How the Disney disability card works: 9 tips for parents of kids with special needs

How the Disney disability card works is something a whole lot of parents have been wondering since the new one came out in October. Our family has visited Disney World a couple of times and, like many, had excellent experiences using the former Guest Assistance Card (GAC). Basically, we walked into rides using an alternate entrance, bypassing lines.

Doing Disney this way is key for Max, who has sensory issues that make standing in a crowd and loud noises scary. Although he is able to handle short waits, he can't deal with long or indoor ones—he gets anxious, loses it and starts screeching. He's also got endurance challenges; he is a good walker, but because of the cerebral palsy he is unable to stand for extended periods of time.

When you've had blissful—not to mention easy—times at Disney using the GAC card, change can be particularly hard. But it had to happen because of pervasive abuse of the system. The Disability Access Service Card is here to stay, and as parents of kids with special needs know all too well how to do, you have to adapt to it. Although it's a more intricate system, it still enabled us to avoid major waits, and we made some discoveries that also smoothed the way.  

1. First, know how the card works.
Disneyland has two parts: Disneyland Park, with themed lands including Frontierland, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, and Disney California Adventure, which includes Cars Land (aka Max's Holy Land) and Hollywood Land. We were there for four days, with Park Hopper tickets. If you're at Disneyland Park, you pick up the DAS Card at Guest Relations at City Hall (immediately to your left when you walk into the park).

We got our pass at California Adventure's Guest Relations in the Chamber of Commerce (also to the left when you walk in). There were about six or seven staffers there. The one I spoke with was cheerful, respectful and nice. When I said I had a child with special needs, she asked "What kind of accommodations does your child need?"

I explained that Max has challenges waiting on lines, because of sensory issues, and that he tires easily because he has cerebral palsy. She immediately said we could get a DAS Card. She walked around the desk and snapped a photo of Max with an iPad. (If you're not comfortable using your child's photo, an adult can take one in his place.)

Although we rented a wheelchair ($12 a day) for when Max got tired walking around (he'd outgrown the rental stroller), being in a wheelchair does not give you additional leeway. Only wheelchair users who also have behavioral or sensory issues with long queues can get a DAS Card. However, if lines on a ride are too narrow, wheelchair users can still access it through the exit or alternate entrance, as before. For parents whose kids use a stroller as a wheelchair, there's a red tag you can get at Guest Relations.

The DAS Card is good for your entire family. Just one key thing: Your child needs to be present for all of you to go on the ride. The card works for large parties, too, as I learned when I was wandering around with Max and got a tweet from a fellow blogger who said she'd just spotted Sabrina and Dave at Cars Land (it's a small world after all). Julie was traveling with her extended family, a party of 12, and the DAS Card worked for all of them. It's good for the length of your stay, or 14 days if you're a local or annual pass holder after which you need to get a new one.

Based on my observations (as well as insights from cast members I asked), your best bet is getting the Disability Access Service Card at California Adventure if you plan on going there too, because the line tends to be shorter. I saw cast members head outside with iPads to talk with waiting guests and keep things moving. If you're only going to Disneyland, Guest Relations gets busier as the day goes on, so hit it when you arrive.

Once you have the card, you tell the Guest Relations staffer which ride you'd like to go on first and she checks the wait time. She writes the name of the attraction, the current time, the current wait time and an assigned return time on the card. Then she tries to guess your weight! OK, not that.

If a ride's wait time is less than ten minutes, you just show your DAS Card and head through the Fastpass queue or an alternate entrance, depending on the ride. If the wait time is more than ten minutes, you get a return time that is 10 minutes less than the current wait time. So if the current wait time is 40 minutes, you'll get a return time for 30 minutes later. (Because we were there during a super-busy time, we were assigned returns 20 minutes less than the wait time.)

If that's making your head spin, forget about it and know this: You can actually return to a ride at any point after the assigned time, on the same day, so there's flexibility there.

That said, you can't book a new ride till the last one is crossed out by a staffer.

