DAS with a party of 9?

herrmannpt

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jan 5, 2008
We are heading to Disney World in early June with my son who has ASD. We will also be traveling with my parents, brother, SIL and niece. All together we will be a party of 9. We are DVC members and travel to Disney frequently as our immediate family of 4 people, but this is our first time traveling with extended family and during a busy season. We know our son's needs and that he will need the DAS. Will Disney allow a party of 9? If not, I need to start prepping him now because he will be very upset if he can't ride rides with his cousin and grandparents. Anyone have any experience with this?
 
The max is 6 people you can talk to the CM at GR and see what they say they may be able to add all 9 to the DAS and then at each ride chose 6 to go with him and 3 people do the stand by might be the best.

But if you can I would tell him that with the DAS you can have 6 people on it, tell him that you will talk to the CM at Gr and see if you all can not be put on the DAS and then at the attraction you will then need to see how many people they can add. ( I do not some with ASD need things to be black and white so this maybe hard for him, but I do not thing anyone here will know for 100% certen what will happen)

I have heard that when the DAS first went on the MB they could only do 6 people at the attraction do not know if this is still the case or not.
 
They have been known to make exceptions to the party number, but the stated number is 6.

I was wondering about that myself as the next time we go we will be a party of 9 as well. They ask now when you get your return time who else is going on. I imagine that they may start adding parties greater than 6 to the DAS party, but then limit it to 6 when the return time is selected.
 
Guest Relations can link the full party to his DAS. However, you may not be allowed a return time for the whole crew. I've heard varying reports that CMs giving the return times do not have the ability to select more than 5 (+ DAS holder) -- no option to override it for a larger party. Possibly those CMs weren't fully or adequately trained, or maybe the over-ride must be set by Guest Relations. I suggest you have a back-up plan for splitting if necessary. Since you are familiar with the DAS, you probably have a good idea of how many and which rides he's likely to use it for each day.

Enjoy your vacation!
 
I would get FP+ for your priority rides, for the whole group. Usually a few attractions can be done standby with a short wait. Then work around the 6 person limit, with various adults skipping rides.

Have a great time! It must be fun to travel with a group like that.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I was hoping it would be easier, but I realize they have to cap the number somewhere. It will just take more planning on my part to try to minimize meltdowns! I know my son will be most upset if he can't ride with his cousin. She'll be celebrating her 7th Birthday while we're there and it's her first time going, so I definitely don't want her to have to do any rides without her parents. My mother will be with us who has several medical issues and will need an ECV, so I know she'll want to stick to the more tame rides. I guess the strategy will be to get FP+ for rides we can all enjoy with typically long waits (like Peter Pan) and use the DAS for my son's favorites (7DMT, BTMR, Space Mountain). Good to know we can add everyone to the pass and just mix and match which 5 can accompany my son on the rides. Still concerned about the crowds in June and not sure how early we can realistically make it to the parks with such a big group and the fact that transportation can take longer with an ECV...
 


I called yesterday about our family - we are 11 people, 7 of them children. The cast member said as long as when the card is issued they actually see all of the people, there is no problem accommodating a larger size party, with no official cap. 6 is just considered the average group size.
 
I called yesterday about our family - we are 11 people, 7 of them children. The cast member said as long as when the card is issued they actually see all of the people, there is no problem accommodating a larger size party, with no official cap. 6 is just considered the average group size.

Unfortunately you can't depend on that happening once you are at WDW. The phone CMs seem to be wrong as often as they are right.
 
I called yesterday about our family - we are 11 people, 7 of them children. The cast member said as long as when the card is issued they actually see all of the people, there is no problem accommodating a larger size party, with no official cap. 6 is just considered the average group size.

Just letting you know when you call you aren't speaking to someone with any authority over DAS. There are official caps with 6 total being the written cap and more being the exception.
 
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Unfortunately you can't depend on that happening once you are at WDW. The phone CMs seem to be wrong as often as they are right.

Just letting you know when you call you aren't speaking to someone with any ahthority over DAS. There are official caps with 6 total being the written cap and more being the exception.

This is right The phone CM know nothing when it comes to Disney. I would plane on not being able to have all 11 in your group get on the return time with the DAS holder, now all 11 being on the DAS card yes I can see this. ( and being on the card is different then on the return time)
 
Thanks for the feedback. I was hoping it would be easier, but I realize they have to cap the number somewhere. It will just take more planning on my part to try to minimize meltdowns! I know my son will be most upset if he can't ride with his cousin. She'll be celebrating her 7th Birthday while we're there and it's her first time going, so I definitely don't want her to have to do any rides without her parents. My mother will be with us who has several medical issues and will need an ECV, so I know she'll want to stick to the more tame rides. I guess the strategy will be to get FP+ for rides we can all enjoy with typically long waits (like Peter Pan) and use the DAS for my son's favorites (7DMT, BTMR, Space Mountain). Good to know we can add everyone to the pass and just mix and match which 5 can accompany my son on the rides. Still concerned about the crowds in June and not sure how early we can realistically make it to the parks with such a big group and the fact that transportation can take longer with an ECV...

