Are ECV's easy to use?

[ryan840]

My mom has cerebral palsy and has very little control over her left hand/side, so would she have trouble using an ECV? She can walk but not the amount of walking required for a week and a half in Disneyworld and we're trying to decide if she would be better off renting a regular wheelchair or ECV. Also, where is the best place to rent one for length of stay, or if we went with a regular wheelchair is it best to rent as needed or for the entire length of stay? (And where is the best place to rent one of those too). Thanks in advance!

 

[SueM in MN]

I've not driven an ECV (although my FIL rented one many times). I don't know how much difficulty someone with little use of their left hand would have, but there are lots of ECV users who post on this board who can help you with that.

I can tell you that the ECVs that can be rented from one of the off-site places are easier to drive that the ones at the parks.
If you check out the disABILITIES FAQs thread, there is information there about places to rent wheelchairs and ECVs. All of the places listed are ones that DIS posters have pretty consistently reported good experiences with.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Your mom actually may be better off renting an ECV from Disney each day, with renting a wheelchair as the backup option (in case the ECVs are gone and there are people willing to push her).

My experience has been that most rental companies' equipment needs two hands to operate - i.e. press the throttle with the right hand to go forward, left hand for reverse - since the Disney ones need the user to flip a switch to back up, they can be operated entirely with one hand. The drawbacks are, they're larger and more awkward than the offsite rentals; you can only use them inside the park; and if you switch parks during the day, there may not be one available at the next park.

 

[SueM in MN]

My experience has been that most rental companies' equipment needs two hands to operate - i.e. press the throttle with the right hand to go forward, left hand for reverse - since the Disney ones need the user to flip a switch to back up, they can be operated entirely with one hand.

Thank you. I thought that was what I saw my FIL do, but wasn't sure.

Another possibility would be to rent a wheelchair from off-site or borrow one from the resort (more info on this in the disABILITIES FAQs thread).
That way, you would have a wheelchair for her at the resort and to get to the parks. When you get to the park, they could hold the wheelchair and rent an ECV if there are any. If they are out, you could just use the wheelchair that she already has.

 

[ryan840]

Thanks for the info, I'm thinking a ECV isn't going to agree with her- I can just see her mowing down the crowd We're just wondering how tiring it's going to be to push a wheelchair around WDW when it's not something we're used to doing.

 

[SueM in MN]

The ones you rent from the parks are heavy, so you will probably do better with one from one of the offsite rental places. You might also want to look at transport chairs since she will need someone to push her anyway. Those are lighter weight wheelchairs that have 4 small wheels instead of 2 big ones and 2 small ones. They are lighter weight.

 

[ryan840]

Is there info on the transport chairs on the FAQ thread (guess I should go look huh!)? She actually has a walker that has a seat attached but the problem with it is that there are no footrests so she'd have to hold her feet up the whole time. SOmething that size would be great though as I'm sure she will be doing a fair amount of walking.