Changes to Special Access Policy

Are we sure they "found out" about something, and aren't trying a new method that would make things run more smoothly?

Remember, we are just going on guidelines posted to their website and have not actually seen the program in action yet.

My mom just died of cancer, so that probably made her truly disabled. She was given 2 years to live, and she was happy to live another day any day. Weather it be CP or not.

See now there are things vs. people in life. You can sit and argue over these things and debate the importance of them, but really you have people in life that matter most.

You act like this policy is such...a big deal. When you and your family can ride anything they want still. You make it seem like you and your friends and family can just never enjoy Cedar Point again. Now I understand its a change of policy, but you must understand some reasons why it is implemented.

Lastly, nobody likes a whiner. So with this I would like to ask you to quit whining, start enjoying life, and quit letting something so small play a large role in your already...fragile life.

^First of all do you even know what MS is? Its a slowly neurodegenerative
disease where your own body slowly but surely attacks the insulation around your nerves in your CNS (brain and spinal cord) causing you to loose both your nerual output (control of systems, muscle movemen) and imput (feeling.)

Factory, servo sounds like the person who absolutely hates to use this system, however her "not being able to not use it"=she is now confined to a wheelchair. Show a little bit of compassion here and ask how you would feel if you were slowly losing control over your own body.

This is a lose lose proposition to the park because you are either going to get abuse if your policy is too lax or you are going to inconvenience the disabled. Sadly the only thing that would prevent both would involve having a GS employee be a health care worker (doctor, nurse, something) and have the power to deem who gets to use the policy and who wont. Of course that will never happen, and to help make this easier I think that the park could possibly invest in some sort of communication for the disabled parties, like a walkie talkie, so that they could coordinate when both parts of their party could arrive on the platform.

thanks, TD. that was a good explaination and it meant a lot to me to read it. this JUST happened to me this weekend and i am STILL trying to get medical help for it. i have had this MS since 1997 and it progressed horribly in a matter of DAYS. dont mess with the flu. ever. so i am still trying to adjust and try to see where my "old" life fits in with my "new" one and the last thing i wanted was to see a policy change that makes my life harder. if that is seen as whining, fine.

but it is becoming VERY clear to me that this is an argument i cannot win here.

so all i ask is that when your guys see me at CP and i am one of those disabled people who holds you up for a train of extra waiting...remember i USED to be able to walk and stand in the regular line and say "there but for the grace of God". just dont push me down the Midway, complain that i made you wait or roll your eyes at me. that would add insult to injury and i asked for neither.

Having a disability myself I am very empathetic to those who need to go to the exit instead of waiting in the regular line.. although my disability allows me to wait in regular lines. I just have post-tramatic stress disorder, nothing that any doctor or therapist has a cure for, but I'm not physically handicap.

That being said I hope the new policy isn't hindering anyone from riding with just one rider instead of the entire group.

Everyone is there to have fun and enjoy themselves and not be singled out because of a disability.. that's just the way I see it.

Just how is the 2nd half of the group supposed to know when their party is through the line and going into the platform? Many of the platforms entrances and lines aren't even visible from the midway ( Mean Streak anyone). Have you ever tried to look into the coaster stations from the midway and find someone you are looking for? It's like finding a needle in a haystack.

Expect to see a lot of special access parties and their wheel chairs clogging up the exits this summer. And who can blame them for arriving early to find out if their friends have gotten to the platform yet.

One could argue that the two parties could call and alert the other of when they are getting close to the platform, but having a phone goes against loose article policy at many rides. What if a disabled guest wants to put their phone in a locker or not bring a phone into the park at all?

The two halves of the party will still want to ride together. Good customer service would have the ride ops doing their best to accommodate that request. So this means an op will still have to ask a row of riders to wait so that special access can ride with the rest of their party. I don't see how this eliminates guest inconvenience. If anything it just inconvenience a disabled group more.

I admire CP's attempt to curb abuse of the Special Access system, but feel the old way was significantly accommodating. I wish the non-disabled guests at the park (and a few here in this forum) weren't so judgmental and would show a little compassion for people in this situation. While waiting in line, people should stop speculating over whether or not someone is faking a disability and just assume that there is one.

A better solution to the abuse would be for the park to actually use the wheelchair accessible queues that they already have and continue building queues that accommodate wheelchairs. The park could also spend the money to upgrade the older queues too (as the Disney Parks have).