When it comes to the ever-increasing prices at Disney World and Disneyland, you have to laugh, otherwise, you might start to weep. Theme park tickets see price increases yearly, almost to the day, but the parks also find new ways to charge guests for experiences, and the most recent was even name-dropped by Colin Jost during an installment of Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update, which I just caught.
The recent launch of Lightning Lane Premiere Pass, an eye-wateringly expensive way of bypassing lines at attractions, received a few seconds of time amid the latest edition of Weekend Update this past weekend. I appreciate the joke, but I do have to point out that it actually glosses over a potentially bigger issue.
How SNL Poked Fun At Disney World’s Price Increases
Last month, Disney World and Disneyland announced Lightning Lane Premier Pass, a new premium option that gives guests the ability to pay to skip attraction lines, without having to wait for certain time windows like the current Lightning Lane Multi-Pass and Lightning Lane Single Pass Options. Colin Joest appeared on Weekend Update, and he came up with a secondary solution that doesn’t cost as much. Check out the clip below for the answer:
It’s a solid joke, and one that theme park devotees who watch are going to get. The idea that a person might fake a disability in order to get special treatment at Disney World is one that everybody can understand. The problem is the joke overlooks the fact that disability access at Disney Parks has actually gotten a lot worse.
SNL’s Joke Is Funny, But It’s Missing Something
To be clear, the SNL joke made me laugh, and I’m not expecting anybody in the writer’s room to understand the nuances of Disney World’s Disability Access Services (DAS) enough to realize that the barb isn’t entirely accurate. In fact, a quip closer to the truth wouldn’t have been as funny.
Having said that, as somebody who visits Disney Parks frequently, (and writes about its locations here at CinemaBlend), I know too much about this topic, so the joke has problems. For one, even before Disney World and Disneyland introduced Lightning Lane Premiere Pass, the parks made massive changes to DAS to the point that to be honest, showing up at the park in a wheelchair won’t necessarily get you anything.
Also, Disney Parks has claimed that there has been widespread fraud within DAS, leading to a lot of people getting access to it that should not have it. Disney World banned many independent tour guides recently and cited abuse of the DAS system as part of the reason. More recently, the rules for DAS changed, leading fewer people qualifying for it than previously.
It’s not news that abuse of DAS is something that happens. Years ago, there were reports of people in wheelchairs essentially renting themselves out so that groups could skip lines. There certainly were people taking advantage of the system.
Having said that, it’s been suggested that the recent crackdown to fix the abuse has been specifically designed to get people to pay for Lightning Lane access. So the truth, which isn’t very funny is that using a wheelchair isn’t an alternative to paying to skip the line. It’s actually the other way around. But, as I said, this explanation isn't my way of chastising Weekend Update but simply illuminating some key information.
