New ride vehicle at Spaceship Earth!

[BillSears]

I just got back from my wonderful 50th birthday trip to WDW and one of the best things I found was a new ride vehicle at Spaceship Earth. They just added this car last month.

No one mentioned the car when I arrived and I had resigned myself into trying to do what I consider the WORST transfer in WDW. Lifting myself up and through that narrow opening is really rough. I wheeled up to the car and tried a couple of ways to get in but as I was struggling the CM asked if it would help if the car had a wider opening.... You think it might help????? I quickly said yes and she explained they had a new car installed last month and if I just stepped aside for a moment it would be here soon.

This new car turns Spaceship Earth from something that I would ride every 5 years or so and that I would be exhausted after getting into and out of into something that is really easy to get in. Now I can actually ride Spaceship Earth anytime I want to instead of hoping that I saved enough energy to get in and out of the car.

Sue, feel free to use this picture and information in your EPCOT thread. It's car number 130.

 

[zaksmom]

WOW! Add one more ride to our trip in May. One we thought we'd seen the last of. Thanks for posting this. You made our day.

 

[SueM in MN]

Wow, thanks for the great photo (can I use it?)

That little opening made it very hard for anyone with physical challenges to get in. We are looking forward to using it with DD.

 

[Mary976]

Wow, that's great news! I can help DD transfer, but now that she's bigger, it's almost easier if she does it herself. But Spaceship Earth gave her such problems last time we were going to skip it on our next trip.

Mary

 

[BillSears]

Wow, thanks for the great photo (can I use it?)

That little opening made it very hard for anyone with physical challenges to get in. We are looking forward to using it with DD.

You sure can use it!

Make sure to tell the CM that you want to use this vehicle. They didn't mention it to me before I was sent up to load and instead just sent me to a normal car. I think becuase it's so new they're still getting used to sending people to the correct car.

 

[cosmicdaisy]

That is so awesome!!!! Thanks so much for posting! You made my day as well!

 

[SueM in MN]

You sure can use it!

Make sure to tell the CM that you want to use this vehicle. They didn't mention it to me before I was sent up to load and instead just sent me to a normal car. I think becuase it's so new they're still getting used to sending people to the correct car.

THANKS

 

[mechurchlady]

Thanks for the great news for us with pooh shapes also. Wow what a neat car and I hope they do more ride vehicles like that.

Thanks again for posting, wow, neato.

 

[pugdog]

They have had it longer then a month. When we did a soft opening ride after the remodel they had it. That was in December 2007. Maybe they had to take it offline for some reason but it was there then.

 

[BillSears]

They have had it longer then a month. When we did a soft opening ride after the remodel they had it. That was in December 2007. Maybe they had to take it offline for some reason but it was there then.

It could be that they took it offline. I asked about a wider car after the remodel and was told they didn't have one. The CM did say it was added last month. So I'm not sure what happened.

 

[SueM in MN]

It could be that they took it offline. I asked about a wider car after the remodel and was told they didn't have one. The CM did say it was added last month. So I'm not sure what happened.

We were at WDW in October 08 and mentioned to the CM that the narrow car doors made it hard for us to get DD into the car. That meant we needed a full stop. I think if they had a wider opening door then they would have said something.
I thought at the time of the remodel that it was strange they had not added something like this car. I wonder if they had problems such as the door not opening or closing properly when it was supposed to???

 

[Judy Judy Judy]

Well I would love for my dd to be able to stay in her wheelchair but at least this will be easlier to carry her onto. Thanks !

 

[mrsksomeday]

Does this ride car have the same leg room? Bill has trouble bending his legs sometimes, I was just wondering if the leg room was different or not.

 

[jim22046]

How close can you get an ECV to the ride?
I have not been on it for some time now because of what I felt was to lengthy a walk.

 

[pugdog]

Bill,
do they still load you through the exit? the moving exit did make it a little easier.

 

[SueM in MN]

How close can you get an ECV to the ride?
I have not been on it for some time now because of what I felt was to lengthy a walk.

I am not sure if you can bring an ECV up to the ride, but I know that you can bring a wheelchair right up touching the ride car if you need to.
My guess is that you won't be able to bring an ECV to the load area. I know they do have wheelchairs at the attraction so if you are concerned about the distance, you could park the ECV at the waiting area and move to a wheelchair to get into the boarding area.

Bill,
do they still load you through the exit? the moving exit did make it a little easier.

They do load through the exit. The entrance is not at all wheelchair accessible, so this will be a 'wheelchairs board at the exit' attraction forever.
They usually slow the moving walkway, but it can be completely stopped if needed.
We rode it earlier this week (just got back from WDW) and they did completely stop it for us to put DD in. The wider opening made a big difference for getting her on and off. The small opening in the regular cars means she needs to be lifted and turned to sort of 'thread her' thru the opening to get in. The bigger opening makes it easier to just lift her.

My DH rode with DD, so I can't speak to the leg room question. I think the leg room looked the same as the other cars and was not smaller.