A dream is a wish your pocketbook makes

A dream may have been a wish that Cinderella’s heart made, but, Jiminy Cricket, if you’re a well-heeled NYC parent and not a hearth-sweeping skivvy, a dream is a wish that your pocketbook makes come true.

Or so it seem, based on an article in the NY Post – and when are they ever wrong?  -  on hush-hush, word of mouth service that, for about $1K a day, is (make that was) helping folks who had better things to do than wait on line tapping their Tod’s in the broiling Florida sun. Hel-lo-o!

The workaround is hiring a disabled person to become an ad hoc member of your family, letting you cut ahead of the common folks and whisk yourself right into a ride.

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.

“You can’t go to Disney without a tour concierge,’’ she sniffed. “This is how the 1 percent does Disney.”, who hired a disabled guide through Dream Tours Florida. (Source: NY Post, by way of boston.com)

This came to light, by the way, because of social anthropologist Wednesday Martin’s research for a book entitled Primates of Park Avenue. That sounds like a good one. Can’t wait.

As for giving those with disabilities a break, believe me, I am in complete sympathy with those who need to use handicap parking, etc.

I have an old and dear friend with crippling rheumatoid arthritis. Forty years (and twenty operations) into dealing with it, she can’t walk all that fast or all that far, and has no use of her fingers. She has handicapped parking tag and, believe me, she needs (and deserves) to use it.

I have another old and dear friend who after surviving ghastly treatment for malignant mesothelioma – no, it doesn’t just happen to asbestos miners; it happens to librarians who work in asbestos-ridden old libraries – has to use one of those motorized scooters to get around in.

However, I do believe that plenty of those folks buzzing around in motorized scooters have a problem getting around because they’re obese, not because they have a disability. So, right off the bat, it doesn’t seem fair that just because you’ve signed up with The Scooter Store, you get to cut line with your posse.

But, sure, for folks in wheelchairs and those who really do need help walking, life is crappy enough as it is, why not give them a break. (Disney, by the way, doesn’t guarantee preferred ride boarding. They just promise a “more convenient entrance.” But those discerning NYC mothers swear by it.)

Hiring someone in a wheelchair or scooter to play ‘poor Aunt Hephzibah’ so you and your precious little ones can scoot to the head of the line: just despicable. (Gives new meaning to ‘hire the handicapped’, that’s for sure.)

Dream Tours, the group that was the supposed go-to for the NYC elite, is a Florida non-profit that is:

Dedicated to providing quality based, memorable, and affordable vacations, to people with special needs.

Well, I suppose you could argue that Rollo the Rich Dude and his brood have special needs, if you consider not feeling like standing in line to get into “It’s a Small World” a special need. (Personally, I’d pay a thousand dollars a day not to get into “Small World” but that’s, after all, just me.)

Dream Tours is focused primarily on adults with special needs. In the words of their home page: We specialize in accessible travel. The company takes individuals and groups on tours of Disneyland, and runs other tours – a cruise, trip to the Smokey Mountains – as well. Their web site is full of heart-warming pictures of families having fun.  Their web site also makes frequent use of Disney characters. Wonder if that’s Disney-approved, given that at one point a few years ago, Disney went after a family that carved Winnie the Pooh on their child’s gravestone. And their logo incorporates the cap of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. If they don’t have Disney permission, I suspect that they’ll be hearing from old Walt’s legal team any day now.

Dream Tours’ program goals include:

• To emphasize community inclusion for individuals with disabilities, fostering partnerships to provide access to the same social, cultural and recreational facilities and activities enjoyed by all citizens
• To provide enriching activities that are meant to challenge everyone’s own personal physical abilities and at the same time allow them to socialize with their peers in a safe environment
• To create a mechanism for sustainability, businesses, partnerships and grants, successfully continuing the program

Theirs is, at least nominally, a very laudable mission. But it may have been that “create a mechanism” goal that tripped them up.  After all, if you can rake in a thousand bucks taking a group of non-disabled POS’s around, and it helps support their efforts to work with those who are both in need and deserving of help, then their thinking may be ‘why not?’.  Maybe the secret handshake is that the New Yorkers know that they have to say that Little Lord Fauntleroy has ADHD, and Dream Tours doesn’t dig too deep. Is this maybe a case of doing the wrong thing for the right reason?

Ryan Clement, who founded and runs Dream Tours, is denying any malfeasance.  It was supposedly his assistant, Jacie Christiano, who was the tour guide on what it appears to have been one of their VIP Tours. 

Due to inaccurate press and slander, Dream Tours is not offering VIP tours at this time. Our focus has primarily always been providing magical vacations for adults with special needs and helping their dreams to come true.

As I learned time and again in small companies that were, as often as not, unintentional non-profits, when you move away from what your “focus has primarily always been” you tend to get in trouble.

Guess that’s what happened here.

And when that happens, donations – in the case of the small companies of my experience, these were donations masked as investments (or vise versa) – tend to dry up.

If they really were legitimate do-gooders, here’s hoping that Ryan and Jacie can get back on track. As it says under Jacie’s bio:

“Around here, however, we do not look back for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things…” Walt Disney

As for those queue-jumping NYC a-holes: shame on you for your cavalier behavior, and for what you’re teaching your children. (Just one of many dreadful things they’re teaching their kids, I’m certain.)

As for Disney, you may want to keep a closer eye on how many families “poor Aunt Hephzibah” rolls in with. You really don’t want to be encouraging liars and cheats. How un-Disney like. Sure, Disney is pretty expensive, and beyond the reach of many families. Nonetheless, doesn’t Disney still believe that “when you wish upon a star, makes no difference who your are”?