Do I need an accessible hotel room just for the rental ECV?

[acerry]

I'll be staying at an offsite, but nearby hotel, for my days at DisneyLAND, in California, and renting a ECV scooter from a local company.
This will be my first time renting a scooter from an outside company (the only other time I've rented have been the in-park ECVs), because I want to use the ECV for the walk to and from the parks, as well as in the parks.
I see threads here, pre-pandemic, of people saying their hotels kept and charged their ECV overnight near the lobby / front desk, but when I've called the hotels that I was considering and asked that specifically, they all responded with if-fy "uhhh, ahhh" sounds and ended with some form of "probably not?". So, it seems that option has changed...

All that to say, even though I have no other need for an accessible hotel room, do I need to book an accessible version of a hotel room, just to ensure that the ECV can fit through the room door and thus behind a locked room door instead of leaving it in the hallway?

Thank you.

 

[disney-inspired]

I don't think you'll need an accessible room for just one ECV.
Where will you be staying offsite? I can recommend Anaheim Islander ground floor rooms as they are very spacious and you are just a short ECV ride to the Toy Story parking lot.

I've also stayed at Park Vue Inn across the street from the parks with an ECV and it fit fine in my room.

I would ask for a ground floor room so it's easier and faster for you to get out in the morning.

 

[acerry]

Where will you be staying offsite?

I'm currently booked (normal room) at Cambria on Katella, and open to other hotel options if people think I'll need to re-book for an accessible room.

 

[mamabunny]

I'm currently booked (normal room) at Cambria on Katella, and open to other hotel options if people think I'll need to re-book for an accessible room.

If it's just because of the ECV, you will find that most hotel rooms will fit a standard rental ECV just fine. You may have to call the front desk or housekeeping, and ask to have a chair and/or table moved from the room, but it's much safer for both you and the ECV to keep the ECV in the room overnight. Plus, the ECV will be busy getting all charged up for the next day's activities.

Before I owned my own equipment, I *never* left my rental ECV anywhere to charge overnight, out of my sight. I always kept it with me to insure that it was properly, fully charged in the morning.

You should be able to call the hotel you are booked at, and ask about the width of their standard room doorways. That information, coupled with the measurements of the device you are renting should answer your question.

 

[acerry]

Oh yay, this is so awesome to hear. Thank you all!

 

[tinkerbelletreasure]

Just watch for places that have multiple floors and no elevators. I actually ran into this problem the first time at WDW. We stayed at Caribbean Beach Resort and were assigned a second floor room despite putting in a request for a first floor room because of a wheelchair. I do not feel comfortable leaving something like that unattended somewhere other than our room and it took a lot to get us moved to another room and they couldn’t move us until the second night and I spent an hour in the hotel lobby crying while they were trying to find another hotel for us. So now, I always book a wheelchair accessible room so that I am guaranteed a way to get it into my room no matter where we stay.

 

[mamabunny]

Just watch for places that have multiple floors and no elevators. I actually ran into this problem the first time at WDW. We stayed at Caribbean Beach Resort and were assigned a second floor room despite putting in a request for a first floor room because of a wheelchair. I do not feel comfortable leaving something like that unattended somewhere other than our room and it took a lot to get us moved to another room and they couldn’t move us until the second night and I spent an hour in the hotel lobby crying while they were trying to find another hotel for us. So now, I always book a wheelchair accessible room so that I am guaranteed a way to get it into my room no matter where we stay.

I believe that the OP was talking about a room in a hotel *adjacent* to DL, not operated by Disney.

Fun fact: When you book an accessible room at WDW, that room is immediately removed from the inventory of all available accessible rooms at that WDW Resort hotel. So, (warning: oversimplification ahead) let's say that you want to book at Disney's Widget & Gadget Resort Hotel, where there are currently 100 "regular" or "non-accessible" rooms available for your travel dates, and there are 10 "accessible" rooms of different types available (let's say that those 10 accessible rooms represent 4 roll-in-showers, 7 transfer tubs, and 3 hearing accessible rooms.) If you choose a transfer tub room, because that's what meets your needs the best, then there will only be 6 of those rooms remaining for those dates in inventory. Once those 6 rooms are booked, then Disney's Widget & Gadget Resort Hotel will show that there are no more of that room type available for those dates. So, in other words, your room has been "reserved" in whatever accessibility sub-category (roll-in-shower, hearing, or transfer tub) that you picked at the time of booking.

That all makes sense, right? It's really comforting to know that the room type I need (a roll-in-shower room) is "hard booked" for me when I reserve rooms at WDW. I don't have to worry about arriving at my hotel, and then not being able to safely bathe for the duration of my vacation. I also know that Disney won't assign me a room on a floor that is non-accessible for my personal mobility device.

