Hard of Hearing and used Reflective etc WDW trip

[eeyore45]

Hi,

Just thought I'd give a brief summary of dh and his use of the reflective captioning, hand held captioning and assitive listening device. DH is hard of hearing, reads lips and functions well - he's used to missing out on stuff... but after reading these boards, and printing out material, I thought I was prepared!!

1. At MGM we waited in the guest line for 10 min, requested to rent the equipment $25 for the assistive listening (like in theatres, or an FM device - dh felt it was fantastic at filtering out the noise and upping the high frequency sounds) $100 for the hand held captioning... no charge for reflective captioning.

I would urge you to get their maps and familairze with the symbols since each ride, entry uses something different. This became a hassle to dh and he skipped it at the next park, only using reflective captioning, I think next time I'll be better prepared to help him!! THe hand held captioning often was ahead of the speakers/ride or had a completely different script in the case of the Backstage Tour (dh lol at the Golden Girls homes.. etc)

Reflective captioning indicated on the maps and usually at the 3D shows - we noticed it at Fatasmic but had already sat down, it was unscheduled for us to see this, and I feel bad I wasnt better prepared!

For the 3D shows when we got thru the turnstyles I would request reflective captioning, and they would put us with the wheelchair people - but you had to remind the CM in charge... at the Animal Kingdom the Tough to be a Bug show, I knew the CM didnt get it, he wanted us to wait until he sat the wheelchairs, and the seats filled up, I did try once, but realized it wasnt that big of a deal... he felt bad later, and we sat thru the next show in the right seats with the captioning device.

At philharmagic we saw this during eride nights, the captioning wasnt on, so I didnt see it to request the screen... the next day when we got to the MK early and walked in, there it was, so I requested a screen, we were seated in a good location, so it was no problem... again, be prepared!!

At Epcot the 3D Honey I shrunk the Audience, the same experience, the first time, they knew ahead of time to save us the 3 seats close to the back and on the side to optimally view the captions... the next day we went and the CM there was clueless, dh was helping the wheelchair, and I ran to grab the 3 end seats - and was promptly chewed out by a guest thinking I was invading her territory, I tried to explain, but to no avail - however I sat dh next to her, and I think she was embarrasseed when she realized his needs.

Again, this is new territory for us, and for many, so it didnt put a damper on our time at WDW. I think any home that uses closed captioning would enjoy the reflective captioning, dh sure loved hearing the jokes at the Muppet 3D with the captions! It still appears to be new...

the hand held was hit or miss so dh didnt want me to lug it around the other parks that had wet rides, so I bowed to his wishes!

I know next time to be better prepared going in, I just hate to stand in lines, and it was so very crowded at the guest services, and I just didnt want to wait each day, and often we parked hopped...

 

[SueM in MN]

Thanks for the really complete report. It sounds like you had a good time, despite some hitches.
One thing that would help prepare for future trips is to get a list from the official Disney website pages for Guest with Disabilities. This is their "hearing disabilities" page and includes a list of rides/attractions that have each type of assistance. At the top of the page, there are links to information about each park (actually, it's the text from the Guidebook for Guest with Disabilities). When you get to the park, the Guidebooks are available at guest Services. The wait at Guest Services varies a lot. If you are really lucky, you can go in there and not have a wait of more than a few seconds. If you are very unlucky, you can have a long wait behind people with very involved and complicated problems. You're least likley to have a wait (at least what I have seen) when you are there early in the day, and more likely as the day goes on.
I wondered how the captioning worked for the rides with a tour guide (like the Backstage Tour). Sounds like they have some kinks to work out there. One of the problems for those rides is that the "script" varies a little depending on the CM. Another problem is that the tram is so long that the people in the back are not seeing the same thing at the same time as the people in the front. My guess is that it might work better for attractions like Living with The Land in Epcot (where the ride car is much smaller) or for something like the Tiki Room (where the entire show is recorded). Even then, if the timing is off though, it might be off for the whole show.
In the "way past" (10-15 years ago), WDW was better staffed, but now there seem to be a lot less CMs working a ride. That means, sometimes people with disabilities get overlooked. On our last trip, the CM who knew we were on was busy with something else when it was time to get us off. Since they need time to open the back of the car, extend the ramp and then wheel the wheelchair off, we were trapped on the car past the point of having room to do that. The comical part was that some of the parties behind us didn't speak English and were sort of bobbing up and down trying to decide if they were supposed to stay on or get off. They ended up staying on for an extra ride.
At It's Tough to Be a Bug, the "holding area" for guest with wheelchairs is not that large and it is a good place to hold anyone who will need special assistance, unless there are a lot of wheelchairs/ecvs. Because of the way that theater is set up, wheelchair guests really need to go all the way down the row before they park and seat their parties. A lot of times when we've been there, one of the first people in takes the seat closest to the entrance. That causes a back-up of wheelchairs because the rest of the wheelchair parties can't get by. The start of that show must be computer controlled, because one time in the past, the CM was getting very frazzled and finally told us just to go toward the front of the theater until we found a seat at the end of a row because she didn't have time to get all the wheelchair parties in. We ended up as two sitting together (DD in her wheeelchair plus DH), me sitting alone and other DD sitting alone. In our case, it was just incomvenient, but in the case of your DH, not being in the right place meant not being able to enjoy the show.
You might want to contact Guest Services and let them know what difficulties you had. Some of the technology (like the hand-held captioners) are fairly new (less than 5 years old) and I'm sure feedback from users would help them improve.

