Kids in Wheelchairs/Strollers at Parades

[juliedisney]

For those who have kids in wheelchairs/strollers, at what age did you use the special parade viewing area?

My son is 2.5 and has Down syndrome. He can't walk or stand yet, so we use the stroller. He has very low muscle tone, so I imagine we'll use the stroller as long as we can and will likely need a wheelchair for our big annual trips when he is older.

We noticed they had a special area for parade viewing for those who are disabled. He is disabled, and it impacts our life daily, but at this age he would probably be in a stroller anyway. We have not used this area before because we figured that all kids are in strollers at that age. At what point does it become appropriate to start using that area? Just curious for viewpoints from those in a similar situation.

 

[lanejudy]

I don't know that there is an "appropriate" or "inappropriate" age. We have tried the reserved section for parades with a stroller-as-wheelchair tag, but honestly we've found that we usually prefer to scope out our own spot and take some downtime to snack, rest, people-watch while waiting. Depending on how crowded the parks are that day, you may only be allowed to have 1 other join him in the reserved section, If you are a party of 3 total, they'll probably allow all -- with one standing behind and one sitting on the ground in front; at least that's been our experience. And it gets very crowded, like wheelchair next to wheelchair elbow-to-elbow, so if being in a tight space with strangers is an issue, we find it much easier to sit curbside on our own.

Enjoy your vacation!

 

[SueM in MN]

I agree with lanejudy (especially that the wheelchairs are parked practically touching across the front of the viewing area. When our DD was little, it worked better for us to just find a spot. We were able to arrange other members of our group around to separate her from other people.

Here are some other things that we took into account when our child was little:
- there will be a rope across the front of the viewing area at the curb. Some kids are bothered by that and depending on how high they sit, the rope may be across their view.

- depending on how crowded it is and the size of the area,you may need to enter the handicapped viewing area an hour or more ahead of time. Because many people with disabilities chose to travel in less busy times, how busy the park is might not have much to do with how busy that area is.

- once you have entered the area, you may not be able to leave

 

[Nennie]

We did it once, and got there about an hour before the parade started. I thought it would be good to get situated so we didn't have to worry about people getting in my son's personal space. We were next to a family with an older woman on an ECV, and on the other side was a young woman with a hidden disability, who sat on the ground, with her family sitting behind her. We were all there nice and early to get good seating on the curb. About 5 minutes before the parade started a family with a woman on an ECV came behind us and started talking loudly saying that the woman next to me should get up so their ECV could park there, and that my family shouldn't be there with a stroller. We ignored them, but the woman next to us got quite upset and threw some words back at them.

The annoying family ended up directly behind us, and kept leaning on the stroller, stepping on my husband, and and were clearly trying to annoy us and/or get us to leave. Afterwards my husband said "never again" as far as sitting in WC section. We'll just stick to frontier land from now on, as we've had much better luck in that area!

As an aside, my son has ASD, and you can tell my looking at him that he has a mental disability. I guess the annoying family couldn't see him as they just saw the back of his stroller. I would hope that if they saw him, they would have knocked it off.

 

[seashoreCM]

and kept leaning on the stroller, stepping on my husband,

You have to turn around and tell them off, and/or summon help. There must be a Disney phone number that can be called.

Right now I can't think of any really good ways to attract the attention of security.

Touching someone's stroller or wheelchair is comparable to touching his shoulders or knees. Maybe the annoying person needs some therapy like this.

 

[CoriM48]

My son is 7 and uses a stroller as a safety feature for his anxiety. We have never gotten a stroller as a wheelchair tag before, but we always just arrive for parades an hour early and my sons (I have three, so I have a double stroller and a single for my big kid) just take their snack and afternoon break in the strollers and chill. It never occurred to me this would be considered inappropriate once you hit a certain age, but it's a good point.

 

[PatMcDuck]

I use the handicapped areas for parades sometimes, and it can get nasty/uncomfortable. Last time was to see the Halloween parade at DL. Another family took up 8 feet across, I mean 3 people all spread out, one child in a stroller who I assume had special needs). They said they were "saving"the space. I wanted to roll DS in his Convaid chair up to the rope, me standing behind him, or sitting on the ground in front of him (which is even better for those behind us). I gave up, but then another family on the other side of me said, that is ridiculous and encouraged me to move DS up. I ended up in the spot after all, when the rest of the rude family group showed up, they "let us" go there.

I should have arrived super early and got a regular spot, that is good advice. My next trip is WDW, we have FP+ for ELP, but I think we would still have to be there super early to get a spot for his WC. We usually skip parades, too much drama.

 

[MaggieMollyMom]

I agree with just finding a spot and waiting if possible. The WC area was a negative experience for us too. 2 stroller as a wheelchair gets you comments like "they must think this is stroller parking".

 

[MakiraMarlena]

If there is fastpass available for the parade, use one. The fastpass area is much less crowded and people do not swarm in and push against each other.

 

[mistysue]

From our experience I also suggest that if you are waiting up front one of you should stand beside the front of the stroller while waiting when it starts to get crowded. People assume your child is going to stand up or scoot forward if they can't see- so they will squeeze right up front and even nudge your stroller back a bit without apology. Standing beside it physically stops them. We had an incident of explaining to people that while DS looked old enough to scoot, he couldn't sit up and a woman rolled eyes like we were making it up and proceeded to dance around, sticking her butt about 8 inches from his head repeatedly.