Oh Merlin!
Issue 20: The RAP scandal no one expected
So, as I imagine you've all heard by now, Merlin Entertainment [pictured below] unveiled plans to restrict their accessibility feature - RAP [Ride Access Pass] to prevent disabled visiters with autism or similar conditions from using it.
It's important to note that as of 12.02.2026, they've cancelled such plans due to voracious community push-back at the idea, but there's still a lot to discuss in it's wake.
First of all, decisions like this don't come out of nowhere; they come out of complaints. They come from uneducated parents complaining at seeing visiters use the Access Pass without visible disabilities, because if a disability doesn't come with a wheelchair or a walker they consider it invallid. This decision [prior to overturning] was yet another example of trying to placate the loudly uneducated rather than prioritise the community affected by the choices.
Autistic people deserve accomodation, and the provision of that accomodation should never be dependent on the goodwill of unqualified criticism.
Personally, I believe that even without the impressive community pushback that stopped this policy, it wouldn't have laster very long anyway. The Equality Act 2010 is what determines when discrimination is happening and what should be done about it, and it doesn't allow providers to determine which disabilities determine accomodation based on arbitrary policy.
But that pushback is so important because it proves one thing: We can do it. We don't have to sit back and take what the abled world is willing to give us, we can get loud about it and we can fight back.
According to a BBC News Report, 25,000 people signed an online petition against this abhorrent change of policy, leading Merlin Entertainment to announce that it won't be going ahead with the trial following what they called ‘extensive feedback'.
Disabled people make up 26% of people in the UK, so we can presume that they make up a relatively similar proportion of Merlin's clientele. These aren't small numbers.
Merlin is still reviewing its accessibility policy following apparent feedback from disabled visitors that the system is ‘under immense pressure', and we at Wreck & Roll welcome that review, with a reminder for Merlin Entertainment that accessibility for some of us should never come at the cost of accessibility for all of us.
Stay powerful
