Shanghai Disney Apologizes After a Visitor Was Told to Put Away Her White Cane
A visually impaired visitor was asked by staff whether she could stop using her white cane because the park was crowded. Shanghai Disney has now apologized and clarified that cane users need no advance registration.
The question that a Shanghai Disneyland employee put to Song, a visually impaired visitor, on September 3 was, to her, almost incomprehensible: since the park was crowded, could she put her white cane away? "I don't understand why he asked," she later told the Yangzi Evening News. "Who uses a cane when they don't need one? For me, the cane is my eyes" (盲杖就是我的"眼睛"). She and her boyfriend had been touring the park together; she complained at guest services within hours, and raised the episode again with staff on a second visit the next day.
What turned a bad afternoon into a national story was the advice that followed. When Chinese media sought comment, Disneyland customer service was found explaining that a white cane fell under the park's "stick-type items" — the category covering tripods and selfie sticks — and suggested that users email a photo with the cane's dimensions in advance to arrange clearance. The framing drew exactly the reaction it deserved: a mobility aid treated as a prohibited accessory, and a disabled guest asked to surrender it for everyone else's comfort. Song's account, published on September 23 and picked up across papers and portals the following day, pushed the story onto Baidu's hot-search board.
On September 24, Shanghai Disney gave The Paper its response. The resort said it had contacted the guest "as soon as her feedback arrived", offered its sincere apology, and invited the couple back for a better experience. It also clarified the rule itself: visually impaired visitors may use a white cane in the resort with no advance registration of any kind. By that evening, the park's own customer-service line was telling reporters that its latest guidance confirms canes are permitted.
The episode lands at a moment when China's leisure industry is selling accessibility and spectacle to the widest possible audience, and its resolution was notably quick: a state-owned newspaper's report, a front-page item on The Paper, and a same-day corporate climb-down. The clarification now on record — that a white cane requires no permission, no emailed dimensions and no gate-level discretion — is the substance of the story. Whether the policy reaches the employees in the park is the test its next visually impaired guest will administer.