Wheelchair Questions

[GrammieMame]

I'm taking my 90 year old mom to WDW for 2 days in late March (her birthday celebration). She is in very good health and able to walk well, but slowly. She insists that she doesn't need a wheelchair but I'm concerned about the distances involved in WDW walking. I'd like to have a chair available just in case.

Do the WDW resorts have chairs available. I'd like to have one in the room and be able to take it to the parks (we will be at Beach Club with easy access to Epcot and MGM) and then back to the room in the evening.

I saw a reference on this board to a "transport chair". Would that be less obvious and smaller than a wheelchair, or is it the same thing? Does anyone know if they would be available from the resort?

 

[luvmyeor]

A transporter chair is similar to a wheelchair. The wheels are smaller and the person sitting in it must depend on someone to push them. I have never stayed at the Beach Club. We have stayed at All Stars and Fort Wilderness and were always able to get a wheelchair from both resorts. They let you use it the entire time of your stay free of charge. You just have to give them a credit card# for a deposit. The only thing is that there is no guarantee that a resort will have a wheelchair available. There is a possibility that all their wheelchairs are already loaned out. It has never happened to us but there is that possibility. Last year we needed one of the wider wheelchairs and they are not available at the resort. They gave us a standard size wheelchair for us to "trade" in at the park so we did not have to pay a rental fee. We just returned it at the end of the day and took the resort chair back with us.

 

[SueM in MN]

If you haven't already looked at the disABILITIES FAQs thread near the top of this board, it should be able to answer most of your questions.
As was already mentioned - there is no guarantee that a resort will have one, so many people who don't have their own to bring along rent from one of the off-site medical equipment companies (listed in the FAQs thread). Even if you decide to try to get one from your resort, you might want to take the contact numbers along with you just in case.

The resorts only have wheelchairs, not transport chairs. The transport chairs (because of the small wheels) are easier and lighter to put into a car trunk (usually).

For convincing her to use a wheelchair, one thing I've suggested before that works well is to figure out some familiar place about 1-2 miles from where she lives (church, store, etc). Ask if she could walk there - she is likely to say "Oh, my goodness, No". Then point out that the average person walks between 3 and 9 miles a day at WDW (I know it's a big range, but that's what I've heard). That would be walking to the grocery store (or whatever and back (several times). Just the distance around WS in Epcot is about 1.3 miles.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

Accidently duplicated

 

[Cheshire Figment]

My mother, who is 91, is coming down for a few days in a couple of weeks. She is actually healthier than I am. She said she's been to WDW before, but that was more than 20 years ago so I'm making her go. However, I've also told her that she will be using the ECV I had bought for Judy because of the distances.

 

[dbarker]

Just a suggestion: your mom might feel better about an ECV instead of a wheelchair. Have her use the ones at Wal-Mart if she doesn't already. Also, if it were me, I would reassure her that she can park it and walk some and is not going to be "stuck" in it the whole time. Good luck.

Hope you have a wonderful trip.

 

[Twende]

We stayed at Beach Club in December and needed a wheel chair.
My mom is in that 90's range too and normally out walks me and in fact we loose her because she can out walk us but right before we left she fell and turned her ankle.

I called and asked about a wheel chair from the resort and they noted it on our reservation. When we checked in they sent me to the concierege desk and I signed a form to take responsibility to return the wheel chair.

They were out of chairs but they called YC next door and they brought one over right away.

It was great to have it! We tied green ribbons on it so we could find it easily and I tied wash rags on the arm rests to pad them a bit for my mom.

Fortunately we had already asked for a room with grab bars in the bathroom and a walk in shower. She already broken her hip three times but she recovers and keeps going like the battery bunny!

We decided against an electric scooter because we were afraid she would get lost from us and run into people with the scooter. We are also dealing with Alzheimers so the scooter would never had worked for us.

 

[videogal1]

I'm taking my 90 year old mom to WDW for 2 days in late March (her birthday celebration). She is in very good health and able to walk well, but slowly. She insists that she doesn't need a wheelchair but I'm concerned about the distances involved in WDW walking. I'd like to have a chair available just in case.

Do the WDW resorts have chairs available. I'd like to have one in the room and be able to take it to the parks (we will be at Beach Club with easy access to Epcot and MGM) and then back to the room in the evening.

The path between the Beach Club Resort is generally flat until you get into the International gateway area at the entrance to Epcot's World Showcase. Pushing me in this area in a wheelchair (before I graduated to a scooter full-time) was really hard on my weight-lifting fullback-sized football player of a boyfriend several years ago and he swore never again! We turned the wheelchair in for a Disney ECV rental in no time flat but, unfortunately, this solution absolutely killed my shoulders because of the cumbersome driving characteristics of their 4-wheeled ECVs. The past few trips I have taken my own scooter and, when it broke down a couple of times, rented a similar 3-wheeled one from Care Medical at the same rates as Disney charged for theirs. Sure saved my arms!