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I was getting a little angry earlier and for that I apologise.

Obviously in wider society these types of special set ups would impede or encroach in to other peoples lives and that's where I'm for a lot of these arguments, and would be more willing to mete out equal policy.

I've tried to make it clear enough that I'm just focusing on the theme park in this instance, as that's whats in the OP. I appreciate the conversation seems to be broadening, but if we go back in to the main point of the OP.

So what I've taken from this so far:

Disney had a policy that allowed disabled people and their families (up to 6 total) to skip the queue or more accurately, form a line in a shorter special queue.

Able bodied, but morally hollow, people start abusing this system.

Disney has a system by which it offers VIP passes for a rather large sum.

This exploitation of their disabled policy is undermining that.

The old disabled policy is removed.

A new, more restrictive policy is implemented.

This new policy, conveniently, no longer poses any particular threat to the VIP passes.

Parents of disabled children are upset by the new policy, enter the lawyer.

Begin the thread.

As an organisation that focuses on children from all backgrounds, should they not be providing for all those children? Now, let's not get things more complicated than they already are. I feel that their old policy was the best way of dealing with it. The only potential negative effect being to able bodied guests in that their waiting times might have been increased, how negative that is really depends on your outlook on life and how long the waiting times are in the first place.

Disney quantifying disability is a complete non starter and even pointless for ourselves when we are talking about this issue. It doesn't matter whether one disability is considered more deserving than the other because the option to "screen" them is completely out the window.

Disney's new policy adversely punishes the children that would benefit from it the most. Seeing as the victims of this change are disabled children and their families trying to have a nice time in Disneyland I feel that the issue has been overblown. Obviously you stop the people cheating the system, but at what cost? Denying a disabled child the experience? I've been to a few themeparks around the UK as a child and a young teenager and I was never personally inconvenienced by a disabled person. Neither have I been inconvenienced by a disabled person in broader society, but that's beside the point.

Within the realm of Disneyland I'd argue that it's better to take the abuses of the disabled system on the chin because for every scumbag that does that you're helping a family have great family time where they might not always be able to.

It might come off as bleeding heart, but within the context of a Children's themepark I don't think it's unreasonable.

How are they denying them the experiance? They can still go to Disneyland and ride what they want, they just cant skip ahead of the line. More fair to me.

So let me get this straight.

The disabled+family is still able to get in the shorter line at the set time?

Right?

The issue is that the disabled kid+family couldn't do the same ride over, and over again like they did under the old policy?

Nail....Meet Head.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Nail....Meet Head.

Well then... I have zero empathy for the plantiff.

With the set time for those with the disabled pass... combined with utilizing the existing fast pass system and some effort in planning, you can really minimize the wait times.

gak, when I went, I used the fast pass system, plus the real time queue sites... I didn't have that big of a wait.

 Ouze wrote:
From what I read here I believe they have accommodated these families in a reasonable fashion. The standard is to give an equal experience to all; what they are asking for is a better experience than others.

I went to an amusement park last week with some friends and the waits were insane. Like 75 minutes wait for a ride that lasts 18 seconds. My back still hurts from basically 8 hours of standing in lines, and I got sun-burned on one side of my head. No one has it easy at these places.

IMO they are still getting a waaaaaay better experience. I'd love to just sit in the shade eating ice cream, and be able to take a leak whenever I want, while other suckers queued for an hour. That's living the dream.

Well, and this is where I think Alph's experience could come in handy, is that there might be children that cannot handle even a short wait in line, such as a fast pass would allow.

And that enters into the pretty cold hearted question of the matter. How much do we really try to accommodate special needs children, and almost as importantly, their families.

That's the one issue that kind of has gotten ignored here, is that a disabled child might have siblings that don't have any limitations. Everybody wants to go as a family, I'm sure.

 Polonius wrote:

And that enters into the pretty cold hearted question of the matter. How much do we really try to accommodate special needs children, and almost as importantly, their families.

