all of you who will take this opportunity to lecture me, I should have just shut up and sat at the back far corner of the theater again, but once in a while I give in to my kids' wishes, especially when they seem so minor.
Carla
Last week we were at WDW, DSs 7 and 10 and DH and me. This was our run-away short trip, just the four of us. We have been to WDW or cruised on DCL at least once a year, often with at least one wheelchair, sometimes two. A g'ma who is 87 with spinal fractures and a mentally impaired cousin with a bad hip were not invited, as were none of the other extended family, often numbering up to parades of eight. We were looking forward to an easy trip, a well needed break from a recent very stressful time. Well, DS10 wrecks his knee at baseball and the doctor says no long walking for the trip, so wheelchair again. Mind you, he was not totally confined to it but was supposed to be up and walking sometimes, and with the leg brace off so he does not lose function. So we probably looked like fakers, at least that is the only explanation I can think of for what happened.
All of our trips to WDW and DL we have toed the line, kept the group together, sat where and when they told us to and nearly always in the back row. Any of you on this board know a wheelchair is not a perk, it slows progress through parks, earns you dirty looks when someone cuts you off and they get rammed, usually means waiting longer on any ride for the wheelchair car or spot, missing pre-shows and the like, getting to any parade well ahead of time, and then waiting forever for crowds to thin, pushing chairs up steep inclines and carefully avoiding the idiots who screw around in front of you. Now that most of the ride lines are the same, it usually means a longer wait, especially in slow times, while you wait for a CM to show up and let you in the wheelchair load. (We once waited, forgotten at a DL HM inside hall, for 20 minutes before someone bothered to show up.)
So, we are going to see Philharmagic for only the second time in our lives, and the DS10 starts begging while we are in the waiting room to go down front, instead of being stuck in the far back corner. So I ask the CM as we enter if we can cut down to the front, he says yes. DH takes other DS and wheelchair and sits in back row corner as forced. My son joyously runs (stiff legged, because his leg hurt to bend it that day, no brace) to about the third row and plops down in the center, I tell him to stand up, as the rest of the crowd pours in, I try to wave folks past us, the first woman starts yelling at me to move down, and I try to explain to her what we are doing, she gets really nasty with me, I just keep explaining as everyone else kindly flows past. There was plenty of room for folks to move past without even any body contact. Then a CM comes down the row yelling for us to move on. By now a large Asian family (who obviously didn't understand the CM yelling at them to get up and move) has gone past DS and I and sat down next to us, but the CM pushes past them and gets in my face, yelling that if I do not move, he will call security on me. I explain to him that another CM told us it would be O.K. Since everyone around me is seated, just my son and I standing, I sit and just tell him to go ahead and call security. He then rages down the row, yelling that he is getting security, that no one would have told me that and that I was lying. I got up and followed him down the row and told him that, yes someone did, and they had better get their stories together, that just this once, we were not going to sit in the back row, corner. I was totally polite, I never raised my voice to him, just told him he needed some retraining, that he should be required to either be confined to or push a wheelchair for a few weeks and then, MAYBE he would understand. I returned to my seat, shaking, funny, with more than enough room in the aisle, even with everyone seated. I wish I had a better way to explain to you how totally out of control this guy was, he was scary. A perfect personality for a gestapo, not a WDW CM.
Well, needless to say, my son is terrified that security is coming to haul me out, but I just hold his hand and tell him to watch. Suffice it to say, I did not enjoy the film. Security did not come for me. So on exit I note the CM giving someone a hard time at the Fastpass kiosk, telling them they cannot have another, pretty nasty. I got his name and place, and have sent it to WDW.
We also went in to see Asimo, chairs set up in about a 10th of the space in the old Millennium area, and got to sit near the front, but a CM there yelled at my son for getting out of his chair and sitting on one of the chairs closer to the front, I told her I would sit on the chair if it messed up her "count", the stupid theater was only half-full anyway. I cannot believe the attitude lately! On many rides we left the chair outside, because we did not want to appear to be taking advantage. Early in the week DS had limped painfully on to Haunted Mansion just because we had never had the opportunity to see Madame Leota's tomb, he did not want to be in that chair one more time. And he kept talking about how everyone looked at him and embarassed him. (We told him to remember that when with cousin and g'ma.)
We had another CM yell at us last trip because, even though our group was the first in line for Flights of Wonder, as per DS7 request to be in front to feed his bird adoration, the CM tried to put us at the back even though there are WC spots down front.
We have noted poorer treatment in general for wheelchair families lately from many CMs. Not the older, experienced ones, but the younger ones, the guy at Spectromagic was one of the College Program kids. What do they train them these days, that anyone without an obvious reason to be in a wheelchair is to be treated as less than human? So many of them are so testy, acting like police to get you just where you are supposed to sit. If it is so stressful for them to accomplish that in the allotted amount of time, then they need to increase the time between shows.Some are also very pushy and grim, if the show is nearly empty, why must the rest of the group sit in the far back corner, too?
And just so you know, I have NEVER stopped in the middle of the row before; we are always the good little Doobies who do exactly as told. Plus I did not see one other CM approach any of the MANY groups who stopped in the middle on MANY other attractions this trip.
And yeah, just for all of you who will take this opportunity to lecture me, I should have just shut up and sat at the back far corner of the theater again, but once in a while I give in to my kids' wishes, especially when they seem so minor.
Carla
