Hello all! My words have appeared on your computer screen once again! This time I am going to give you my review of Disney’s new Guest Assistance Card. As many of you know, this is a new system put in place earlier this year after the old guest assistance program was being taken advantage of.
Let me start off by saying why I need to use the GAC. I have a rare bladder disease known as Interstitial Cystitis. It causes frequent urination (sometimes every 20 minutes), it also causes abdominal and pelvic pain. I often get scolded by other park goers because I “don’t look sick”. Bottom line is, I need this card because I can’t wait in line standing for long periods of time because I will need to pee and I will experience severe pain.
I went to Disney World in June 2013 when the old system was still in place. Keep in mind, the whole scandal with the New York moms had just happened where they were paying disabled people to get them to the front of the lines. When I went to guest services to get my card, the cast member was hesitant about giving it to me. Although it was not necessary, I showed the cast member a letter from my doctor and I received my card. Using the card was so easy; I can see why people took advantage of it. All I had to do was show it to the cast member at the front of a ride or attraction and I was placed in the FastPass lane. It was great; the longest wait I had was about fifteen minutes. They let me keep hoping back in line too if I wanted to go on the ride again. There were barely any restrictions.
Let’s fast forward to the trip I just took in June 2014 with the new Guest Assistance Card (GAC). You can tell that Disney put some major thought into this new system. I went to guest services to get the card. I had to answer a few quick questions and have my picture taken. Boom Done. I had my card. The card has a lot of restrictions on it now. It works a lot like an old fastpass. This is how it works, you go up to an attraction you want to get on. Then a cast member will give you a return wait time which is about the same amount of time as the actual line. You cannot go and get another return time until you have entered the previous attraction and the cast member has crossed it off your card. To me, it seems like a lot more work on the cast member’s end. Disney has drilled them to strictly follow this policy to avoid history repeating itself.
With the new FastPass + system in place, cast members rather that you rely on that than on the GAC. As you can tell from the photo below, I only used my GAC a handful of times. This may also be due to the fact that I had complained to guest services the first day on my trip after a malfunction with our magic bands. Our buddy Nathan at Guest Services hooked us up with three additional fast passes a day. As you could probably assume, as long as you are strategic with planning your fast passes, there is little need for the GAC.
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