However... out in the "real world", not all hotels "hard book" their accessible rooms - and a not insignificant number of hotels have zero problems with accepting your reservation for an "accessible" room when no such critter exists in their inventory.

Whenever I stay outside Disney Resorts, I call each and every property I stay with directly to make reservations, during the day, Monday through Friday so that I can make sure that they not only have the room(s) I need, but also I ask them to give me the room number in advance, to make sure that I know they have "hard booked" that room for me, to my reservation number. We also call our destination hotel by 3:00 pm the day of the stay, to make sure that nothing has changed, so that we have time to make changes if there has been an issue in the interim.

TL;DR - travel outside of the Disney bubble requires a bit more pre-planning to be smooth and worry-free. That's why we stay at the same hotels year-after-year, because not only do we get to know the staff, and look forward to seeing them again and again, but we also know what to expect at each property.

When traveling to a new hotel (outside the Disney bubble) that I have never stayed at before, I will always call ahead in person to confirm details.

 

[acerry]

Yeah, a hotel outside "the bubble". I appreciate tinkterbell's reminder and caution, though, because I think I saw somewhere (on a review site, instead of here, I think) that the older buildings of HoJo indeed do have two floors and only stairs. Which... yeah, having not "gotten out much", I would have never fathomed such a thing!

 

[SueM in MN]

Fun fact: When you book an accessible room at WDW, that room is immediately removed from the inventory of all available accessible rooms at that WDW Resort hotel. So, (warning: oversimplification ahead) let's say that you want to book at Disney's Widget & Gadget Resort Hotel, where there are currently 100 "regular" or "non-accessible" rooms available for your travel dates, and there are 10 "accessible" rooms of different types available (let's say that those 10 accessible rooms represent 4 roll-in-showers, 7 transfer tubs, and 3 hearing accessible rooms.) If you choose a transfer tub room, because that's what meets your needs the best, then there will only be 6 of those rooms remaining for those dates in inventory. Once those 6 rooms are booked, then Disney's Widget & Gadget Resort Hotel will show that there are no more of that room type available for those dates. So, in other words, your room has been "reserved" in whatever accessibility sub-category (roll-in-shower, hearing, or transfer tub) that you picked at the time of booking.

That all makes sense, right? It's really comforting to know that the room type I need (a roll-in-shower room) is "hard booked" for me when I reserve rooms at WDW. I don't have to worry about arriving at my hotel, and then not being able to safely bathe for the duration of my vacation. I also know that Disney won't assign me a room on a floor that is non-accessible for my personal mobility device.

However... out in the "real world", not all hotels "hard book" their accessible rooms - and a not insignificant number of hotels have zero problems with accepting your reservation for an "accessible" room when no such critter exists in their inventory.

Actually ‘hard booking’ and taking the accessible room out of inventory at the time the reservation is made is a requirement for all hotels in the US.
It was part of an update to the ADA a couple years ago - I can’t look it up right now, but it may have been as long ago as 2015.
Along with the ‘hard booking’, hotels are required to allow guests with disabilities to make reservations in the same ways other guests are able to - phone, website, etc

 

[mamabunny]

Actually ‘hard booking’ and taking the accessible room out of inventory at the time the reservation is made is a requirement for all hotels in the US.
It was part of an update to the ADA a couple years ago - I can’t look it up right now, but it may have been as long ago as 2015.
Along with the ‘hard booking’, hotels are required to allow guests with disabilities to make reservations in the same ways other guests are able to - phone, website, etc

I'm still shocked at how many hotels don't hard book; I would say that probably a good 25% of the new-to-our-family hotels we have encountered in the last 5 years or so have had some form of ADA non-compliance.

The most common issues tends to be bed height, and bathroom sinks/counters that are too high, however...

We have seen everything from "handicapped" rooms that had a non-accessible path of travel to the bathroom (which was itself not accessible by any stretch of the imagination) to "accessible" rooms that were only accessible by stairs because there was no elevator (which happened most recently to me on a trip to Memphis. The hotel initially refused to refund the room, had zero guest rooms on the ground floor (all food service, bars, meeting rooms and indoor pool) and I had to pitch a fit to get them to finally refund my money.) We called one hotel directly to rent a roll-in-shower room, and to be given a confirmation number, only to arrive and find out that they thought it would be "ok" to put us in another (non-accessible) room, because the guy who had the room the night before extended his stay and the hotel refused to move him out of the room.

But probably my favorite was the hotel that thought they had made the room "accessible" because they put a Squatty Potty in the bathroom, and gave us one of those rubber bath mats with the suction cups on the back... Oh, and it was also "accessible" because it was right by the back door (via a set of doors that led to the stairwell and through a service area) which was where they put the Handicapped parking spot, because that's where they built the ramp...!