When we got to a ride, a cast member would tell us where to go and draw a line through the ride on the card. We usually ended up in a segregated area with just a few people, and typically waited less than five minutes. When you're ready to book the next ride, you stop at a Guest Relations kiosk. There are four in Disneyland (at Main Street, U.S.A; New Orleans Square; Fantasyland; and Tomorrowland). And there are four in California Adventure (at Buena Vista Street; Cars Land; Paradise Pier; and A Bug's Land). We never had much of a wait.

Guest relations stand at Fantasyland

2. Be super-specific about your child's needs.
With the old card, you also had to explain your child's needs to a cast member at Guest Relations. (Because of privacy laws, Disney can't ask for documentation about disability.) But with the new system, it's more important than ever for the cast member to understand what a child's challenges are. Even if you think that advocating for your child in The Happiest Place on Earth doesn't seem quite right, the truth is the better they understand your child's needs, the more accommodating they can be.

In retrospect, I should have mentioned that we actually do not know whether Max will go on a ride until we are literally about to board. Even if it's not dark or loud, he just might not be into it. We'd thought a Jungle Cruise would be a nice, relaxing start to our trip and so that was our first assigned ride. We got there. "Noooo!" said Max.

If your child ends up not going on the ride you got the time for, you can use the card for instant access to another ride. But I soon realized that the whirlwind of hit-or-miss experiences at rides was going to be stressful. So after we stopped at Cars Land to meet Lightning McQueen, I headed back to the Chamber of Commerce and told a staffer that.

3. Behold: the other pass.
"I know exactly what you need," the cast member said. She ducked into a back room, then came out and handed me three of these:

This is a "re-ad," aka Attraction Readmission Pass, aka manna from Disney heaven. They enabled our family to access any ride through a Fastpass or alternate entrance without a booked time, and added some spontaneity back to our trip. I was told by one manager that families are allowed up to four re-ads a day. They are not standard issue with a DAS Card; they are doled out on a case-by-case basis.

Stuff you might be wondering at this point:

So, is it a pain to repeatedly book ride times?
Fun, it's not, but you get used to it. Your child does not need to be present to get a return time, so you or your partner or your carrier pigeon can go to the Guest Relations kiosk. Max isn't a kid who wants to go on ride after ride; in between we rode the Monorail, the Red Car Trolley at California Adventure and the Disneyland Railroad, and stalked Lightning McQueen.

How did you deal with waiting between rides?
We weren't taking Max on super-popular rides like Racers and Space Mountain, which have way longer waits than ones geared toward young children. The longest we ever had to loll around was a half hour, and we got ice-cream. In general, we didn't spend a lot of time waiting between rides. And if it had become an issue, I would have let Guest Relations know.

Can I use the DAS Card to meet characters? 

If your child can't handle the wait, let the person taking your info for the DAS Card know—you could get re-ad passes just for that. You might not even need one, though. When Max wanted to meet Sofia, but the line was overwhelming to him, I told the cast member what was up and asked him to hold a spot. We took a five-minute walk, and when we got back he immediately let Max hit on her—er, meet her.

Note: At Disney World, the DAS Card can be used at any character meet-and-greet that has a Fastpass, including Princess Fairytale Hall. (Disneyland doesn't have Fastpass character meet-ups.)

4. Repeat rides are OK. (Phew.)

I had a feeling Max would be particularly psyched about Autopia. Ding, ding, ding! He didn't even need his headphones on. The crew let him repeat his ride without standing online. One day, he went on three times in a row.    

Best five bucks I ever spent; Max showed it to the attendant every time.

This was a big score, as Max has issues with transitions. Other parents of kids with disabilities, like Emily at Colorado Moms whose son has autism, also report being able to repeat rides. Sometimes, cast members may ask that your child return to the Fastpass line then get back on, as happened at Tuck and Roll's Drive 'Em Buggies in A Bug's Land. Max did OK—he knew he was getting to ride again.

5. Use Fastpass and the DAS Card
It's a way to fit in more rides. Fastpass, for the uninitiated, is a free Disney service to help beat ride wait times; you go to the attraction, insert your admission ticket into a machine and it spits out a Fastpass coupon printed with a return time window—say, between 11:00 and 11:15 or 3:30 and 4:00 (wait times vary, and are randomly generated). You need one for each member in your party. Mostly, we used the DAS Card and our re-ads, and typically that was enough rides for Max. If we'd needed more re-ads, I wouldn't have hesitated to ask for them.