 

[Talking Hands]

Sue, When I have worn my hearing aids I find that the handheld captioning device is out of sync with the actual ride script. It is also outdated such as in the Backstage Tour. Backstage is on that is interpreted so I just prefer to ride with the interpreter and get it first hand. Same with Living with the Land. While the handheld is an ok substitute the interpreters are far better for me. If you are the only one using the interpreter which frequently happens you can ask them to be more English for these rides. Now the shows are ASL but the interpreted rides they adjust to the user. Also when the are going toward the English they will mouth the words and a deafperson who is oral can speechread them easily.
While I haven't had that at Disney, I have had it at Tupperware (same interpreter) and several others came up and thanked them for being there and being so clear. These were oral deaf and speeechread the interpreter's mouthing instead of struggling to read the speaker from a distance.

 

[SueM in MN]

Originally posted by Talking Hands
Sue, When I have worn my hearing aids I find that the handheld captioning device is out of sync with the actual ride script. It is also outdated such as in the Backstage Tour.

We've noticed on the Great Movie ride (where people who stay in their wheelchairs are in the very last row of the car) that the tourguide is often commenting on something that we are not even in the room yet for. Sounds like a similar problem with the handhelds - maybe the "trigger" for the sync is not coming at the right time. You would think that would be something they would check. The handheld being out of date is with the script should be something that doesn't happen -it should be easy for them to update the handheld when they change the script.

 

[eeyore45]

I think part of it is not enough hearing impaired people are able to stand up and see what's available. For instance, if not for my son we would not have a clear picture of DH's hard of hearing! And my ds also tries to "hide" is deafness.

I think a lot of people would appreciate closed captioning, but are embarrassed that they cant hear. There is such a larger stigma attatched to hearing aides than glasses. Plus glasses "fix" vison where as hearing aides just amplify sounds, which is difficult to make the hearing world understand.

DH did not want me to "fuss" or get "special" treatment for him, if our ds had been along, I would've done a better job at getting the devices, and pre planning the shows with the reflective captioning. Often we were asked about it by elderly people, and they stated they loved the CC on their home tv's.

I did state to the CM at MGM that the hand held needed updating, and he stated he has heard that before.

Thanks for the info on the interpreters. DS went to a school and learned SEE, and he does read lips very well - good to keep that in mind!!

 

[Talking Hands]

The interpreters will not be using SEE. That is only for school. What they use is CASE (Conceptually Accurate Signed English). It is called transliterating (changing from one modality to another in the same language) rather than interpreting (going from English to ASL) At the Tupperware Convention they were mostly tansliterating except for the music. All the speech was transliteration. Many school are dropping SEE and using CASE as it is clearer, but the student has to watch the lips for the word endings and that strengthens speech reading.
Btw it is harder for a man to hide his hearing loss than a women. Women can always hide their hearing aids in their hair style. Mine are hidden in my curly hair and often no one realizes I am hard of hearing. On guys they tend to be very obvious.