Stupid Guest Tricks

Old Crow wrote:Like I've said in the past, the people handing these things out need to grow a spine and start inquiring why these people need such passes. Is it that they don't want conflict in their lives and cave too soon?

hunny you have hit a very sore spot in my life. in the past 2 1/2 years i have been working as a plaid we have had close to 20 people quitting because of the sap system. they just could not take it anymore that we can't refuse to say no to obvious liars. managemant gives us progressive discipline for disney courtesy if we get cought refusing to give the pass to anyone. we have people crying on a daily basis because 8 hours of teens lieying in our face is breaking us apart. so it is not that we dont have a spine to say no it is because some of us actually have to pay rent, thus we have to keep our job. so i am going to give the benefit of the dought to you and think that you dont know any better but you have really hurt my feelings with your comment.
i will just have you know that it was i who started the whole thing about writing the persons age and wether or not they are using a wheelchair on the pass and i have gotten nothing but praise from attractionspeole for that and in the end also a verbal for courtesy out of that.
all of our hands are bound and it kills us!
people suck and they all come to talk to us!

Knotts Berry Farm requires a copy of your handicapped placard or a note from a physician. Asking for a copy of the placard in no way discriminates against any type of disability since a physician's prescription is required to obtain a placard. And, for a temporary disability, a doctor's note says not what the disability is, but for how long the disability is expected to last. Its a fair system, doesn't discriminate on the basis of type of disability and it prevents fraud and abuse by healty individuals. And when I was a teenager, I fell and broke my leg just before our annual trip to Disneyland. The solution was simple enough, we'd just rent a wheelchair. Nothing doing said my father, if I weren't well enough to venture on my own two feet, then I wasn't going to Disneyland. Disneyland could wait until I was healed. When we were there last, I pointed out to my father a teen with her arm in a cast in a wheelchair and SAP'ing it with 5 of her closest friends....He wanted to know why she needed a chair if it were her arm broken and I replied that if she fell to break her arm, it was possible that she was too clumsy to walk. And then he responded that if she were that clumsy, she didn't belong at Disneyland. Staying home is not an option for those who travel many miles for a yearly vacation, so there is the SAP system to handle permanent and temporary disabilities, not front of the line priviledges for the brazen frauds. It is apalling that you are being written up for policing frauds! You should adopt a fair and impartial system: if you have a placard, you obviously have a mobility disability(even those with asthma, diabetes and heart conditions qualify) and if you don't, then bring a note from your physician. And by the way, ADD/ADHD does not qualify for a placard, but autism, cerebal palsy, etc. does....Obesity, when it prevents mobility does, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome does, disabilites that affect endurance do, etc., etc.....It all fits into being fair and in preventing fraud-If Knotts Berry Farm can do it, then why not Disneyland (by they way, Knotts is out of the question for me since I am unable to tolerate rides that are rough in nature) and Knotts makes it very clear in signs all over the place, including ticket booths, that a SAP pass is available with the presentation of a placard or note from a physician and furthermore, ECV's are available only to those who can prove a disability or provide a note. Wheelchairs are availble to everybody. But DLR has found a cash cow in ECV rentals, so I do not see them limiting those rentals. ANd one last point, the soles of my shoes are barely worn....its a great money saver-lol!

Polar33 wrote:Interesting, I always thought there was some ADA/discrimination issue behind not being allowed to ask for proof for a SAP. Knowing that it's just annother redundant Disney policy ticks me off. I'm sure most guests who actually have a valid reason for needing a SAP wouldn't mind showing some simple form of proof, if anything to help eliminate those who are trying to cheet the system. Instead we have to let the get away with it, so they don't get pissed off....typical.

I'm with you on that. I was actually told at one point that it's a discrimination issue. It really makes me mad that I have to rent wheelchairs to teenagers who fake dragging one leg as they walk up to the counter, then when they leave the counter they drag the other leg. Lately whenever kids who rent wheelchairs ask me for a "front of the line pass" I just flat out tell them, Disneyland doesn't give front of the line passes for the disabled. After all, I'm not lying to them.

As for ECVs being cash cows, Disney only makes $30 per ECV, times about 50 ECVs that we rent in a typical busy day. If we wanted to we could limit ECVs to people who show proof of disability and still sell out. It frustrates me that someone who is perfectly capable of walking the park has to rent an ECV just because they're lazy. I don't even see why these morons actually want to look disabled. Then on busy days when we run out I have to explain to an 85-year-old grandmother in a walker that we're out because some perfectly mobile 20-year-olds rented them earlier.

If you ask for proof of diability, that is not a discrimination/ADA issue (which are two seperate things). If you dispense passes based on the type of diability, then it is a discrimination issue. Its the same as the handicapped parking only available for those whose physicians have determined that they have a disability and have issued a handicapped placard prescription (which the DMV does request the type of diability, but they do not issue placards to some disabilites and not the others-the request for that information is purely for demographic collections, not for determining eligibility, which is the physician's responsibility). The park is ADA compliant as it is. That is, there are physical attributes of the park that make it ADA compliant. Renting of wheelchairs, ECV's and dispensing of SAP passes are things that increase the comfort of their guest, but do not make the park or its employees ADA compliant. Take costco for example, they make available in some stores, ECVs and wheelchairs. But their stores are ADA compliant without these items (they have roll in access-no steps, wheelchair accessible restrooms, all items are available at wheelchair height, etc.) but the ADA does not require them to hand out front of the line passes, even though some of those lines at times can be quite long, longer than at Disneyland. Now if they were to start handing out SAPs and noting or requring the type of diability and then making decisions about wether that is a disability worthy of an SAP, then that would be discrimination, but not an ADA issue as the ADA does not require that you provide transportation or any extra priviledge for the disabled, just that walkways, restaurants, bathrooms and shopping be accessible for the handicapped guest.

