How to Beat the Lines at Walt Disney World

Some families with money to burn have found a nefarious way to bypass long lines at Walt Disney World in Florida: hire a disabled person to be part of your family for the day.  

The “black-market Disney guides” run $130 an hour, or $1,040 for an eight-hour day.

“My daughter waited one minute to get on ‘It’s a Small World’ — the other kids had to wait 2 1/2 hours,” crowed one mom, who hired a disabled guide through Dream Tours Florida.

“You can’t go to Disney without a tour concierge,’’ she sniffed. “This is how the 1 percent does Disney.”

The woman said she hired a Dream Tours guide to escort her, her husband and their 1-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter through the park in a motorized scooter with a “handicapped” sign on it. The group was sent straight to an auxiliary entrance at the front of each attraction.

Disney allows each guest who needs a wheelchair or motorized scooter to bring up to six guests to a “more convenient entrance.”

Link  -via Digg

(Image credit:Flickr user Joe Penniston)


You couldn't pay me enough to guide a random family expecting privileged treatment through that terrible place. Add to it that they're using me and I think I'd start tipping ride operators to leave their harnesses a bit on the insecure side.
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This makes no sense. You can rent a scooter or wheelchair at Disney for $50 or less per day. There is no verification of disability to do this. If you are willing to be nefarious, just pretend to be disabled and ride around in a scooter yourself all day.
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My wife and children went with friends last year (I had to stay home and work, boo hoo). The week before the trip my wife injured her foot (for real) and had to use a cane to limp around. Our friends, veteran Disneygoers, got her a special pass to skip the lines but a doctor's note was required to obtain the pass.

In Italy, however, it's a different story: my father (who has patial parylasis on his right side causing a distinct limp) took me to Italy while I was in college studying art. The Italians would not allow him to wait in line for museums. They would spot him, take him out of the line and walk both of us into the museum past the line and waive the charge to boot. It was an unexpected courtesy. I love Italians, wonderful people!
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It's true... I've been to Disneyland with a legitimately wheelchair-bound person AND been stuck in one myself (thanks to an unexpected bout with a severely-debilitating round of norovirus during my trip), and I can totally confirm that a) having a chair doesn't allow you to skip all the lines ... in fact, the newer the ride, the less likely you'll get cuts, and b) Disney doesn't check or anything when you rent that chair in the first place. All I had to do was say 'I've been really ill, I can't walk for very long' and boom, chair. (and chair-related sunburn but that's another issue.)

Hiring someone to ferry you around is definitely something for the people with money to burn, and that's fine, that's why tour guides exist. But cutting lines as the primary reason? Nah. These people just want someone to ferry them around and treat them special, and if they want to fork over lots of cash to do it, then fine, that's why it's a business.

Also, just for the record... as a big Disneyphile, I can say that skipping the lines and going in the side entrance actually detracts from the ride, for me anyway. They're always unadorned access doors, pretty much, and you lose the immersion that is part and parcel of the Disney experience. The Haunted Mansion used to have a 'secret pet cemetery' that only the handicapped visitors got to see (it's over on the left side and hidden from the main queue) but after it got around, they moved a duplicate version out into the main queue anyway. And I've always felt riding back up in the 'stretching room' sort of ruins the illusion.
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It's cheaper just to:
1) wear shorts;
2) take a Hershey bar out of it's wrapper and tuck it inside your underwear.
As it slowly melts throughout the day, and chocolate oozes down your leg, other customers don't want to stand next to you in line for 2 hours. They'll leave and come back to that ride later.

This also ensures your own private log on the water ride.
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