wheelchair use at DL

[luckycharms2010]

My husband has very limited mobility, he is under doctors order to not walk/stand longer than 20 minutes. He normally uses an electric chair when we grocery shop, but we do not have a chair for him for other purposes as since his injury we have not had a reason to get one we have just accommodated our life style.
His doctor has agreed to write a letter for DL (don't know if one is needed?) that explains his limited mobility so he can use a wheelchair (which we'll probably purchase).
I have never been to DL with someone who is disabled. What should I know? Will the wait times be longer/shorter or the same?
Any advice or tips would be great.

 

[KPeveler]

My husband has very limited mobility, he is under doctors order to not walk/stand longer than 20 minutes. He normally uses an electric chair when we grocery shop, but we do not have a chair for him for other purposes as since his injury we have not had a reason to get one we have just accommodated our life style.
His doctor has agreed to write a letter for DL (don't know if one is needed?) that explains his limited mobility so he can use a wheelchair (which we'll probably purchase).
I have never been to DL with someone who is disabled. What should I know? Will the wait times be longer/shorter or the same?
Any advice or tips would be great.

You do not need to have a doctors note to either rent or buy a wheelchair or scooter.

You may want to look into a rental scooter at disneyland - pushing a wheelchair can be very tiring, and he should not count on doing it himself for more than a few minutes at a time. I use a custom made lightweight wheelchair and it took me a year before i could go any real distance and i still cannot go all day.

In DCA almost every line is mainstreamed, so you can do exactly what you would do without the wheelchair.

DL has many wheelchair entrances that are separate than the standby entrance (older park means more limited accessibility). They will give you a guide for guests with disabilities at the information stand where the ride times are posted, or in guest relations.

As far as wait times go, plan on waiting as long as the standby time, though perhaps in a different place, and if it is shorter, bonus! Some rides I seem to always have a shorter line than the standby, but a lot of the time (especially for the more popular rides) I end up waiting exactly the same.

 

[starshine514]

I second the nomination for renting a scooter. My husband has MS and gets fatigued quickly (resulting in lost coordination and a lot of falling), so we have rented scooters whenever we go on walking-intensive vacations. The cost varies (usually about $100 for a week in San Diego, about $200 in Orlando). We finally bit the bullet and purchased him a mobility scooter, which we will be using for our upcoming trip (and others thereafter) for a little less than $1000 (now I'm just regretting not buying it a few years ago).

When we rented a scooter in Orlando, I had only taken a single stroller with us - but both girls wanted to ride in the stroller. So, one girl often ended up on the scooter with DH. I don't know if that is necessarily the best idea, but it really worked out well for us...

Wait times at WDW varied quite a bit for us - sometimes it was shorter, sometimes longer than the stated wait time. For some rides (like Toy Story Mania), they only had one or two handicapped cars, and there were several groups ahead of us - so a pretty long wait, even with FastPasses... IASW was a walk-on, while the regular line was a 5-minute wait.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

So, one girl often ended up on the scooter with DH. I don't know if that is necessarily the best idea, but it really worked out well for us...

This is unsafe!!

Check the manual for the ECV. The problem is most ECVs can do about 5mph. If a child presses on the control lever they can run into someone, or into a wall, or off a curb.