That's the one issue that kind of has gotten ignored here, is that a disabled child might have siblings that don't have any limitations. Everybody wants to go as a family, I'm sure.

My opinion? To the point in which they can go on the rides. Make it accesible for them to get the rides.

Lets put all the disabled kids at the front of the line to punch the people in the face who took advantage of the system and ruined it. Everyone gets to punch those people, but the people who suffer from those asshats get the first lotta punches.



I got stuck in an hr and a half traffic jam leaving Westchester for work today on my way to X-Wing night, so I'm slightly pissed off at jerkoffs and lines in general. So wanting those pricks to get punched is a venting process. Where's Pouncy? I think I need an e-Hug. He's the guy on here who gave those out, right?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Yeah its weird, On one hand, You have kids with Autism who dont understand that there are things like waiting.

Plenty of kids without Autism don't understand there are things like waiting.

It seems to me that queuing for a ride seems fairly unnecessary in the modern world. Giving everyone who turns up for a ride a set time, and letting them spend the subsequent time wandering about and booking/riding other rides instead of standing in queue seems much smarter than making people physically stand in the one spot for potentially hours at a time.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Yeah its weird, On one hand, You have kids with Autism who dont understand that there are things like waiting.

Plenty of kids without Autism don't understand there are things like waiting.

That is exactly my point.

 sebster wrote:
It seems to me that queuing for a ride seems fairly unnecessary in the modern world. Giving everyone who turns up for a ride a set time, and letting them spend the subsequent time wandering about and booking/riding other rides instead of standing in queue seems much smarter than making people physically stand in the one spot for potentially hours at a time.

It is a bit weird. I could understand it better if they actually charged per ride, but places like Disney already have your money at the door... You have to wonder what the advantage is in making you stand in line when you could be wandering around snacking and spending more money. Also fewer rides would mean less maintenance which would be another saving.

There must be some dastardly reason why they still make you queue?

There are two reasons for the queues.

One is the simple practical reason that on some rides are not continuous, so people can't simply walk on. The difference between a lift and an escalator.

The other reason is that having paid a flat rate at the gate for free access to rides, most visitors want to ride continuously if they can. This obviously is impossible, as each ride has a maximum capacity.

There are two other ways the overall situation could be addressed. One would be to make people pay per ride. The other would be to hand out timed tickets to everyone wanting to register for each ride. This could be done with a smartphone app in the modern world.

 sebster wrote:
It seems to me that queuing for a ride seems fairly unnecessary in the modern world. Giving everyone who turns up for a ride a set time, and letting them spend the subsequent time wandering about and booking/riding other rides instead of standing in queue seems much smarter than making people physically stand in the one spot for potentially hours at a time.

I bolded the disfunctional portion of your suggestion. Right now, one visitor "blocks" one ride slot at a time (either by standing in line, or the functional equivalent, e.g., a "fast pass" like system with a designated time slot). If you let that same person "block" two slots at a time, you've effectively doubled the amount of time everyone has to wait* (or cut the ride capacity of the park in half), and so on.

*This assumes that every ride is continuously full, which is essentially true at Disney*.

I wouldn't be surprised to see an (eventual) push to do away with lines entirely, much as restaurants are slowly shifting to page-by-text/phone systems to replace the old site-limited pagers (which replaced/supplemented simple lists of names). But it's going to be a while, as (smart)phone penetration is NOT 100%, particularly for int'l visitors.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There are two reasons for the queues.

One is the simple practical reason that on some rides are not continuous, so people can't simply walk on. The difference between a lift and an escalator.

The other reason is that having paid a flat rate at the gate for free access to rides, most visitors want to ride continuously if they can. This obviously is impossible, as each ride has a maximum capacity.

Those are the reasons for waiting times, they are not a reason for a queue. Note the distinction there - a waiting time means they will tell you you can't ride for an hour, a queue is making you stand there until your time is due.

