Pre-Trip Planning Pages: October 2019

[kristenrice]

WOW! Time FLIES!! Here we are...just 2 weeks away from departure...the nightmares have started.

I have so much to do and I can't believe I have been procrastinating so much. I guess I just kept thinking that I had plenty of time and now, well....nope...the trip is right around the corner! Here's' my life for the next 2 weeks...

Today: Kaedyn's Volleyball Game at 4pm (Away game)
10/4 Friday: Work 7pm-3am (Overtime shift)
10/5 Saturday: Mattress sale fundraiser at the High School for Kamryn's Choir trip to Chicago (9a-3p)
10/6 Sunday: This is a day of well-deserved rest so I will need to finish packing
10/7 Monday: Work 4:30am-4:30pm, Kaedy: Orthodontist at 3:30, Volleyball practice until 5:30, Kamryn: Haircut at 6pm
10/8 Tuesday: Kaedyn: Volleyball practice until 5:30pm (*I have to do 9 online classes for work today that are due 10/10)
10/9 Wednesday: Work 4:30am-4:30pm, Kaedyn: Volleyball practice until 5:30pm
10/10 Thursday: Class for work 8am-4pm; Kaedyn: Volleyball TOURNAMENT @ 4pm; Back to work for AHL Hockey orientation meeting from 6-8pm
10/11-10/13 Friday/Saturday/Sunday: Work 4:30am-4:30pm each day....hopefully getting out on time each day
10/14 Monday: Work 4:30am-4:30pm; Kaedyn: Volleyball practice
10/15 Tuesday: Kaedyn: Volleyball TOURNAMENT; Final day to finish packing
10/16 Wednesday: MY BIRTHDAY...but I have to Work 4:30am-4:30pm; Parents leave at 2:15pm, Kim and her kids leave at 5:55pm.
10/17 Thursday: Haircut and Pedicure at 12:15pm...pick up Kami at school at 2:45...Pick up Kaedy at 3:15...
.....LEAVE for the airport at 4:00 for our 5:55pm flight!

Time to get packing!

 

[kristenrice]

Par for the course...a wrench in the plans...Mom's knee went out. She doesn't know what she did, but she has severe pain when she goes up and down steps. She went to the ER on Friday and was given crutches and a knee immobilizer. A follow-up visit to her PCP yesterday resulted in an "expedited" appointment with an orthopedic doctor, but that date is still TBD. Due to her spinal cord stimulator implant, she cannot have an MRI so diagnosing a ligament or meniscus injury is almost impossible. She can stand and walk OK, but steps are a no-go, and obviously, the amount of walking at WDW will be way too much. Right now, her PCP has recommended a local injection (cortisone or similar) which will hopefully relieve the pain long enough to get her through the trip and then they can schedule arthroscopic surgery when she gets home. So, dad went ahead and reserved a scooter for her from ScooterBug. This will be a whole new experience for us, and not one that was on our bucket list. Navigating the parks and queues with an electric scooter, especially with my mother driving it scared1 is going to be interesting. I've already decided that someone in our party MUST stay in FRONT of her to avoid a potential lawsuit.

 

[Firepath]

You could always rent a manual wheelchair and take turns pushing if the scooter is too much for her.

 

[kristenrice]

You could always rent a manual wheelchair and take turns pushing if the scooter is too much for her.

That thought crossed my mind...but she wan't keen on it because of the knee immobilizer. It would be easier to sit on the "edge" of the scooter seat and prop her leg on the front wheels of the scooter than trying to navigate a wheelchair with the leg extended.

 

[John De Young]

Scooter Update: For those who may not know, but might need the info someday (we never thought we would).

Disney will rent you a scooter near the entrance to each of the parks (not sure about Disney Springs) to be used while you're in that park. I believe the cost is $50/day so if you hop to another park, you shouldn't have to pay again. Obviously, this will only work for folks who have some mobility. I do not know if Disney offers any way to get around at the resorts. The big question here would be availability.
There are several non-Disney sources for scooter rental, but only one of those (Scooterbug) can deliver and pick-up at Disney Bell Services. For the others, the renter (or representative) has to personally take delivery from and return the scooter to the vendor (which means being present when the vendor drops it off or comes to get it). Scooterbug also has a 10% military or DVC Member discount. They have 3 models, differentiated by operating time/distance and how much weight they can carry. We're getting the middle option for 10 days and our cost is just over $210 (that's with the DVC discount).

I'm told that for those rides where you exit in a different location from where you entered (i.e. most of them), Disney cast members will move the scooter to the exit location while you're on the ride. I doubt that anyone is surprised by that.

Here's Carol practicing at the grocery store:

Clean-up on aisle 6!!

 

[John De Young]

Since we've been back a week now, I guess it's time for a scooter update. I'm passing this info along with the hope that none of you will ever need it, but we never thought we would need it either.

I will give ScooterBug 1 and a half thumbs up. They didn't have the model we requested (the middle of 3 choices) so they upgraded us to their high-end model. It didn't give us longer battery life, but it could carry more weight (not something we really needed). But at least they didn't try to go to the lower-end model. The scooter was delivered to Bell Services at Port Orleans Riverside by the time promised. We had changed our room request to a ground-floor room after we knew Carol would need the scooter, but we did not specify a handicap-accessible room. I'm not really sure that it would have made any difference. To get to a ground-floor room at POR, you still have to go up 2-3 steps. But each building does have a ramp to that level somewhere. Once we found it, the route to our room was circuitous at best. Getting the scooter into a studio room was a challenge, but we made it. Fortunately, we were only staying 2 nights at POR. The rest of the trip we were in 2BRs; 5 nights at AKL and 3 at Boardwalk.

The ONLY problem we had with ScooterBug occurred on the day we were moving from AKL to Boardwalk. Our youngest daughter and her 2 girls had left early for rope drop at Hollywood Studios and our other daughter and her 2 girls had gone down with Bell Services and all of our stuff being transferred. I stayed behind with Carol to help her get the scooter out of the room. The light showed that the scooter was all charged up, but when she turned the key, nothing happened. The battery indicator light didn't even illuminate. Obviously we putzed around with it for a while, but nothing we did could get that light on. I called ScooterBug and they said we would be getting a replacement, but could I get the dead scooter down to Bell Services, which I did. They knew that they would be picking up our scooter in 4 days at Boardwalk, but I told them to deliver the replacement to Hollywood Studios and to have the driver call me when he was en route. I got Carol to the bus with a courtesy wheelchair (which we had to leave at AKL) and when we got to HS, we found a bench outside the park near the bus stop and the Skyliner station. Two hours later we were still sitting there with only 1 phone call in between telling us that they didn't have an ETA yet. By this time the rest of our family was in the park waiting for us. Kristen, our oldest daughter, decided to as she put it, "get the power of the mouse on our side". She went to a Guest Services representative (Jim) and explained the problem. She told him that we knew it wasn't really a Disney problem, but since ScooterBug was a preferred Disney vendor, was there anything he could do? What he did was comp us a Disney scooter for the day. A while later, we found out that ScooterBug had mistakenly delivered the scooter to Boardwalk. The representative I spoke with admitted that it was her mistake and that we would be compensated. I explained to her that we had a free replacement for the day from Disney and that they were the ones who should be compensated. I have no idea if that happened, but I seriously doubt it. I do know that of this writing, I have not received a credit from ScooterBug.

On get-away day, all we had to do was leave the scooter with Bell Services and get on the Magical Express bus. That's probably a little more convenient than coordinating a pickup with a non-preferred Disney vendor. Would I use ScooterBug again if the need arose? Yes, I probably would.