Disney has been accused of denying special theme park passes to disabled children as the company cracks down on posers who abuse the passes to cut lines for rides and attractions without having to pay a premium, according to a report.
Paula Roland, a Florida woman, said she and her husband took their 8-year-old son, Noah, to Walt Disney World in Orlando on June 5.
The family sought to obtain a Disability Access Service (DAS) pass for Noah, a nonverbal autistic child who has been diagnosed with sensory processing disorder, according to the Los Angeles Times.
A DAS pass would allow Noah, who struggles to stand in line for more than 15 minutes, to wait less time at the entrance to the attraction.
But Disney officials at Magic Kingdom denied Noah’s request for the DAS pass, according to the Times.
After entering the theme park without the pass, Roland said that her son suffered from sensory overload and went into meltdown.
She told the Times she spent most of the day trying to calm him down in the gift shop.
“It’s hard to come back from that point,” Roland told the Times. “We had the worst day ever there.”
Rosie Keiser, a resident of the Northridge section of Los Angeles who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, said she “cried and shook” when she was asked “deeply personal” questions by a Disneyland employee in Anaheim during a visit to the theme park on July 14, according to the Times.
Keiser said that she was eventually able to obtain the DAS pass but that she was “one of the lucky ones.”
“You do have to beg for the service,” Keiser, who became permanently disabled in 2009 and has struggled to leave her home since then, told the Times.
The DAS pass system was created by Disney in 2013.
It allows pass holders to avoid standby lines and gain free access to the Lightning Lane service, where non-holders pay up to $35 to wait between five and 25 minutes to board an attraction.
A Disney spokesperson told the Times that the company has been forced to implement changes in doling out the passes because of overuse.
Earlier this year, both Disneyland and Disney World reduced eligibility for DAS passes, which were made available only to a “small percentage of guests who, due to a developmental disability like autism or similar, are unable to wait in a convention queue for an extended period of time,” according to the updated company guidelines.
Under the old policy, parkgoers were eligible if they “have difficult tolerating extended waits in a convention queue environment due to a disability.”
Disney said that the number of people who used the DAS pass has tripled since 2019, though it would not say whether it felt the system was being abused.
Several parkgoers have reported that non-disabled visitors were taking advantage of the system in order to avoid paying Lightning Lane fees by claiming disability.
In 2013, NBC News conducted an undercover investigation which found that disabled DAS pass holders were selling them on the black market to healthy park visitors eager to skip lines.
Shannon McEvoy, a Florida-based travel agent, told the Times that she has had perspective clients ask her about obtaining a DAS pass even though they were not disabled.
“I’ve had healthy people reach out and ask how they can get a DAS service pass,” McEvoy told the Times.
The Post has sought comment from Disney.
