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The thing I never understand is disabled parking it places like Disneyland. Ok so it’s closer to the park entrance, is that useful to people, does the distance magically not count once you’re inside the compound?
Wheel chairs are not the only disability. There are lots of people who have limited mobility, for whom adding a trek across the parking lot is too much on top of walking the park. Even a non-electric wheelchair is a hardship to push (for the person sitting or someone assisting them).
Disneyland Paris has those conveyor belts from the parking anyway, so the distance doesn’t even matter if you’re standing or sitting in a wheelchair.
But yeah, handicap privileges are useful.
The actual reason for handicap spaces isn’t really about walking distance.
Handicaps can be all sorts of different than that. For instance, someone with a lack of bladder control, where time is more important than distance. If you just shat your diaper, you definitely will mind a ten minute conveyor belt ride with other people in comparison to being parked close to the facilities.
Some/most theme parks also has the option to skip the ride queue for handicapped people. It’s not about people in wheel chairs being able to stand in a queue physically, they obviously can. It’s as much about timing the staff to be able to accommodate them.
Then there are all the handicapped people with mental disabilities. Putting them in queue might trigger all kinds of responses. It’s not just about them being distressed. It’s also their helpers and any random persons around who benefit from letting them skip that situation altogether. Also the whole toilet thing again. These queue lines are so narrow that you can’t just exit if you have to, for one or another.
Anyway… there’s one thing I can’t stand. It’s the fast lane pay-to-skip queues tickets that allow rich assholes to go in front of everyone else. Fuck everything about that. Even if the tickets are affordable, it just shouldn’t exist. What happens when everyone can afford them? Just another fucking queue in a different line right? That’s what Disneyland is by now: A milking lot for rich people.
They’re the only ones who can afford it, and they’re all getting fast lane tickets and they’re all standing in queue for mediocre rides that are supposed to be the time of their life just for instagram.
So, if you see a handicapped person in a theme park, just smile, and remember that this might actually be the highlight of the year to be there, even if it means that they are a bit inconvenient for others.
This counts for temporary and invisible disabilities too, like recent hip surgery or a chronic migraine disorder. If you need to grab something important from the car, like medication or a breathing device, having it close to the entrance can make or break the difference between a bad day and a bad day in the ER.
In my early 20’s I took a date to an amusement park while she had a broken foot. Almost all of the roller coasters had elevated stations, and all of them had elevators, a couple had ADA compliant queues, all ramps no stairs. We rented a wheelchair from the park, I mostly pushed her, we’d take the elevator up to the station, get on the roller coaster being careful not to whack her cast on anything, enjoy the ride, then take the elevator back down to sidewalk level.
They didn’t issue her a handicapped placard for a foot in a cast but it would have been nice, she did the distance between the car and guest services on crutches.
The thing I never understand is disabled parking it places like Disneyland. Ok so it’s closer to the park entrance, is that useful to people, does the distance magically not count once you’re inside the compound?
Wheel chairs are not the only disability. There are lots of people who have limited mobility, for whom adding a trek across the parking lot is too much on top of walking the park. Even a non-electric wheelchair is a hardship to push (for the person sitting or someone assisting them).
Disneyland Paris has those conveyor belts from the parking anyway, so the distance doesn’t even matter if you’re standing or sitting in a wheelchair.
But yeah, handicap privileges are useful.
The actual reason for handicap spaces isn’t really about walking distance.
Handicaps can be all sorts of different than that. For instance, someone with a lack of bladder control, where time is more important than distance. If you just shat your diaper, you definitely will mind a ten minute conveyor belt ride with other people in comparison to being parked close to the facilities.
Some/most theme parks also has the option to skip the ride queue for handicapped people. It’s not about people in wheel chairs being able to stand in a queue physically, they obviously can. It’s as much about timing the staff to be able to accommodate them.
Then there are all the handicapped people with mental disabilities. Putting them in queue might trigger all kinds of responses. It’s not just about them being distressed. It’s also their helpers and any random persons around who benefit from letting them skip that situation altogether. Also the whole toilet thing again. These queue lines are so narrow that you can’t just exit if you have to, for one or another.
Anyway… there’s one thing I can’t stand. It’s the fast lane pay-to-skip queues tickets that allow rich assholes to go in front of everyone else. Fuck everything about that. Even if the tickets are affordable, it just shouldn’t exist. What happens when everyone can afford them? Just another fucking queue in a different line right? That’s what Disneyland is by now: A milking lot for rich people.
They’re the only ones who can afford it, and they’re all getting fast lane tickets and they’re all standing in queue for mediocre rides that are supposed to be the time of their life just for instagram.
So, if you see a handicapped person in a theme park, just smile, and remember that this might actually be the highlight of the year to be there, even if it means that they are a bit inconvenient for others.
Wdym? Surely reducing any travelling for people with mobility issues is a benefit, non?
This counts for temporary and invisible disabilities too, like recent hip surgery or a chronic migraine disorder. If you need to grab something important from the car, like medication or a breathing device, having it close to the entrance can make or break the difference between a bad day and a bad day in the ER.
In my early 20’s I took a date to an amusement park while she had a broken foot. Almost all of the roller coasters had elevated stations, and all of them had elevators, a couple had ADA compliant queues, all ramps no stairs. We rented a wheelchair from the park, I mostly pushed her, we’d take the elevator up to the station, get on the roller coaster being careful not to whack her cast on anything, enjoy the ride, then take the elevator back down to sidewalk level.
They didn’t issue her a handicapped placard for a foot in a cast but it would have been nice, she did the distance between the car and guest services on crutches.