A new trick of the 1% : Black-Market Tour Guides at Disney World

[Generic Other]

I must have missed this scandal:

The Week (and, earlier, the N.Y. Post) reports a new way for high-wage people to economize on time: when visiting Disney World, hire a “tour concierge” — a disabled person who uses his/her disability privileges to ignore waiting lines (and take the high-wage person and family with him/her ahead of the crowd).

http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/06/14/black-market-tour-guides-at-disney-world/

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.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/disney_world_srich_kid_outrage_zTBA0xrvZRkIVc1zItXGDP

[Rstrstx]

1. For the REAL 1% Disney offers their own form of this

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/vip-tour-services/

[jberryhill]

2. As if...

This was posted multiple times before, but if the question of distribution of wealth in the country is about lines at a cheesy overpriced environmental disaster of an amusement park in a swamp run by greedy bastards who have fucked up the copyright law, then something has really run off the rails of social justice priorities.

Disney is about selling bland commercial fantasy for money. I could give two shits about who gets to skip the line there. Any sane individual would pay $50 for a punch in the face before getting with 10 miles of the place.

[Generic Other]

4. Well I managed to miss seeing it

I was trying to figure out how many African Americans attend Disneyworld per year so I could see what kind of potential impact a boycott might have. I just stumbled on this story. And I thought it was indicative of the entitled 1% using and abusing their status in a "let them eat cake" sort of way.

I myself have never been to Disney's parks and I consider their copyright behavior to be hypocritical and beyond defense. They have stolen our cultural treasures with their corporate greed. I think they are as bad as Walmart, so I have boycotted them for years.

I never did find the answer to my original question though.

[Orrex]

7. Honestly I'm surprised that they employ actual handicapped people

I would have thought that they'd pay able-bodied actors to "play" handicapped for the day.

[jberryhill]

8. What I do...

...is sneak out of the Hall of Presidents with FDR and roll him around for the day.

[Gemini Cat]

10. Disney, McDonalds, and Walmart

the trinity of evil corporate horse shit.

[Orrex]

3. You'd have to pay me $1,040 to spend eight hours in Disney World.

Can't imagine setting foot in that hellhole.

[Generic Other]

6. Actually, I watched a bunch of funny videos

People who go to Disneyworld with the express purpose of getting inside the off-limits areas and filming their adventures. Those people looked like they had fun. Of course when they were caught, banned for life.

[PADemD]

9. The method we used to use at theme parks.

We got there when the park opened. The crowd always goes to the first rides they come upon and stand in line. We always went to the very end of the park and worked our way backward to the entrance. Never had a problem getting on rides. In fact, most of the time they were empty.

[bike man]

11. Many of the responses at these earler threads suggest that it is an opportunity

for a disabled person to make a fair sum of money for a day's work, while visiting the theme park.

I think it is a non-problem that doesn't need a solution.

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2843409

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022841832

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022927969

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022841355

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022844804