There are two other ways the overall situation could be addressed. One would be to make people pay per ride. The other would be to hand out timed tickets to everyone wanting to register for each ride. This could be done with a smartphone app in the modern world.

What I am thinking of is a timed ticket of some sort. That you go up to the ride (or some kind of central kiosk that can maintain bookings for all rides) and tell them you'd like to ride, and they book you in at the best available time that suits you. You then turn up at that time, being able to spend the hour or more before then doing something other than standing in a line.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Janthkin wrote:
I bolded the disfunctional portion of your suggestion. Right now, one visitor "blocks" one ride slot at a time (either by standing in line, or the functional equivalent, e.g., a "fast pass" like system with a designated time slot). If you let that same person "block" two slots at a time, you've effectively doubled the amount of time everyone has to wait* (or cut the ride capacity of the park in half), and so on.

You don't understand. I would book times for various rides. You would book times for various rides. I would turn up at the various rides at my designated times, and you would turn up for your rides at your designated times.

As long as the system has some basic measure of some common sense and doesn't let one person book on the same ride over and over again, or on different rides at the same time then it is basically no different to queuing up - you still have to wait until the next available spot in the queue, you just don't have to physically wait there in a line.

 Medium of Death wrote:
As an organisation that focuses on children from all backgrounds, should they not be providing for all those children?

I don't know, what's the most profitable approach? Because that's the thing you're missing in your analysis. Disney isn't a charity, they're a for-profit business. They have a legal obligation to provide a minimum level of assistance to disabled people (wheelchair ramps, etc), but that does not include "give my child whatever they want because they have to be happy". And the current system provides exactly that: an option to avoid standing in the actual line for a long time, but without getting more rides than any other customer would get.

Disney isn't a charity obviously, I was just wondering about exactly how much the old policy was actually costing them. I doubt it was costing them anything at all.

If they were worried about people queuing up again after the had been on a ride they could have had a policy for when there was excessive queue that those in the shorter line couldn't ride again until the current waiting period for the ride was over.

 sebster wrote:

As long as the system has some basic measure of some common sense and doesn't let one person book on the same ride over and over again, or on different rides at the same time then it is basically no different to queuing up - you still have to wait until the next available spot in the queue, you just don't have to physically wait there in a line.

This set up would have been better than the one currently implemented. Only allowing one ride to be booked doesn't really make a lot of sense. It would be even better if they rolled out this kind of system for everybody.

If you implemented the system for everyone, and didn't restrict it to only a single ride at a time, then everyone would be in every line. That system will fall apart rapidly when the wait times are hours long for every ride.

The rides have a known throughput capacity and timing. The engineers can guarantee for example (made up) that the Space Race ride can accommodate 24 people at 10 a.m., another 24 at 10:15, and so on. Except in case of an unexpected problem like a breakdown.

This being the case, why cannot Disney issue 24 tickets for the 10 a.m. departure, and so on? Some people are probably stupid enough to take two tickets for different rides at the same time, or two rides that are too far apart to move between them in the time available. A software booking system could avoid this. You could also allow people to queue physically and take seats that failed to be filled by the people allocated a timed ticket.

This kind of timed ticket system is quite widely used at museums and National Trust properties in the UK, where there is a problem of demand being higher than supply.

 Medium of Death wrote:
If we, as people of sound body and mind, can't find it in ourselves to give a tiny bit of our time, even indirectly, to a disabled person then I don't know what to say.

Not getting your hostility here.

Does the policy exactly aid those with disabilities by providing them a method to avoid lines?
Yes.

Does the policy provide greater expense to the those with disabilities or harm them in any way more then any other patron?
No.

Family friends are deaf and have a (now teenager) who's both deaf and nearly blind. They've been to Disney world and this would be very helpful.
I have bad knees-burned out from a lifetime of being chased by hordes of beautiful wimminz (its a burden). Some days I'm fine. Some days I can't stand for more then about ten minutes. I've been to Disney and this would be very helpful.

