Cruise question - pediatric wheelchair

[HowdyHeidi]

We are doing land and sea in November. My youngest son has a wheelchair on order. He is VERY small, so we currently have been using a full size stroller that he loves, but did order a kid cart wheelchair for him for transportation to school. I don't know if we will have it before our trip, but if we did, I was going to consider taking it on the trip instead of our full sized stroller (I tried a Maclaren stroller recently, and he hated it and it didn't provide enough support).

Anyhow, I have a couple questions in the even that we do have the wheelchair. Is it going to be hard to get around the Dream in a wheelchair compared to a full sized stroller? Do people use their wheelchair as their seat in the dining room? If so, can you request to be near the exit so you don't have to squeeze between all the tables etc?

Right now we have a request for a real highchair for the dining rooms as we cannot use those wooden restaurant high chairs.

Anything else I should consider about taking a wheelchair to Disney and the Cruise? I was hoping to use the airplane CARES strap for the plane and avoid bringing his massive special needs carseat since we can't use it on the disney busses anyhow...

Thanks so much in advance.

 

[SueM in MN]

I need to go to bed, so can't make too long of an answer.

Most kids wheelchairs are narrower than adult wheelchairs, so You should have very little more trouble getting around with the Kid Kart than with a regular stroller.
I have not been on a cruise, but most people do use their wheelchair as their seat in dining areas, especially if it is hard to transfer. A lot depends on how low the wheelchair sits and whether the child will be much below tabletop level.

I'll also suggest you check out the disABILITIES FAQs thread. It is located near the top of this board or follow the link in my signature. The first post in that thread is an index to where to find different information.