Dme

[vacation dreamer]

I just want to say that you are all doing great with all my questions!! Now on to question #540.....I have not noticed ME busses with lifts for wheelchairs..........I know they have to have them?? If so can they take more then one wheelchair at a time?

question #541....resort to park transportation....a co-worker told me that they had to wait for a bus with a lift in March. I thought all the busses had wheelchair hookups?

 

[Michigan]

They do but if there was already 2 wheelchairs on the bus then your co-worker had to wait.

 

[vacation dreamer]

They do but if there was already 2 wheelchairs on the bus then your co-worker had to wait.

she said busses went without taking them and they did not have wheelchairs on them???

 

[CdnDisneyNut]

The wheelchair lift on the first bus may have not been functioning. The bus driver should have radioed dispatch to send another bus to pick up them up.

 

[Schmeck]

For the internal bus transportation at WDW, if the bus is making any stops at other areas of the resort, or at another resort altogether before reaching that certain bus stop, the spots that have the tie-downs could have already had people sitting there. In that case, I think the bus isn't supposed to stop to let anyone on at all, and calls for another bus to come?

Try to find out the route your resort bus takes, and try to get to the bus stop (request a room nearest to it?) that it first comes to load at. For example, at CBR, the bus comes in a back way, and starts off at one island - sorry, I can't remember which one, Aruba or Jamaica? - and that would be your best shot at getting on without delay.

 

[SueM in MN]

The DME buses don't all have buses. You should tell them when you make your reservation that you need a wheelchair accessible bus. That will make the shortest wait. Each wheelchair bus can hold up to 2 wheelchairs.

Almost 100% of the resort buses are wheelchair accessible and can hold up to 2 wheelchairs or ECVs in the wheelchair tiedown spots. There are a couple of possibilities for the bus leaving a stop without loading a wheelchair.
1) There may have been wheelchairs or ECVs in the spots, but the people using them might have been sitting in bus seats instead of in the wheelchair, so it may have looked like the spots were vacant.

2) There may have been one wheelchair already in the spot closest to the door - that would have left the other spot empty, but it may not have been accessible because of the size of the wheelchair already in the bus. That has happened to us once or twice. It also happened to someone else when DD's wheelchair was secured in the spot closest to the door and a man with a heavy duty ECV was at the next stop - he would not have fit in the bus unless DD's wheelchair was removed so he could get by.

3) The lift or tiedowns might have had something wrong with them that made them unusable. That has happened to us a couple of times. On one trip, the driver tried to attach the tiedowns, but something was missing, so we had to get off of the bus. Because his tiedowns had a problem, he would not have been able to pick up someone at the next stop. On our last trip, the driver could not get the lift to come down correctly for us, so she would not have even tried to pick up a wheelchair at the next stop.

4) The drive may not have seen that they wanted to go on the bus. That's especially possible at the resorts, where buses for multiple locations come to the same stop.

If the bus is full for wheelchairs (the lift or tiedowns don't work or the spots are full) and there is a wheelchair to load, the driver is actually not supposed to pick up any passengers at that stop. They can continue to pick people up at the next stop.