Personal ECV on air travel to WDW

[zzyzx409]

I am going to WDW in Dec. I have rented an ECV there from Care Medical the last two times I visited and the scooters were OK, but well, rentals just never are quites as good as one's own scooter.

Anyway, I've heard some good reports about traveling with an ECV, and some horror stories.

I really want to take my own, but, not at the expense of a busted scooter.

Anything I can do to help insure safe arrival of my scooter?

Any reports (good or bad) about air travel to WDW with personal ECVs?

BTW: I will be traveling from the West Coast with a plane change in Dallas.

Any replies much appreciated.

Andy

 

[Cheshire Figment]

With a change of aircraft I would not take the chances. A few months ago I went to DL and had a change of aircraft each way and figured it was better to rent that take. If it was a non-stop I would have taken my ECV.

Normally an ECV would be gate-checked, so you would have to wait for it to be taken from the plane and brought up to the gate and then get to the other gate and recheck it. Espeically if there is a tight connection or a delay on the first flight you might have a real problem. I have been on flights where we have arrived late and the cabin crew asked everyone to remain seated so people with connections could leave first.

 

[SueM in MN]

Normally an ECV would be gate-checked, so you would have to wait for it to be taken from the plane and brought up to the gate and then get to the other gate and recheck it. Espeically if there is a tight connection or a delay on the first flight you might have a real problem. I have been on flights where we have arrived late and the cabin crew asked everyone to remain seated so people with connections could leave first.

We have just traveled with DD's manual wheelchair, not her power one.
I wanted to mention that if you gate check something, you usually have some choice on a connecting flight of where or when to have your gate checked item returned. It could be brought to the gate at your connecting city or your final destination. It could be taken to baggage claim at either place. When they put the gate check tag on it, you should be able to choose where to get it back.
If you do bring it with and don't want to have it at the connecting city gate, you can be met by a wheelchair and skycap to get you to your next gate.

I don't like connecting flights and we try to fly non-stop as much as we can, but sometimes that's not possible. A connecting flight leaves one more time that the wheelchair or ECV needs to be handled and one more chance for error.

If you do decide to take it, the general advice would be to remove anything that can be easily removed (like if you have added cup/bottle holders, sunshades, etc). Anything that sticks out is a possible place to get stuck or hit.

 

[bumpysheep]

I am going to WDW in Dec. I have rented an ECV there from Care Medical the last two times I visited and the scooters were OK, but well, rentals just never are quites as good as one's own scooter.

Anyway, I've heard some good reports about traveling with an ECV, and some horror stories.

I really want to take my own, but, not at the expense of a busted scooter.

Anything I can do to help insure safe arrival of my scooter?

Any reports (good or bad) about air travel to WDW with personal ECVs?

BTW: I will be traveling from the West Coast with a plane change in Dallas.

Any replies much appreciated.

Andy

Take off your arms if they are removable.

Never had an issues except the scooters arms being scuffed up and piece of the arm padding being ripped off.

I also have a flexi lead attached. If you have one and can not remove you arms remove your flexi!

I mark all parts with my name and our mobile phone number. I tag it with info for our destination. I attach to the back the I have the correct kind of batterires and "do not disasemble" in all cap bold lettering.

Since you are doing a connectioning flight don't schedule you flights too close to each other. Sometimes, depending on airport and airline, even when you gate check you might have to wait around for a while. The longest I've waited is 15 minutes.

Hope this helps.

 

[clkelley]

We have had great success with traveling with ours, but have done only direct flights.

If you have to change planes, try to have at least a 90 minute or longer connection. If a connection of 90 minutes is not available then still gate check it, but have them transfer it between flights and use the airport wheelchair service. Also check to see if your transfer is from a regional jet to a larger jet, or reverse. Most of the time the smaller regional commuter planes have their own terminal and the transfer to the bigger planes is a hike. Try to make both legs on larger planes or both legs on smaller planes and you should have an easier transfer.

As everyone else has said, strip it down to the bare minimum, and carryon those items, or pack them well in regular checked luggage.

Make sure every piece that can be taken apart has your information on it. Flight numbers, destination airport, cell phone #s, destination hotel #s, etc. We add new stickers for the trip home, then scrape them off at home and make new ones for the next trip.

As for the arms, we took the arms off of hubby's scooter a long time ago and LEFT them off. They are in our attic. They were a major pita to deal with constantly.

 

[zzyzx409]

Looks like we have a tight conection in Dallas. The original schedule had a 90 min stop-over in DFW on the trip to Orlando, and the return had less than 60 minutes in DFW.

Now both layovers are under an hour, so maybe I should check the scooter all the way to Orlando and then just pick it up at the gate in Orlando.

I just purchased a Pride Go Go Elite travel for travel purposes good for around resorts, in airports, but will not be good for parks, so I guess I will rent a full-size there for parks, and just use my travel scooter for travel.

The main reason I got the Go Go was for our trip to Maui last week. It worked out well except for two minor glitches.

1. When we got to Maui they did not tell me that they put the scooter in freewheel, to move it and it took me a couple of minutes to figure out what was up (I just got the scooter on Thursday and we flew out Sunday, so I was not familiar with it). But that was fairly easy.

2. But on the way back, I think they must have disassembled the battery pack and disconnected one of the cells. When they delivered the scooter to me in LAX it was dead, dead, dead. I tried every thing I could think of and no help. After I got home my provider asked me to disassemble the battery pack and check for loose wires, sure enough, one was disconnected. It's not like they are just loose, they are actually pretty tight connecitons.

Has anyone else had the experience of an airline taking battery packs apart and disconnecting wires?

Later,

zz

 

[Cheshire Figment]

I am now using a Pride Go Go. I will carry the charger with me and when eating or going to a show find a place near an outlet and just plug it in to build up the battery's charge. When cvome back there is obviously a better charge on the battery.