I'll play Devil's Advocate here and say the reasons I think D'land's policy is that way it is.

I've worked in the Park 15 years, and have seen the crap management can go through. It could be a simple matter of upper managment seeing all the complaints in a certain department, and "ordering" lower management to "shape up" and lower the volume of complaints. So the lower management gets into a frame of mind where they just want to please everybody - hence "SAPs for all!"

Or it could be a simple case of the Park management caught in a no-win situation. They'll get complaints if they limit wheelchairs, and they'll get complaints if they give too many wheelchairs.

Based on that scenerio, the SAP situation would ebb and flow, just like a lot of Park policies in the past. Remember a few years back when the policy was an unlimited number of guests could ride with one SAP pass? That didn't last long.

That being said, I'm all for restricting SAPs to those who either have a doctor's note or an obvious handicap. But on the same subject, I also dislike the Fastpass system. It may be a good selling point in advertising, but it makes the lines longer; and only helps people in certain situations, and if they plan their visit carefully.

I've only been gone since last November, but I think that Fastpass is a bigger "injustice" to the average guest than fraudulent SAPs.

Dante101 wrote: Or it could be a simple case of the Park management caught in a no-win situation. They'll get complaints if they limit wheelchairs, and they'll get complaints if they give too many wheelchairs.

I can vouch for both ways on wheelies. Back in 91, our policy was that the person in the wheelchair plus one additional person would be backdoored. That had worked for years and years without major complaints, but for some reason people started getting vocal. The ones I remember the most were families where it was some stupid kid with a cast on the leg (so you knew it was a temporary situation - plus the kid was liftable size anyway) and they would start barking that "you're breaking up our family!" They briefly caved and said everyone in the wheelie party could be backdoored. Word got out really fast, and we'd get Girl Scout troops of maybe 30 girls, plus all the troop leaders and chaparones with ONE kid (broken leg - temporary!!!!) in a wheelchair. I can still picture them clogging up the unload dock on Pirates ... anyhoo, the "regular" guests started complaining about that and so it went to a total of 4 being backdoored - of course that was before they started making the queues wheelchair accessable. Don't know what policy changes have happenned in between - I quit in 95 and there was no such thing as an SAP then. I can remember some guests having letters from Make-a-Wish or other organizations that they'd show us at turnstyles or gates, and we'd go ahead and backdoor them as a courtesy. Of course, I can also remember dreading "Happy Hearts" weeks not from a humanistic standpoint, but from a logistical one. Having to make announcements over at Bear Band that the front two rows were reserved for wheelchair parties - and seeing ablebodied guests be piggy anyway despite all those hardcore handicapped kids...grrrrrr!!!! :x Having capacity whittled away to nothing because of all the groups...I mean, you did what you could to make them comfortable and the experience enjoyable, but jeeze - we earned every penny we made those weeks...

i am so glad to hear all of your comments and you realy hit the nailon the head. we oftertimes ask management, why we can't ask for proof and they flat out sayed it's a guest service that disney provides do it can't be denied to anyone because veryone needs to be offered the same service. and yes they admitted that they just don't want any complaints. pregnant women are one of the worst. if you can't tollerate your gut in line for 1/2 hr then why the <bleep> did you come to disneyland in 95 degrees weather in the middle of the sommer. yes in the state of california last trimesters of pregnancies are seen as short term disability but c'mon be reasonable. also all the guests that complaine that it is the law to have imidiate bording i always tell them that the ada law of california only stipulates to provide a more comfortable bording area NOT help with waittimes!
the highboss of guest services was actually observed refusing sap's to people that dont deserve it or make them get a wheelchair as a testprogram but regulars like me were forbidden to say no. not a lot of complaints have been voiced when she refused. corporate legal sayes there have not been enough written complaints about misuse to change something so now we "chat up" realy disabled people to see if they wanne leave a written concern about them observing teens take their rightfull spot in line. we already have over 50 in the past two weeks. :twisted:
they say that there are serious changes ahead because the new boss woman doesn't like the system but i beleive it when i see it.
it used to be that you had to go to first aid to be "evaluated" if you fit the requirenments for an sap. i say "bring that back!"

You bring up a new rant subject for me:

I hate when they changed the rules from "pregnant guests can not ride" to "pregnant guests should not ride." It really drove me nuts during those last few years at the Park - trying to explain to people that they shouldn't ride Star Tours because they are constantly being thrust up against the seat belt. And a lot of these people that still insisted on riding had never ridden the damn ride before!!!

I don't mind when pregnant people visit Disneyland, but stay off the damn thrill rides!!! It's not that much different than being in a car crash...

Dante101 wrote:I hate when they changed the rules from "pregnant guests can not ride" to "pregnant guests should not ride."

Let's see - liability vs. complaints.........hmmmmmm....which will make a Disney executive cave faster???

You know, I remeber a certain ride operator with a really slutty reputation (no it wasn't me...lol!) who ended up pregnant and repeatedly rode Space Mtn. hoping for a spontaneous miscarriage because she didn't want to have to pay for an abortion...

You see EVERYTHING when you've worked there long enough :roll:

I hate it when I get this way, but... did it work?