They can often (not always) give you a return time for everyone together. However, they still may need you to split up a bit depending on the attraction since you will have an ECV User with you. For example at Mickey's Philharmagic the very back row is reserved for ECVs/WCS. There are only a few seats to go with each HC spot. If you all enter the row with the ECV user, your party would probably take up at least half of the seats in that row. So you may be asked to split up and 1 or 2 go with the ECV user and then the other 6 or 7 could sit in the next row in front. So please understand why they may need you to be flexible in that way.
 
I have been allowed to link a party of 8 to the band. However, for very busy rides, the return time may only be allowed for 6 guests at a time. It all really depends on the crowds at the park, the wait time on the ride, the CMs working at the time.

DAS is designed to be a fair system for all, so I have never tried to push it limits. Even with 8 people linked, we have always stuck to getting return times for 6 or less of us at a time on popular rides. Rides like Frozen and SDMT would be unlikely to honor more than the set limit of six.
 
I had a party of 13 when we were there last summer but as there were 3 families, I only linked myself, my 2 kids and then my sister in law and niece as they were staying with us. Das unfortunately isn't made for an entire extended family to use as that would be an unfair advantage when there is only one party that needs the special access. What we did was fast pass certain rides together and then use the DAS so that the kids and adults that don't go all the time could ride the rides. I was fine with sitting out as I go every year. Another strategy we used was the 5 of us would get a return time and the others would go in stand by and we would often end up hitting the ride about the same time and often still got to ride together.
 
6 is the usual limit for size of the group.
You may be able to get more than 6 linked (we have personally had as many as 9), but we were told that anything over 6 was considered an exception and a supervisor or lead may need to authorize the larger group.

As was already mentioned, 6 might be the largest number that can be used at particular attractions.
 
Just updating: We were there March 24-29th and had no problem getting the DAS and using it with all 11 of our party.

It looks like you have a lot of children, 2-3 adults? That's different. They aren't going to make you choose between kids if at all possible.

OP - look at the ride vehicles, and pick the ones that keep most of your family in one vehicle to use your FP+ on. That way, your son will see the family together. Some attractions have you in so many separate cars that 'being together' is impossible anyways. You could be in 5-6 ride vehicles.
 
This is exactly our question for the upcoming trip at the end of this month. My sister and I will be travelling with 6 kids (15-13-10-7-4-2). The 10 year old needs DAS. I hope they will allow the group to go together because honestly the only other way would be to send one mom with the 2 teens and the other mom alone with the other 4 including the one who needs the DAS. Doesn't make sense since I'm going along to lend my sister assistance with her young family, my 13 yo is coming along and the 15 yo is the younger kids sitter also there to help. There are other ways to split the group all of which will involve various difficulties. Or I let her go with her family and I wait in the regular line with my 13yo. It will be hard for her to manage all the kids without another adult. Or I just don't go on the rides. But my 13yo will want to go. Anyhow, we will figure it out.
 
This is exactly our question for the upcoming trip at the end of this month. My sister and I will be travelling with 6 kids (15-13-10-7-4-2). The 10 year old needs DAS. I hope they will allow the group to go together because honestly the only other way would be to send one mom with the 2 teens and the other mom alone with the other 4 including the one who needs the DAS. Doesn't make sense since I'm going along to lend my sister assistance with her young family, my 13 yo is coming along and the 15 yo is the younger kids sitter also there to help. There are other ways to split the group all of which will involve various difficulties. Or I let her go with her family and I wait in the regular line with my 13yo. It will be hard for her to manage all the kids without another adult. Or I just don't go on the rides. But my 13yo will want to go. Anyhow, we will figure it out.

Disney has rules about how old a child must be to ride without an adult - 7 and up. So your split above wouldn't work, as I'm assuming the 10 year old needs to sit with an adult as well? If there are 8 of you, and only two adults, you most likely will be able to ride together, on the rides the 2 year old is big enough to ride on. The 15 year old counts as an adult for splitting up the kids in the ride vehicles, BTW. Also, the 2 year old won't have a park ticket, so not sure how that works for DAS?
 

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