Whenever we run into an issue, I have tried to gently slow-walk these kinds of hotels (and their managers) through the basic tenants and requirements of the ADA, only to receive either blank stares, or to be given any number of excuses (example: "Our hotel was built before the ADA so we are grandfathered in" or "Our beds must be that high because that's "brand standard" and we will get in trouble with corporate. Our corporate brand standard does not allow for the ADA, and is not mentioned at all" or in Memphis they told me that they "Only gotta have to have the handicapper room lady, we don't have anything that says we gotta have elevators")

In any courtroom in the US, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. In many hotels nationwide, however, willful ignorance of the ADA is sadly all too common.

 

[tinkerbelletreasure]

I believe that the OP was talking about a room in a hotel *adjacent* to DL, not operated by Disney.

Fun fact: When you book an accessible room at WDW, that room is immediately removed from the inventory of all available accessible rooms at that WDW Resort hotel. So, (warning: oversimplification ahead) let's say that you want to book at Disney's Widget & Gadget Resort Hotel, where there are currently 100 "regular" or "non-accessible" rooms available for your travel dates, and there are 10 "accessible" rooms of different types available (let's say that those 10 accessible rooms represent 4 roll-in-showers, 7 transfer tubs, and 3 hearing accessible rooms.) If you choose a transfer tub room, because that's what meets your needs the best, then there will only be 6 of those rooms remaining for those dates in inventory. Once those 6 rooms are booked, then Disney's Widget & Gadget Resort Hotel will show that there are no more of that room type available for those dates. So, in other words, your room has been "reserved" in whatever accessibility sub-category (roll-in-shower, hearing, or transfer tub) that you picked at the time of booking.

That all makes sense, right? It's really comforting to know that the room type I need (a roll-in-shower room) is "hard booked" for me when I reserve rooms at WDW. I don't have to worry about arriving at my hotel, and then not being able to safely bathe for the duration of my vacation. I also know that Disney won't assign me a room on a floor that is non-accessible for my personal mobility device.

However... out in the "real world", not all hotels "hard book" their accessible rooms - and a not insignificant number of hotels have zero problems with accepting your reservation for an "accessible" room when no such critter exists in their inventory.

Whenever I stay outside Disney Resorts, I call each and every property I stay with directly to make reservations, during the day, Monday through Friday so that I can make sure that they not only have the room(s) I need, but also I ask them to give me the room number in advance, to make sure that I know they have "hard booked" that room for me, to my reservation number. We also call our destination hotel by 3:00 pm the day of the stay, to make sure that nothing has changed, so that we have time to make changes if there has been an issue in the interim.

TL;DR - travel outside of the Disney bubble requires a bit more pre-planning to be smooth and worry-free. That's why we stay at the same hotels year-after-year, because not only do we get to know the staff, and look forward to seeing them again and again, but we also know what to expect at each property.

When traveling to a new hotel (outside the Disney bubble) that I have never stayed at before, I will always call ahead in person to confirm details.

Yep. I realized she meant not Disney. I was just sharing that my first negative experience was actually Disney despite the fact that they are usually on top of ADA things. It had never occurred to me that Disney would have hotels (especially in the moderate category) without elevators. Away from Disney, I’ve gotten to where I won’t book anything without an elevator, but even then, you never know for sure that it will be functioning.

 

[Jrog92]

I don't think you'll need an accessible room for just one ECV.
Where will you be staying offsite? I can recommend Anaheim Islander ground floor rooms as they are very spacious and you are just a short ECV ride to the Toy Story parking lot.

I've also stayed at Park Vue Inn across the street from the parks with an ECV and it fit fine in my room.

I would ask for a ground floor room so it's easier and faster for you to get out in the morning.

The only thing about Park Vue is that they don't have an elevator. When I asked if we could reserve a 1st floor room due to having an ECV/wheelchair and worrying about stairs, they said that they can't guarantee any requests. They suggested I reserve an ADA specific room (two queen beds is their only option) and that those rooms "should" be on the first floor. Due to the uncertainty around accommodating us, we've opted to stay somewhere else.

 

[Jrog92]

Yep. I realized she meant not Disney. I was just sharing that my first negative experience was actually Disney despite the fact that they are usually on top of ADA things. It had never occurred to me that Disney would have hotels (especially in the moderate category) without elevators. Away from Disney, I’ve gotten to where I won’t book anything without an elevator, but even then, you never know for sure that it will be functioning.

What do you do then? I've attempted to request a first floor room (at several different surrounding hotels) and they always say requests can't be guaranteed.

I believe that the OP was talking about a room in a hotel *adjacent* to DL, not operated by Disney.

