ECV for limited mobility father - on or off site rental?

[AJ27]

We are taking my parents to WDW. My Father is mobile to a point. He can walk 1/2 mile or so at a time, but cannot do stairs and cannot stand for extended periods of time. We are staying at WL and can't decide between on and off site rental. He's not "excited" about using the ECV to begin with and I'm afraid that if his ECV means transportation confusion or extended waits for buses/boats, he may just tell us to go on without him. .

In this scenario, would it be better for us to rent at the parks or am I worrying unnecessarily?

We have multiple ADRs before park opening, will that have any effect on our transportation?

If we don't rent from outside agency - will he be okay getting to/from HDDR Chef Mickey's and MBYBBQ? I can't figure out how much walking that entails?

 

[tobikaye]

I think that renting off-site is better both. The EVCs from off-site normally are much cheaper to rent and are easier to use. In 2010, we rented at the park for my sister for one-day as she was more mobile then and it was $50. This past June, we rented off-site and seven days was only $150. My sister was able to maneuver the off-site ECV much easier than with the park EVC.

As for using an off-site EVC for transportation, I think that you may have some delay with buses or boats, but only if there are other EVC/Wheelchair users before you in line. We had to wait an extra bus if there was already two EVC/Wheelchairs in front of us because the buses can only take two at a time. As for the boats, I am not sure from a personal standpoint, but I think I remember that someone getting from FW to MK had to wait for the bigger boat. I know they did not have to wait too long because the bigger boat was waiting for the smaller boat to leave before pulling into pick up.

As for getting to HDDR and MBYBBQ at FW from WL, there should not be much walking. Take the boat or bus from WL to FW and the drop off points are right at Pioneer Hall where HDDR is. There is not much of a walk from either. Now, I am not as certain about MBYBBQ as I think they moved it from the last time I was at FW. But, you should be able to take a bus to a point close to it. The walk would definitely be less than 1/2 mile. Just don't plan on him walking all the way from WL to FW if he has mobility issues. I have made the walk and found it to be nice, but it could be taxing to someone with mobility issues.

As for Chef Mickey, I will have to let someone else give you details on that walk. It has been many years since I went directly to Contemporary from FW or WL. What I do remember is that the dock to the Contemporary was a decent walk, but not extremely long.

 

[jdb in AZ]

When you say he can't do stairs, he would have trouble getting on/off a bus, as those stairs are rather steep. If he needs the wheelchair lift to get on the bus, he might as well take the ECV as well.

If you need to get to an ADR quickly and not deal with the ECV/bus you might want to call a taxi.

 

[travelitis]

Back in the years we rented scooters, we preferred off site. You don't have to worry about a park being out of them if you are hopping. I can't remember why we had on site scooter rental, but I remember one trip having the wheelchair people call ahead to the next park to see if there were scooters. I remember not being able to always get one where we wanted, but if memory serves me correctly, they were willing to reserve one for us if we were headed straight there.

However, we found that off site costs less, and they aren't as sluggish as onsite ECV's. The on site scooters had a hard time keeping up with my husband. I'm sure Disney controls the speed on them as a safety precaution, but it's nice to have a broader range of speeds so the walkers aren't having to slow down to keep pace with the scooter.