The Happiest Place On Earth, or Not? Take this survey and tell Disney what you think about their new Disability Pass

Yes!!!! Another chance to be heard! This just in from the Association of Regional Centers in California (ARCA). Click on this link and you’ll find a short survey that lets us tell Disney “Why” this new pass does or does NOT work for us.

It takes less than 5 minutes to respond and the questions are straight forward. Please respond by Tuesday, November 19th!

November 7th, 2013

 Dear Friends,

As you may know, on October 9th, Disney replaced its Guest Assistance Card with a Disability Access Service (DAS) Card. For many of you, Disney parks have been an integral part of your family’s vacation experience – and for some, the pre-eminent option for your loved ones.

The DAS Card allows people to now “virtually” wait in line for attractions, meaning that you will now have to wait, but you don’t have to do so in the actual line. The person with the disability must have their picture taken for the card, and you must go to kiosks located in the park to have Disney employees place you on a waiting list for the ride of your choice. The wait time is based on the actual wait time for the ride, minus ten minutes. While you wait, you can go on other rides using the regular line or do other things in the park, but you can only have one ride on the DAS card at a time.

Have you been to a Disney park and experienced this new system? We want to hear from you!

ARCA, which represents California’s 21 non-profit regional centers that serve over 260,000 Californians with developmental disabilities, is in ongoing discussions with Disney management concerning this change. Now we want to bring to Disney, at the highest levels, data that actually shows what your reality has been. This brief AND CONFIDENTIAL survey will help us, and your input would be invaluable. It should take you roughly four minutes to complete.

To access the survey, please go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DAS_Card_Survey

Please respond by Tuesday, November 19th!

We also want to encourage you to send this on to other families. The more people who respond, the better our results will be – and the stronger a case we can make on behalf of families with children (young or old) with special needs!

Lastly, if you wish to be kept in the loop as ARCA continues to work on this, and occasionally hear about other critical issues (including our push to renew Early Start!), please sign up for the ARCA CommunityConnect mailing list at: http://tinyurl.com/ARCA-list

If you have any questions, please contact Daniel at dsavino@arcanet.org.

All the best,

The ARCA Office