Fun fact: When you book an accessible room at WDW, that room is immediately removed from the inventory of all available accessible rooms at that WDW Resort hotel. So, (warning: oversimplification ahead) let's say that you want to book at Disney's Widget & Gadget Resort Hotel, where there are currently 100 "regular" or "non-accessible" rooms available for your travel dates, and there are 10 "accessible" rooms of different types available (let's say that those 10 accessible rooms represent 4 roll-in-showers, 7 transfer tubs, and 3 hearing accessible rooms.) If you choose a transfer tub room, because that's what meets your needs the best, then there will only be 6 of those rooms remaining for those dates in inventory. Once those 6 rooms are booked, then Disney's Widget & Gadget Resort Hotel will show that there are no more of that room type available for those dates. So, in other words, your room has been "reserved" in whatever accessibility sub-category (roll-in-shower, hearing, or transfer tub) that you picked at the time of booking.

That all makes sense, right? It's really comforting to know that the room type I need (a roll-in-shower room) is "hard booked" for me when I reserve rooms at WDW. I don't have to worry about arriving at my hotel, and then not being able to safely bathe for the duration of my vacation. I also know that Disney won't assign me a room on a floor that is non-accessible for my personal mobility device.

However... out in the "real world", not all hotels "hard book" their accessible rooms - and a not insignificant number of hotels have zero problems with accepting your reservation for an "accessible" room when no such critter exists in their inventory.

Whenever I stay outside Disney Resorts, I call each and every property I stay with directly to make reservations, during the day, Monday through Friday so that I can make sure that they not only have the room(s) I need, but also I ask them to give me the room number in advance, to make sure that I know they have "hard booked" that room for me, to my reservation number. We also call our destination hotel by 3:00 pm the day of the stay, to make sure that nothing has changed, so that we have time to make changes if there has been an issue in the interim.

TL;DR - travel outside of the Disney bubble requires a bit more pre-planning to be smooth and worry-free. That's why we stay at the same hotels year-after-year, because not only do we get to know the staff, and look forward to seeing them again and again, but we also know what to expect at each property.

When traveling to a new hotel (outside the Disney bubble) that I have never stayed at before, I will always call ahead in person to confirm details.

Interesting... I have tried this strategy at several different hotels nearby (calling and trying to get a confirmation of a "hard book" reservation) and they refuse to do so, stating that requests can't be guaranteed. I have explained that we have someone who is in a wheelchair and can't use stairs if there isn't an elevator available and they don't seem to care and won't budge on it. What hotels have you had success with?

 

[Lilsia]

I'm still shocked at how many hotels don't hard book; I would say that probably a good 25% of the new-to-our-family hotels we have encountered in the last 5 years or so have had some form of ADA non-compliance.

The most common issues tends to be bed height, and bathroom sinks/counters that are too high, however...

We have seen everything from "handicapped" rooms that had a non-accessible path of travel to the bathroom (which was itself not accessible by any stretch of the imagination) to "accessible" rooms that were only accessible by stairs because there was no elevator (which happened most recently to me on a trip to Memphis. The hotel initially refused to refund the room, had zero guest rooms on the ground floor (all food service, bars, meeting rooms and indoor pool) and I had to pitch a fit to get them to finally refund my money.) We called one hotel directly to rent a roll-in-shower room, and to be given a confirmation number, only to arrive and find out that they thought it would be "ok" to put us in another (non-accessible) room, because the guy who had the room the night before extended his stay and the hotel refused to move him out of the room.

But probably my favorite was the hotel that thought they had made the room "accessible" because they put a Squatty Potty in the bathroom, and gave us one of those rubber bath mats with the suction cups on the back... Oh, and it was also "accessible" because it was right by the back door (via a set of doors that led to the stairwell and through a service area) which was where they put the Handicapped parking spot, because that's where they built the ramp...!

Whenever we run into an issue, I have tried to gently slow-walk these kinds of hotels (and their managers) through the basic tenants and requirements of the ADA, only to receive either blank stares, or to be given any number of excuses (example: "Our hotel was built before the ADA so we are grandfathered in" or "Our beds must be that high because that's "brand standard" and we will get in trouble with corporate. Our corporate brand standard does not allow for the ADA, and is not mentioned at all" or in Memphis they told me that they "Only gotta have to have the handicapper room lady, we don't have anything that says we gotta have elevators")

In any courtroom in the US, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. In many hotels nationwide, however, willful ignorance of the ADA is sadly all too common.

You need to start suing these hotels. The one where they have the accessible room but no elevator is disgusting. And so was their attitude. I am not a litigious person, but that seems to be the only way things get fixed now.

 

[Bethctraveler]

We drive both scooters in our room at night and charge with no issues. If its a multi floor resort without an elevator we just ask for the first floor.