6. It really does pay to arrive early.
We were at the parks first thing in the morning. We took the Monorail from Downtown Disney; when it dropped us off at Tomorrowland, the area was still magically empty and once we were able to jump right on the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. (It was the only time Max had a meltdown—I knew part of the ride would be dark, but I'd thought his love for the movie might prevail. Nope.) Another morning, we showed up at Mickey's Toontown right when it opened. Max was first to see Mickey and explore his house, and there were minimal waits to meet the other characters.

 

7. Take heart, the shows are very accommodating.
Max still enjoys the Disney Junior channel, and several times a day a theater on Hollywood Boulevard in California Adventure has a Disney Junior—Live on Stage! show with the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse crew, Jake and that Never Land Pirates, Sofia the Great and Doc McStuffins. It lasts about 25 minutes.

The cast members let us wait right in front, and even offered to let Max go in first before anyone, but he refused.

So we left, and returned the next day. Again, Max was fearful. An especially nice cast member, Mike, tried to coax him in. Then he said, "We're going to get him in the back way" and took off. A few minutes later, he returned and escorted us through another doorway at the back of the auditorium. Max peered in cautiously from behind a curtain. Eventually, he went in, settled down and loved the show so much we had to go see it again the next day. Mike was there, gave a big "Hi, Max!" greeting then again let him in the back way. The shows were a highlight of the trip for him. Me, too, because I loved that he overcame his theaterphobia, and I loved seeing his fascination.

8. Sometimes, it's best to split up
I knew from past experience that it would best for our family to divide and conquer, so Sabrina could hit the rides she wanted to go on (basically, everything and anything). Dave and Sabrina went off in the afternoons, Max and I did our own thing, then we'd meet up for dinner. At night, Dave and Sabrina would return to the park. I never felt like we were sacrificing family time; each of us got to spend special time with the kids, and let them enjoy the parks in their own way.

9. If you can't get help, ask someone else.
I can't say enough good things about the cast members, who were exceptionally friendly and pleasant. Many took time to make conversation with Max or note, to his delight, "I love your Lightning McQueen sneakers!" We ran into just a couple of roadblocks. After misplacing our first DAS Card, I stopped by City Hall to get a new one. The staffer could not locate our information, ditto for the manager who came out. I wasn't up for explaining Max's needs all over again, and I left in frustration and later went to California Adventure's Chamber of Commerce. A cast member immediately found our record. She told me that the manager could have looked up information by our zip code—good to know if the same happens to you, given that it's still a new system.

Another time, we wanted to board the monorail at Tomorrowland and there was no way Max would wait on the long line. The cast member basically said sorry, nothing I can do (perhaps he'd forgotten to take his pixie-dust pill). But another cast member we bumped into a couple minutes later allowed us to enter via an alternate entrance when I explained Max's issues with crowds.

All in all, we had a great time. If Disney is game to tweak the DAS system, one welcome addition would be allowing card holders at Disneyland to get boarding times at the rides. Over at Disney World, that's how the DAS system works. Being able to get return times at both rides and kiosks would give parents of kids with special needs and people with disabilities more options—and the more, the magical-er. Or something like that.

Max found a world of entertainment outside the rides. The Pixar Play Parade in California Adventure—with his favorite characters from Toy Story, The Incredibles and Monsters University—was the first parade he ever saw live, and he didn't want it to end.

Then there were the little things that thrilled him, like watching the characters pop out at the It's A Small World clock tower.

When Max emerged from the Finding Nemo ride, weepy, we passed the Mine Mine Mine birds and he cracked up. We had to keep going back to see them, and he made me shoot this video.

Take a cue from the birds: If you're at Disneyland with a kid who has special needs, tell Guest Relations exactly what will make the visit yours, yours, yours. If necessary, do not hesitate to return and ask for more accommodations for your child, or different ones. Disney's new policy says that it provides service to guests with disabilities "that is responsive to their unique circumstances." Every kid and adult with special needs deserves that.

Disneyland provided complimentary media admission, but the opinions expressed here are my own.