So whats your problem and why are you screamingly violating #1?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alpharius wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
And eventually the Kids with Autism will have to understand that waits exist.

Sounds like you have limited experience with individuals with Autism, and certainly don't have any in your immediate family...

WRONG!!!!!
My nephew does, he has it. He hates waiting, but when we went to DL, he learned he had to. Are we going to start accomadating for people who ca tolerate waiting? Is there going to soon be a special checkout counter? Special Lane to Avoid traffic? Waiting is unavoidable, they will have to learn it is part of life. I find it funny people saying "I can only get on 4-5 rides a day" Um hello lady, its the same for normal people too.

Your glib comments show a shockng lack of understanding then.

I can only hope your nephew doesn't spend a lot of time with you.

And given your attitude, I'd imagine that's the case.

Thats an amazingly hostile post.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smacks wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
From what I read here I believe they have accommodated these families in a reasonable fashion. The standard is to give an equal experience to all; what they are asking for is a better experience than others.

I went to an amusement park last week with some friends and the waits were insane. Like 75 minutes wait for a ride that lasts 18 seconds. My back still hurts from basically 8 hours of standing in lines, and I got sun-burned on one side of my head. No one has it easy at these places.

IMO they are still getting a waaaaaay better experience. I'd love to just sit in the shade eating ice cream, and be able to take a leak whenever I want, while other suckers queued for an hour. That's living the dream.

Try the lines at a popular ride at a water park. They can be two hours. Fortunately we have the plan down at Schiltterbahn (the largest water park in the world just an hour drive away yea boyyyyyyyyy!!!!). Get there very early on a weekday. Hit the popular rides at the new park first, then go to the old park. About lunch they have a mile long floating water ride. Get a margarita, float for thirty minutes. Get another margarita, float for thirty minutes. get another margarita...
With TBone now being recalled to personally train the Wiener Valkyries for WienerRok, we can again attend and will be going back, but this time with 3-8 teenage girls. I wonder if they'll let me bring my Mossberg for escort purposes...

 Medium of Death wrote:
I was speaking more generally about the respite offered by specialist schools. I find it hard to believe the care costs would have been the same for the child to go into any form of education. My point about the "Daily Mail" ideology is that it places the blame with those at the bottom of the scale, rather than the top where decisions are made.

Evidently you are still having trouble reading plain English.
The blame for £250,000 annual costs for one child are firmly on the officials, not the family of the victim.

 Medium of Death wrote:

Nobody is arguing for any excessive cost to be placed on Disney and I doubt the queue skip one was incurring one.

Nobody is indeed, the relevance of the example is, again, the need for a philosophical approach rather than an emotive one.
A philosophical approach is, again, best established by giving obvious examples that breed obvious general principles, these principle can then can be extrapolated upon for less obvious cases.

If a philosophical approach was used by society Disney would be in a better position. Because it is not yet firmly established that some forms of inclusion are impractical, the carers of those beyond the threshold of inclusion feel empowered to sue.

Without a philosophical approach its a lose lose for Disney. Assuming they changed policy to account for the level of disability of the children on whose supposed behalf the lawsuits were filed, then would slightly more disabled cases as yet uncatered for feel the right to sue.
Where do you draw the line?
The answer is you cannot, however with a philosophical principle established one doesnt need to, it becomes clearly understood that some disabled assessibility is provided, but that it cannot possibly enable everyone, and it is nobodies fault if individuals fall outside the threshold of what Disney can do to accommodate.

 sebster wrote:
As long as the system has some basic measure of some common sense and doesn't let one person book on the same ride over and over again, or on different rides at the same time then it is basically no different to queuing up - you still have to wait until the next available spot in the queue, you just don't have to physically wait there in a line.

Apparently they do already have this at Disney, it's called Fast Pass, is free, and according to reviews it seems to work quite well. Yet people still queue because I guess they don't do their research...

