My amazing wife lives with MS. She is currently in remission but fatigue, sun & Florida heat can take their toll on her. We try to be prepared for anything, which leads to the question; should we need to rent a wheelchair to enjoy our time in the park, will we find the quality of the chairs available at Guest Services a pleasant experience or a mechanical nuisance?
If there is anyone with experience in this matter, I'd love to hear from you.
From my experience, pushing a wheel chair through the parks is a pain in the butt. We rented a scooter for scrappy on property from Buena Vista rentals, they delivered and picked up at the resort. Nice scoters and worked very well, never went dead. Also if there is a problem, I think they guarantee a hour or less response time. You may not need it all the time, but they are nice to have if you need it. The wheel chair we got from the resort when scrappy hurt her ankle, I pushed it for one day, then ordered the scooter. It was at the resort at 7am the next morning.
Mark
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You do kinda place your bets on how good your manual wheelchair is, some are more comfortable than others, some easier to push than others. I've rented them before and to be honest, from a passenger point of view (as in, I was being pushed not the pusher) I didn't ever sit in one that I felt that uncomfortable. I agree with the scooter rental option, it makes life a lot easier for the pusher, I feel an awful lot of burden when my hubby has to push me which totally impacts on my enjoyment.
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The wheelchairs and scooters/ECVs at the parks are limited. So if you go later in the day, they may not have any chairs left. Pushing/driving a wheelchair/ECV in the parks can be a major pain in the butt because other guests don't pay attention to where they are walking and will walk into you or in front of you.
I find the manual chairs uncomfortable, but I have never had a problem with ECV rental. However there have been times when an EVC wasn't available and I did have to go with the manual chairs.
We are planning on renting an ECV from Apple scooters. I have read good things about them. Also, the basket will be useful.
Thanks for the recommendations. We try to visit in the fall or late winter months to minimize the impact of heat on her MS. Last visit was early October, this one is early November. We will see what mother nature has to dish out and make decisions on the fly.
Hi Sputnik, we used a wheelchair for DH's aunt on our trip in May. We rented from Walker Mobility and they were super easy to work with. Some of the screws that hold the hand rim in place were missing, but aunt was never pushing herself, so it didn't affect our experience at all. It was very difficult to push her through the parks because there are MANY more hills that you realize when you're just walking unimpeded. I did get a great arm, core, and leg workout pushing her around though! Aunt is on the heavier side (she probably has 75 lbs on me), so that was a factor in our difficulty to maneuver. Also with the momentum that we generated going downhill, it was very difficult to stop if another guest was foolish enough to run in front of us or stop short. The only reason that we rented ahead of time was that I knew for a fact that aunt was not going to be able to walk the parks every day and I was afraid of the park not having enough wheelchairs available when we needed one. I would rent a manual wheelchair again and I would readily use Walker again. The scooters do seem very convenient, but the cost savings ($10/day vs $50/day) was totally worth it to me.
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Trip Reports:
December 2013: 10th Anniversary, 1st DVC Stay | April 2014: Birthday on the Boardwalk | May 2014: Star Wars Weekend, Navigating WDW with a wheelchair | August 2014: Villains Unleashed | September/October 2014: MNSSHP, F&W, Tower of Terror 10-miler | March/April 2015: Disneyland and California Coastal Cruise | November 2015: Wine & Dine Half, Food & Wine, 1st Disney Cruise | February 2016: Presidential Classic Gymnastics Meet | March 2016: "Work" Trip, Tours, F&G Festival | April 2016: Conference at Disneyland | Fall 2016: Festive Fall Fun | January 2017: Festival of the Arts | May 2017: AbD Backstage Magic | July 2017: AbD San Francisco | Sorry I had to give up doing trip reports. Too many time commitments right now.
Apple scooters charges $27/day.