Firefighters confronted DeSantis’ governing board on Wednesday. “The removal of this benefit takes away, for some, their entire reason for working here."
My wife’s grandparents lived literally down the road from a theme park (not in Florida) and during the summers especially both vehicle and foot traffic on their street could be nuts. The theme park would give out a number of free passes to all the residents that lived within a certain distance as a way to apologize for having to put up with all the traffic. My wife and I used those free passes a couple times before her grandparents passed.
DeSantis and his cronies are major a**holes for taking a perk like this away from the very people who risk their own lives to keep others safe.
They’re spending 6.4 million taxpayer dollars on suing and countersuing Disney between this year and the next. While taking away a popular , family friendly benefit costing 2;5 million per year.
DeSantis is a legit Disney villain. They could make an animated film featuring him as a comically stupid bad guy.
Will they have to purchase tickets in the future if there is a fire in the Disney Resort? /s
“Oh my god quick come help there’s a fire at DisneyWorld!”
“Jeeeeez sure wish I could, but…”Don’t make DeSantis smile more than he already is
Honestly, I kind of agree with this. The state was paying for these passes, not Disney. Thats an inscestuous relationship between the state and private enterprise. It should never have been that way in the firstplace.
The offset of 1400 in wage increases seems a bit low to compensate, but if its enough to buy a season pass then no harm no foul.
Disney can supply the free passes if they want to; let them foot the bill
That’s the price of 1 annual pass. So if you have a spouse and 3 kids, that leaves you a fair bit in the hole.
It looks like this is a $1,400 per year perk. That’s really expensive if you’re considering buying it out of pocket, but not a huge amount in terms of salary. This should never be a make it or break it kind of benefit. Negotiate to make an extra $1,400 next year and buy it out of your own pocket.
Edit: just adding that I am incredibly anti-DeSantis, but this is a nothing burger.
No I don’t think their perk is $1400. If it is a Cast Member Silver Pass, they can get three people plus themselves in to any park every day of the year for free. If you have family come over it’s more than $100 per person per day. These tickets always include a Park Hopper option, adding another $40-50 in cost. If you use this perk 20 times per year for 3+1 people (which is definitely within reason), that would be more than $8000 and up to $12000 if you include the Park Hopper option. Maybe you could get that cheaper with season passes, but those are tied to an individual. $1400 is way, way off .
Considering this quote from the article; ‘Firefighter Aaron Clark, whose father was also a district firefighter, choked up as he recounted how growing up his dad took him to the parks using the passes and how he now does the same thing with his three daughters.’ I think you’re spot on. They also mention discounts in the park which was a part of a cast member badge. When I worked in the parks I could have sworn they also had the blue ID (as opposed to green for 3rd party vendor), but that was a while ago.
They also bought 400 passes for all of the RCID employees, so they probably got a significant discount. Also considering Disney pays 86% of the taxes that fund RCID, it might have been cheaper to give away the passes and keep the tax money. Even at $10k a person (an absurdly high estimate), $4 million is a drop in the Disney bucket.
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I googled it before posting my comment. It can’t be that off.
Yep, that’s the danger of Googling something without a proper background. There is a season pass that the general public can buy, but it is quite different from the Cast Member version. https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/cm-silver-pass-question.906317/ versus https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/passholder-program/benefits-of-becoming-a-passholder/
In addition to the other person who replied to you, I also wanted to point out that the firefighters did not say they were only firefighters for that Disney pass perk, just that it was the main reason they worked in that specific location. If they didn’t get that perk, I’m sure some of them have other stations closer to their home or would prefer to move somewhere less crowded or with better traffic on their daily commute. The Disney to I Drive area of Orlando is traffic/tourist hell. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to work there without some special benefits.
I thought the ole meatball wanted to call a truce?
He’s willing to call a truce against Disney directly. He can still attack them in more plausibly-deniable ways.
Just wondering, but why was Florida providing this in the first place?
Was this provided by the board that Florida took over from Disney, or were they just always providing it?
This is a standard perk for Disney employees. Reddy Creek providing it to the fire firefighters was basically an acknowledgement that the fire fighters were Disney employees. Disney was explicitly in charge of Reddy Creek so that made some sense. Desantis ripped Reddy Creek away from Disney to win political points, and is now hurting the firefighters, apparently just for fun, in his continued vendetta.
I’m sure Disney could just keep giving them those passes for free if they felt like it
That would be a massive win for DeSantis, since it shows that Disney does buckle when push comes to shove.
Florida wasn’t, the district was. The district was formerly managed by Disney. Now it’s not.
Hopefully Disney will pick up the tab for these firefighters. Do something good and shit on desantis in the process. Win win
Ahhh…that explains a lot…
it’s a common benefit provided by a lot of employers in the area. i’ve been to Disney for free more than i have been paying, yet i never rated this benefit. rather, someone that did would get me in instead.
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well, if free parking passes were the main reason for being a firefighter, well, jeeze, i dunno what to say about that, except they shouldn’t be. either disney covers the parking fees for when they’re on duty, if that’s even an issue, or these guys gotta get another gig
It’s free “Park Passes” Not “Free Park” Passes. These were free passes given to employees to be a me to enter the park with their families for free.
Bro, you must have been really tired when you read this article.
Not being a firefighter per se, but choosing to work as one for Disney.
yeah, i’m not gonna lose sleep over these guys losing their freaking parking passes. desantis is hurting so many others so much worse on the regular, i’m gonna save my emoting for the fascism, thanks
