Agree that joining the rope drop crowd and the masses running to the most popular ride is not a solution to the vast majority who can't wait in lines. Getting to the gates 10min after opening and heading to the non-headliners early before lines build works well though.
No, because the two-year-old is not allowed in the line. It is not a choice. Other than no one riding the ride at all and how is that different from saying that families with a disabled person could stay together by just not riding the ride?
I know it is frustrating, and I really hope your daughter gets approved so you can have a wonderful trip. Since you have been to the parks a lot, I'm sure you know it is extremely rare to find less than a 10-minute wait, even with the shortest LL entry. Avoiding people close to you anywhere in a queue is nearly impossible. After scanning for LL, there's always another queue that zig zags back and forth, many rides have crowded pre-shows, the boarding areas are packed tight, etc. I hope you find good accommodation, but DAS won't even help in this situation.
Oh wow! I forgot about Tour Guide Mike! I was addicted to his info when we visited the parks. Thanks for stirring that memory. We had fun trips with his plans.
<15min LL is hard, even on low volume days.
Grandparents likely wouldn’t qualify as additional immediate family in this situation. The additional children who bring the DAS party over the max would be more likely to be given an exception and be added to their sibling’s DAS.
Thank you for answering. I know absolutely nothing about DAS...do you know what alternate accommodations might be? I know we could purchase genie + but are there other things?
Most likely they will suggest that everyone stands in the regular line. If someone has to leave, the adult would take the child out of the line and speak with a cast member. That cast member would then allow the parent and child to go through the lightening lane and meet the rest of your party at the merge point with standby. You would text the people who got out of line to let them know when you were getting close to the merge point.
Thank you
I dont expect that there are no lines longer then 10min. I say that in our case we know that around 10min the problems start building up. And we do our best to avoid this.
I feel like as difficult as it is, you need to try to stop imagining nightmare scenarios where Disney won't help you. It is clearly upsetting and causing you a lot of stress. I am also a thinker/planner, and often think through worst case scenarios to prepare for them, but there is also a time when I need to be stopped because it stops being a source of planning but a source of stress even bordering on trauma response.
Thank you.
Reading the other thread gives me hope that the CMs in the parks are indeed finding ways to accommodate people who are denied a DAS. That being said, there are things other parks are doing to make it easier on guests with various disabilities and no, they don’t all involve the equivalent of the DAS. Some parks are providing 3D models of all of their attractions so that the Blind can feel what the attraction looks like, some that have characters are also providing 3D models of the characters. Many are posting videos of what wheelchair loading and unloading looks like at every attraction with and without transferring where applicable. These types of things are simple and inexpensive, but greatly help and show that guests of all abilities are welcome, yet Disney isn’t doing this (well Tokyo Disneyland is, but they aren’t run by Disney).
I mostly agree with the points you are making; however, there is a big difference in the two. Being too short to ride because one is a child is a temporary situation. Being unable to wait in a line because of a disability is (often) a permanent situation. Part of our enjoyment of going to the theme parks as a family through the years was watching as our children grew up and could go on more and more rides. No one loved splitting up, but we all knew it was a temporary thing.
Isn't the point of DAS or those requesting DAS is that they have an issue with the queues? Obviously different people have different reasons for why those issues exist but saying you want to wait in line with people because you don't want to be left out but saying you need to have a shorter line ends up being a mixed message and likely won't gain as much sympathy (hence many of the "what about" comments). People certainly recognize the difference between a height restriction and someone having other issues but it's being presented like "I want it ALL" and that's not going to be the reality of a lot of traveling parties. They can't have it all.
I don't disagree exactly. But this assumes that that family with a small child will return to the Parks at some point in the near future. So I don't think future trips are relevant to having to split on their current trip.
Epcot is great for that and if a child enjoys animals AK is as well as there's only a handful of actual rides there but plenty of places to spread out and explore at one's own pace. While FOP and Navi often have long waits exploring Pandora (and especially at night if that works for the individual) is great. Satu'li Canteen is probably my fav QS within the parks. The pathway between Festival of the Lion King and Pandora (goes along the water) is a nice walk that typically has lesser crowds IMO (though I'm sure it can get crowded based on the overall crowd levels) and I love hearing the sounds of Pandora as you get closer to it.
Sorry I should have been clearer: "If she was able to she would much prefer to be able to wait in line with her friends/family than have to wait somewhere apart from them." The issue is she can't wait in lines longer than a certain amount of time.
