Disneyland and Walt Disney World today announced an upcoming change to the services offered to guests with disabilities, and it will change the way these visitors plan their next theme park vacation. These changes take effect on May 20 at Walt Disney World, and on June 18 at the Disneyland Resort, giving visitors the opportunity to become familiar with the services which will be available during their visit.
In announcing these changes, Disney officials said, “Disney is dedicated to providing a great experience for all Guests, including those with disabilities, which is why we are so committed to delivering a wide range of innovative support services aimed at helping our Guests with disabilities have a wonderful time when visiting our theme parks.”
There are several elements of this update, but they all have one common element – communication. Starting today, visitors planning trips to both Disneyland and Walt Disney World can visit an updated website for each resort which provides detailed accessibility information for every stage of the trip. The pages include information about parking and transportation, hotels, theme park access and more.
One new addition is a page devoted to accessing attraction queues, and details some of the options available to guests with disabilities. These include using the Disney Genie service to located rides with shorter wait times, using rider switch when one member of a party can’t stand in a long queue, or even using the Single Riders lanes for faster boarding. One new service is a “return to queue” option to accommodate guests who need to leave a queue before it’s their time to ride, for example to use the bathroom or take medications. We don’t have specifics on how this will work, but it sounds like it will help address a certain set of needs. /
The page also offers “tips and techniques to manage waiting in queues,” which seem designed to address some of the more common reasons people request DAS. Depending on the specific disability, the tips range from practical, like scheduling entertainment breaks between rides, to somewhat flip, like suggesting your party create a bubble around you in a queue to make you more comfortable.
If you feel that none of these options will work for your party, then the next step is to speak with a Disney cast member to determine eligibility for the Disability Access Service (DAS). This is how Disneyland now describes the DAS on their website – the text in bold was added as of this morning.
Disney Parks have an unwavering commitment to providing a welcoming, inclusive environment and accessible experiences for our Guests. DAS is one of the programs offered at the Disneyland Resort theme parks intended to accommodate only those Guests who, due to a developmental disability like autism or similar, are unable to wait in a conventional queue for an extended period of time.
If you happen to search online for ways to obtain a DAS for the Disney parks, the most common suggestions are to claim that you have ADHD, anxiety or need frequent bathroom breaks. With this change, it’s pretty clear those will no longer automatically qualify.
As before, to register for the DAS, guests should schedule a pre-arrival conversation with a trained Disney cast member. What’s new under this update is that Disney has partnered with Inspire Health Alliance to help cast members determine the appropriate accommodation for each guest, and also ensure that DAS is reserved only for those guests for which it was intended.
At Disneyland, visitors can schedule pre-arrival conversations between 2 and 30 days before arrival. If they arrive at the Resort without having completed the process, they can talk in person with an accessibility services cast member at the resort. Guest Relations in the theme parks will no longer handle DAS issuance; rather, a ticket booth in the esplanade between Disneyland and DCA will be the designated location for these conversations.
For Walt Disney World visitors, a pre-arrival virtual video chat is still the best way to determine eligibility for the DAS between 2 and 30 days before arrival. Guests who arrive on property without having completed the screening can have the virtual video chat the morning of their visit, but Disney strongly suggests doing it in advance to save time.
If a guests is eligible for the DAS, they will enrolled for the length of their ticket so they do not need to repeat the process during their trip. For Walt Disney World annual passholders and Disneyland Resort Magic Key Holders, the enrollment period will be extended from 60 days to 120 days.
The DAS party size will be adjusted to include immediate family members only, or no more than four people total. (A family of 8 will be eligible for a party size of 8, a family of 2 could have two friends join them). The DAS Advance planning option, which allowed eligible guests to pre-select two attractions, is no longer automatically included with the service.
It’s worth noting that, while Disney is partnering with outside professionals, the company is keeping this process in-house. Universal and Six Flags have both drawn criticism and been hit with lawsuits over their outsourcing of screening to a third-party company. Disney says they are adding more cast members and providing them with specialized training in this unique role, and that these cast members and the health care professionals will be co-located.
Disney also says they will not ask for or review medical documentation, and that these discussions will focus on the functional needs of each guest, and for the party as a whole. For example, where a family may have several members with disabilities that are not individually eligible for the DAS, the determination may be made that the group as a whole would be best accommodated via the DAS program.
When Disney first launched the DAS in 2013, one stated reason was to “control abuse with the current program that was, unfortunately, widespread and growing at an alarming rate.” It sounds like the same is true again, with Disney officials saying that requests for the Disability Access Service has more than tripled over the last five years.
Personally, I’ve been navigating Disney’s access systems for nearly three decades with my husband and children, starting with the Special Assistance Pass (SAP), then the Guest Access Card (GAC), and now the DAS. I feel like I’ve seen the good and the bad and everything in between. This is just Disney’s latest effort to provide access while combating abuse, and as usual it will be the guests with legitimate disabilities who bear the extra burden of these additional hoops. As with all changes, there will be those who hate it, those who say it’s long overdue, and those who call their lawyers. I can’t even be angry with Disney for this – my true ire is reserved for those who help other people game the system.
