Friday, May 17, 2013

Disney World furious after report of wealthy people hiring disabled to skip lines

It has been a tough week for Disney: first they had to withdraw their copyright filing of 'Dia de los Muertos" because so many mexican american were outraged that Disney tried to copyright a religious and cultural Latin America tradition, then arrived the Merida re-look problem and Disney finally announced today that the new look of Merida was cancelled - as a petition was signed by 200.000 people (!), and finally arrived the "rich hiring disabled people to cut lines at WDW" scandal, but this time it's not Disney which is to blame.





A company called Dream Tours Florida was proposing WDW guide tours for $1000 a day, which is already insane, but wait the best is yet to come as the guides were disabled people! ...thanks to whom the rich families were able to cut lines as disabled guests have a special access on all rides. It looks like a summit of cynism, and it is. Disney is of course furious and promised to take legal actions against this infamous guide tours but all medias are already talking about this. And this was revealed by Wednesday Martin, an author from New York that you can see in the CNN video below, who released this story curiously at the time of release of her new book precisely talking about the crazy "1%" rich people! Cynism is everywhere indeed.




Videos: copyright CNN, RT

6 comments:

FZ said...

Okay, what these people did was not right, but the way this story is being covered is ridiculous. First off, there are a lot worse crimes going on in the world, this is not exactly the worst kind of thing people can do to each other.

Secondly, the way this story is being used to make political points is disgusting. It's all about class warfare and further demonizing "the rich" and the so-called one percent. That's idiotic because there are good and bad in all groups. A fraction of "the rich" doing something like this does not make all of them bad. Besides, since when is this kind of behavior confined to "the rich?" Do you think middle class or working class or whatever guests never fake being handicapped so they can cut to the front of the line? And hell, how does the media know that some of the guests who took advantage of this operation were not actually rich, but people who had simply saved up the money? And the handicapped "guides", were they rich too?

Third, talk about cynicism. I find the timing of this cynical, as it's obvious this so called author Wednesday whatever (who herself probably makes a nice living) waited to break this story just before her hateful book is to be released to gain maximum publicity from it and sell more copies. So she is little more than a shameful hypocrite.

And lastly, I notice the media is giving this far more attention than they gave the horrendous behavior of the anti"1%" "Occupy Movement", which was guilty of rapes, robberies, property damage, public defecation, blackmail and harassing people among other things. All of which are crimes a lot worse than paying handicapped people to cut in line at a theme park.

So this is yet more typical mainstream media partisan polemics disguised as reporting. And shame on you Alain for playing along with it. It's one thing for you to report on this since it is about Disney, but it's another for you to give publicity to this Wednesday person and her extremist ideology as you did. The "1%" aren't crazy, this woman is.

Alain Littaye said...

FZ, believe me i'm not trying at all to give publicity to the author, if you've read well my article as i'm sure you did i'm saying that i suspect her to be as cynical ( by talking about this just days before her book is released ) than the people who've paid the disabled persons to cut the line.
And, if you want to have my feeling about this affair, i would be tempted to say: and so what? it's not moral, i agree, but the disabled people make $1000 a day which is not that bad specially considering they spend the day in rides at WDW, and no one is hurt in all this, it's a kind of win-win situation for both of them. Sure there is plenty of cynism in all this and it's really not cool for the others kids waiting in line and not cheating, but, hey, for this kind of 1% - as i'm sure there is also good people in the 1% - cynism is "business as usual".
I, personally, wouldn't do it but i'm not surprised at all that it exist and understand why non-1% people can be outraged, specially in this time of difficult economy.
I think that people start to understand that cynism, little by little, is destroying the world and all i can say is that it was about time they finally had the vision of it.

FZ said...

Oh, and by the way this accusation may not be accurate. It seems this group Dream Tours Inc. has been around for a while and specializes in giving tours and other services to families with disabilities. So this may very well be a case of misrepresentation of what the group was doing. It was not necessarily some random "rich people" paying handicapped guides to cut the lines, but *families* with disabled members taking advantage of the same opportunities given to all disabled guests. After all, why pay 1000 dollars just to cut lines when you can rent a cart for 60 and pass off one of your group members as being disabled, anyway?

Just thought I'd provide the objective balance and caution which the media, this two faced author, and unfortunately our webmaster didn't bother to engage in.

Alain Littaye said...

FZ, when you have on one side a TV channel as serious as CNN talking about this and on the other side Disney and his lawyers saying they will take action against the tours organizer it's hard to think that the whole story is just bullshit.
Why Disney would threaten to sue if there was nothing? If all in this story was fake Disney very probably would be the first to announce it as the only one really damaged in all this story is Disney, or more precisely, the image of Disney. Which is absurd as they're not responsible but that's how most of the people will probably take it "WDW, the place where wealthy people can ALSO cut lines thanks to their money".
This is why Disney reacted quickly and strongly to this affair, and this is why i think it is true.

Marco Antonio Garcia said...

Alain, even though not a lot of people know about it, WDW really is, "the place where wealthy people can ALSO cut lines thanks to their money", "legally", but it cost more than USD 1,000, for the whole day it costs almost three times that amount (for a group of up to 10 people), all you have to do is take a Premium VIP Tour and you can cut most lines in the park.

You can also do that at Universal, just buy a front of the line ticket, and even here in São Paulo, at our modest theme park (Hopi Hari), people can buy passes to cut the lines...

If Disney lower the price of the Premium VIP Tours, for, let's say, USD 15O per hour an advertise the service, they could probably take these people out of business without any legal action.

Marco Antonio Garcia said...

Hello Alain!

I don't know if you've seen my yesterday's comment (probably there was an error when I posted it), but Disney itself gives the possibility for the wealthy to cut the lines thanks to their money, through the Premium VIP tours that costs USD 295 per hour and, among other benefits, gives you the right to cut most lines and have preferred viewing in shows and parades, the thing is that Disney don't advertise it, so most people don't know about it.

Universal also gives wealthy people the possiblity to cut lines, through the Express pass, but it's much cheaper than a Premium VIP tour and, unlike Disney, Universal advertises it.

Even our modest park here in São Paulo, Hopi Hari, sell passes to cut lines.