At some other parks you can pay ten times more for a fast-track ticket that lets you cut to the front of lines. It's possible that since queues create a market for this, parks would have little interest in eliminating them.

 Frazzled wrote:

With TBone now being recalled to personally train the Wiener Valkyries for WienerRok, we can again attend and will be going back, but this time with 3-8 teenage girls. I wonder if they'll let me bring my Mossberg for escort purposes...

Im so sorry Frazz....that is sad

What system does Bush Garden have? Six Flags?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The rides have a known throughput capacity and timing. The engineers can guarantee for example (made up) that the Space Race ride can accommodate 24 people at 10 a.m., another 24 at 10:15, and so on. Except in case of an unexpected problem like a breakdown.

This being the case, why cannot Disney issue 24 tickets for the 10 a.m. departure, and so on? Some people are probably stupid enough to take two tickets for different rides at the same time, or two rides that are too far apart to move between them in the time available. A software booking system could avoid this. You could also allow people to queue physically and take seats that failed to be filled by the people allocated a timed ticket.

This kind of timed ticket system is quite widely used at museums and National Trust properties in the UK, where there is a problem of demand being higher than supply.

It's not an individual ride's throughput at issue; it's the park's overall ride capacity.

Right now, you can occupy one space on a ride (any ride) per hour, by standing in line. (Really, a variable length of time depending on day, time of day, which rides, etc., but bear with me.)
--Get in line at 9 AM, ride at 10 AM, get in line at 10:05 AM, ride at 11:05 AM, etc.

Fast Pass increases that throughput, in that you are effectively standing in 2 lines at once. (Not quite a doubling, owing to transit between rides, actual time to ride the first ride, etc.)
--Get Fast Pass for 10:15, get in line at 9:00 AM, ride at 10:00 AM, ride at 10:15 AM, get new Fast Pass for 11:45 AM, get in line at 10:25 AM, etc.

Unrestrained e-booking could let you queue up for essentially constant rides...except the park doesn't have the capacity to handle the same volume of people (which is their goal) with a greatly increased ride/hour ratio. Remember these parks are already at (if not above) max capacity; there is no improvement in ride-event efficiency for the park by making changes.

So, realistically, the best it gets is they look at their data, see average wait times for certain days & times, and impose mandatory waits between rides that likely coincide with the average queue length. And then they likely allocate only a percentage of seats on each ride event for these pre-bookings, so as not to discriminate against people without the necessary technology, or people who spontaneously decide they want to ride that ride.

And...that almost describes the Fast Pass system as it currently exists, except Fast Pass only lets you block off one ride event at a time; I'm guessing that has to do with not wanting to force people to be there the instant the park opens, or be completely unable to use the Fast Pass system at all.

People are crazy. *Sigh*

But what are you going to do regulate stupidity?

 Asherian Command wrote:
People are crazy. *Sigh*

But what are you going to do regulate stupidity?

DO you feel better now that you've gotten that off your chest?

 Frazzled wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
People are crazy. *Sigh*

But what are you going to do regulate stupidity?

DO you feel better now that you've gotten that off your chest?

Not really. I just looked at the thread, and I agreed with what has been said. Mostly about the fact that the Parents assume that they have more rights and are ensured better quality products above everyone else, just because their kid is disabled. Which is kind of funny, because that would only allow people who don't have a disability to abuse that system.

Instead it would be better if they instead of bringing disabled kids to have better quality, that they are just brought back up to the normal level. No benefits, just are recognized as disabled and are given special seating. This would avoid a lot of issues. But anyway. Disney will get sued no matter how they do it, because people result to sueing instead of discussing it with the company.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I remember when you didn't have to pay for Fast Pass.

LOL you still dont....

so long as you have a screwdriver, or similar tool and some basic electronics knowledge

(no I will NOT give away my secret, then its ruined for all us 7331 life hackers, so dont even ask, I just tell you to make you jelly)