I greatly appreciate that the vast majority of these 30+ pages has been polite. We've had multiple moderators and Webmasters cleaning up those who felt the need to be nasty or rude. PLEASE do not resort to "my disability is worse than yours."
Actually, it does in some regards, they cannot record any medical data by law. The can record specific needs, such as cannot wait in line due to crowd issues. But they can't record what causes those crowd issues, as they are not medical professionals. Now by using medical professionals, they technically can record it, but that data can't be shared to Disney and must be protected under HIPPA standards and there is a whole series of things that go into that. I doubt Disney is willing to invest the money they doing that will require.
No. HIPAA (1 p 2 a's) does NOT pertain to WDW theme parks. But I think you mean rules pertaining to how PHI (Personal Health Information) is collected and stored. That may well be something WDW has no desire to get into.
Disney has never previously tried to give a disability hierarchy where they say one is more deserving of accommodation than another. When they eliminated the GAC, they reduced the accommodation for everyone equally, and the new offering, DAS, was the same for everyone. This new situation is not remotely analogous to that.
GAC used to have different stamps for different accommodations. Same card but different accommodations. There was 1 that became much in demand and more likely to be abused. When GAC changed to DAS - the card no longer offered multiple accommodations, but those accommodations still existed, just not as DAS. The current changes are a very similar scenario - making more accommodations outside of the DAS.
What is so contradictory to me is that Disney constantly emphasise it is not the diagnosis that equals qualification, but the actual needs. Yet, they’ve made that redundant by now specifying the conditions that qualify.
No, my understanding is they are still going to base accommodations on needs. Diagnosis alone doesn't automatically qualify. However they are saying certain types of needs will have different accommodations, not DAS. Much like in the past when DAS (as replacement for GAC) no longer accommodated vision disabilities.
Everyone will have their interview and the disability assistance team will let them know what accommodations they can provide.
Yes, this is still true. There may be some different accommodations not previously offered.
I think most of us would prefer medical documentation requirements and keeping the standard consistent. The current system is what - 2 years old? They don’t think things through and then have to keep changing them.
DAS has been in place since 2013 with very little change. The pre-registration process was added, but DAS didn't change. Along with pre-registration was the 2 Advanced Selections which came about the same time as the loss of FastPass+ and the advent of
Genie+ and ILL$. The combination making DAS more ripe for abuse and/or use by those who had managed their needs differently before then.
I read a lawsuit that said DAS provided reasonable accommodation. So that is the legal precedent.
DAS is 1 reasonable accommodation. No court documents indicate it is the only reasonable accommodation.
ok. But there are hosts of people this change impacts who aren’t being offered any accommodations. What about them?
But they are providing nothing. That’s the entire point.
I haven't seen anything indicating "no" accommodation will be offered. What is apparent is that WDW has a different accommodation to offer for some needs. I do wish they had shared more details of that. If that doesn't end up working, I suggest the guest revisit Guest Relations to discuss the challenges encountered and alternative options.
