Leaving the ECV to board a ride

[mom0104]

I am thinking about getting my Mom an ECV for the parks. She can walk but not for long distances without a lot of back pain. Since she can stand in line, I thought we could leave the ECV parked with the strollers until we are finished with the ride. What are the chances it will be stolen? It will not be a rental from Disney but from a private firm.
Thank you for your assistance.

 

[dizanimator]

I'd be nervous about having her stand in the line when the seat is available. Some lines can be fairly long, and not just the time spent waiting in them. It can be a very long distance between where strollers are left andwhere you actually board the ride. Then there can be another long distance back to where the ECV is parked. Even if a ride is practically walk-on the distance from the entrance to the ride could be hard for her.
I have had problems with my knees which can make it sometimes very painful to walk, and while I haven't had them really hurting while at WDW yet, if I did I would not want to walk long distances between where strollers are parked and the ride.
I don't know what the chances are of the ECV being stolen while you ride might be, but I'd definatly not leave anything valuable in it if you do leave it.

 

[madenon]

I think the risk of it being taken by mistake (the person thinking it is theirs) would be higher. You can reduce that change very easily by "personalizing" the ecv. Put a sticker on it that you can't miss, a bright colored cover / bag etc. on the seat or something like that. If someone really wants to, a ecv can be stolen without a key in about 2 seconds. That being sad; it doesn't happen much at all, luckily. If I were on the look out for some ecv-taking, I would rather do it at the resort than at a busy park where there's more chance of someone seeing anything.

Leaving a aid anywhere unattended is never 100% save. It's up to us users to decide if we feel it's safe enough. I'll be taking my brand new powerchair (which I'll hopefully get next month) with me, with a retail value of around $34.000. A lot of money, more or less my life (no powerchair = big problem ), but I feel more than safe enough to transfer from the chair into a ride if needed and leave it unattended during the ride. I psychically can't do the lines without the chair, but I wouldn't do it without the chair either. Somehow it feels better to have the chair waiting for me in an area closer to some CM and with minimum time in which I leave it unattended. I would personally do the same with a ecv of my own, I think.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

To my recall, with the exceptions of Pirates and Space Mountain you can take an ECV all the way up to the boarding area of the ride, and all attractions have space for ECVs in with the wheelchair seating. In Pirates and SM they have a special ECV parking area and "loaner" wheelchairs.

Some of the rides they may ask you to leave the key as the ECV has to be moved; in others you park it and it will remain there until you return.

Just remember, unless the CM asks you to leave the key in the ECV, always remove it and take it with you when it is parked.

 

[mom0104]

Thank you all for the great information.

 

[Belle1997]

Make sure when you do pirates to use the wheelchairs provided it is a long walk. Also some rides they can stop. I think the only one they can not is Peter Pan. With a back issue sometimes trying to get into a moving ride is difficult puts you a little off balance.

 

[SueM in MN]

Make sure when you do pirates to use the wheelchairs provided it is a long walk. Also some rides they can stop. I think the only one they can not is Peter Pan. With a back issue sometimes trying to get into a moving ride is difficult puts you a little off balance.

You are right that it can be a long walk from the line entrance to the boarding area. Pirates is a long walk. Others I can think of that are long walks include Splash Mountain, the Safari at AK and It's Tough to Be a Bug at AK. So, before leaving the ECV outside any attraction, it's a good idea to check with the CM how long the walk is.

You are also right that they can't stop the moving walkway at Peter Pan.
They also can't stop it for Tomorrowland Transit Authority (either the very steep ramp up to the 2nd floor station or the moving boarding ramp).

In the disABILITIES FAQs thread neat the top of this board, there are some links to past threads that might be helpful. One is about boarding rides for someone who needs extra time. I'll also bump it up to the top of the board for you.

 

[SueM in MN]

Also, if you take the key with you, it is unlikely that it will be taken. Not totally impossible, but in almost 8 years of being on the DIS Boards and other boards about travel to Disney, I have never heard of one being stolen.

Here is a list from the WDW website of attractions where guests in motorized vehicles, ECVs, must transfer into an available wheelchair. At all the other attractions, you can choose to keep the ECV in line with you or walk if the line and wait are short.
MK

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin
"it's a small world"
Stitch's Great Escape!™
The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Tom Sawyer Island Rafts
Walt Disney World Railroad

Epcot
Universe of Energy: "Ellen's Energy Adventure"
Mexico: El Rio del Tiempo in Mexico (note: I just pulled this off the Disney site a few minutes ago, but it has not been updated to reflect the recent renovation to the Mexico ride. The boarding area has been renovated also and appeared to possibly be ECV accessible when we rode in April. Hopefully someone using an ECV can comment. At any rate, it's a short walk and the attraction is not that busy).
The Land: Living with the Land

Disney MGM Studio
The Great Movie Ride
The Magic of Disney Animation

AK
Affection section in Rafiki's Planet Watch
Kilimanjaro Safaris
TriceraTop Spin

 

[5dwarves]

The disAbilities forum has given me a ton of information on travelling with my special needs DS and my DH who needs a scooter. I have enhanced all that good advice with more info from Allears.net. Click on the words "special needs travelers" on the left of the site at the top, then scroll down to Mobility and click on ECV/Wheelchair FAQ's. They give great tips, like bringing a big, garish, easy to find key chain for the ECV key, in case you set it down somewhere; practicing backing up and driving your ECV before you get to the parks so that you are a safe and familiar ECV driver, photos of the WDW ECV's so you know what to expect, locations for replacement wheel chairs at WDW should you have a problem, telling your hotel you will have a rental ECV so that you can make sure the door openings are wide enough to accomodate it...etc. It is very informative and used in concert with the info on this site should help you a great deal.

I read where someone recommended a sticker to identify your ECV from others. Great idea to differentiate yourself! One of the guides recommends an inexpensive Bandana to do the same with strollers. I am sure there is a pretty good .99 selection of those at your local dollar store...and a bandana would be larger and thus easier to spot than a sticker, or at least it would be for nearsighted me

Have a great trip!

 

[SueM in MN]

telling your hotel you will have a rental ECV so that you can make sure the door openings are wide enough to accomodate it...etc.

I just wanted to point out that the door openings to get into all the resort rooms are the same width, whether or not it is a wheelchair accessible room.
A standard wheelchair accessible door opening is 32 inches wide. Most of the resorts have room entry doors that are actually a bit wider than that.
The thing you do need to be aware of if you had a wheelchair and need to use it to get around the room is that some of the resort rooms do not have a wide enough door to get into the bathroom.