Nothing, Infinity and You

Today, Jon wanted to visit The Magic Kingdom. Not my favorite theme park, due to it being popular with families of very young kids, whose parents usually allow them to run rampant and haphazardly; running into people (including us), and generally being annoying. But Jon has autism, and though he doesn’t run rampant and haphazardly, he does share the awe that these, uh — “children” have of this place.

Actually, that’s not true.

Jon just likes theme parks with ride attractions. He doesn’t give a flying frog’s ass about mice, ducks, goofy bloodhounds, pirates, princesses, pixie dust, br’er rabbits, br’er bears, br’er ANYTHING, creepy live toys, blue aliens, incredible people, or characters from any “cinematic universe” (did I miss anything?). He only cares about rides. That’s it.

We’ve been visiting Disney for the past eighteen years, pretty much consistently, though, there was a lapse of around three years, due to us relocating to the Northeast. Carl and I moved back to Florida three weeks before the pandemic hit in 2020, and the first thing we did was sign up for annual passes for the three of us. Jon has very few pleasures and interests.

Between 2004 and 2013, when we visited a theme park, we were able to get Jon, what was then known as a “gap pass”. It allowed him and his party to enter an attraction via the Fastpass lane, in the case of Disney, thus avoiding the lengthy wait times in the Standby queue. Time, and certain other abstract concepts, are nigh impossible subjects for him to understand, and even more impossible (“impossible-er”?)  being able to explain it to him in a way that he can understand! So, before we knew about the gap pass, telling him he had to wait to get on a ride was difficult for him, especially when he can see people getting on them “without waiting”. These days, he does better, but only if he’s in a very good mood, and, even then, it’s a crap shoot.

While we were in hiatus, all major theme parks decided that gap passes weren’t fair to others, even those with other types of disabilities.

I get it.

Jon has to be fair, even though he’s not even aware of it, much less, why. But it’s ok for Jon to have an unhappy visit, because nobody can be fair to him.

I understand that these gap passes can be exploited. I understand people can exaggerate a challenging disability, just to be able to skip the lines. I’ve seen this first hand, so I understand. I also understand that there are always exceptions, or that with specific guidelines, these passes can be issued to those who truly need it, especially since the primary goal is to make your visitors happy.

After explaining this to Guest Services at another theme park, a case file was opened for Jon to receive a gap pass on every visit, but only if he’s present. We think this is fair. Besides, we never thought of (nor have we ever) exploited these passes. Other theme parks allow you to buy these passes. We buy them quite cheaply (between $50-$100 for two “unlimited” passes), because of our annual passes, and it’s worth it, especially when we can see him enjoying his day. Those who know Jon, know the suffering he has gone through, coping with his disability. This is the least we, or anybody, can do for him, and anybody like him.

Today, I pleaded again, to no avail. Disney offers a “Disability Access Service” (DAS) pass that allows us to choose an available Lightning Lane (LL; or “The Queue Formally Known As Fastpass”) time for each eligible ride. The thing is you can only have one ride queued up at a time, so if we arrive at the park, and the first ride (“Big Thunder Mountain”, for example) has a wait time of 65 mins, we can select the next LL time which would be about 15 to 20 mins less. For example, if it’s 1PM, then we can enter at 1:45PM instead of 2:05PM. Makes sense? This means that for the first 45 mins of the visit, we are just sitting around, since other rides have a comparable queue wait time, and Jon is not interested in anything else. Rinse. Repeat for the next ride. This is difficult for him, especially since he likes to “go again” a number of times before moving on to the next one.

I must confess, I’m not being fair to Disney. I know they have to make a buck. So they do offer such a thing, in the form of a VIP Tour, for a low price of $450 to $850 PER HOUR, depending on how much VIP-ing you want. We just want to enjoy the rides. Is that too much to ask? What will it cost them to make an exception? What will it cost them to be considerate? This all means that unless you have such disposable income, you’re not “very important”. And given the recent policy and attitude changes we’ve seen, it seems we are not important at all.

After spending seven hours today at The Magic Kingdom, Jon and I wound up riding three attractions, two of which we rode twice, but we needed to go. I had things to do, and I was getting tired. My body was hurting. I’m getting old, and it’s only going to get worst. As of today, Jon is 28 years old, yet he look so young. I’m 56 and I’m feeling very old. Earlier this year, while Jon and I were in queue for Big Thunder Mountain, I saw two men ahead of us that caught my eye. One was probably in his forties and the other somewhere in his late 60s or early 70s. The younger one was mentally disabled. He acted just like Jon. The older man looked tired, but I could see he was doing this out of love. I felt sad because I had just seen our future.

On their first day at work, Disney Cast Members (I guess the word “employee” is derogatory) go through an orientation known as “Traditions” (at least, they did), which try to instill traditions as well as ideals of Walt Disney. Ultimately, they are told not to “ruin the magic”. I guess these days, that’s still true — for a price.