lines with a wheelchair?

If you plan on renting an ECV at Disney, I've found that they are hard to maneuver. Because I am petite, my body weight never distributes appropriately and the sensors in the ECV keep cutting out. After I complained to several cast members thinking I had bum ECVs, they said that it was a weight balance issue. I've never had this problem with ECVs in Wal-Mart, the supermarket, etc., so it was a very, very frustrating day for me. I actually stalled in the doorway of a restaurant and couldn't get the ECV to start up again so I was blocking traffic for 5 minutes. Frustrating for us all. It's easier to use a wheelchair if someone can push you.

Thank you to all those who have posted here in the past. My mom is coming in November for a visit and will need a wheelchair to get around. I'm thinking that Epcot will be the best park to take her for a visit. If anyone has any additional or updated information on getting around Epcot with someone in a wheelchair, I'd greatly appreciate your input.

My Mom has had to use a wheelchair the past couple of years while in Disney because of knee issues. She sometimes uses EVC's but if she wanted to save a couple of bucks she would use a wheelchair. My dad and I took turns wheeling her around. She also had her handicap card with her In case anyone had issues with her. We would sometimes be directed to the exit and she would have to get out of the wheelchair and then they would help her on the ride. She can't stand or walk long distances. They come in handy also when she's waiting for my dad and I to ride a ride. We would push her up to the wall and sit her there. Your always going to have people looking to see what the problem is but you just have to ignore them and pardon there ignorance. You can't really see what my mom's problem is unless you look at her knee's (two knee replacements so there are long scars on the front of them.) But if you didn't look you wouldn't know why she was in a wheel chair.

Epcot is very easy to get around in a wheelchair. There are, however a couple of steep inclines where you might get a running start, V!

Although, really every park was very easy for us to get around in a wheelchair. Even Magic Kingdom was very easy and the CM's are very helpful when needing to load a ride.
Don't be intimidated by any park, Virginia. Don't even give it a second thought. Disney is very wheelchair friendly.

My Mom is 94. If anyone has a question as to why she might need a wheelchair, I think THEY are the ones who need help. :lol: It's been a good 20 years since Mom has been to FL, so I anticipate her wanting to at least get her picture taken with Mickey. There will be 4 of us to take turns pushing, so hopefully I can take my turn on the straight-a-ways and even ground.

my best suggestion to you is go to guest relations as soon as you get there. they can give you a guest assistance card and a special booklet that tells you exactly what to expect concerning a wheelchair on each attraction. usually they can give you a booklet for each park rather than going to GR every time.
my other suggestion would be to have the assistance card out when you get into the queue or physically go up to a cast member and ask what you need to do. since not everyone in a wheelchair has the same issues they may have a different route for you. for instance at dinosaur, some were leaving their chairs by the strollers, while others with more mobility issues can go through the queue in their chair and at a certain point take an elevator down to the offload area and get directly on the ride.

When we were there in August, my sister had a broken foot, so we learned really quickly about Disney with an ECV and wheelchair. If you're only going for a day or two, I think a wheelchair would be fine, but any longer than that an ECV is a good option. It gave my sis the opportunity to be independant, and took some of the responsibility off of us when it came to getting her around.

We found that our guest assistance card (they allow up to 5 people in addition to the GAC user) came in handy at the Magic Kingdom the most. Since the park is the oldest, a lot of the queues aren't ECV friendly and you need to use a different entrance. The other parks are new enough that the queues can accomodate chairs and most times ECVs.

She tried almost all of the rides, but some were a real struggle to get her into the ride vehicle (her foot was completely non-weight bearing) and we could only do once. If anyone is in this type of situation and needs to know the rides we struggled with, drop me a PM and I'd be happy to let you know.

We did survive our visit to WDW, although we ended up not going to Epcot; the weather was not conducive to a visit, and we'd pretty well worn out ourselves and Mom on the two previous days at DTD and Studios. Thanks so much to everyone who gave helpful suggestions to acquiring a wheelchair and getting around WDW. I'll put together a full synopsis of our experiences in the next couple of days.