Scooter rentals now TARGETING the lazy!! (LONG)

[sameyeyam]

Back to the original subject.

I personally like to walk and would probably never rent a scooter to get me around. However, is it really any different than these things?:

1. Segways.
2. Driving your car to the local store.
3. Pulling your kids around the sidewalk in a wagon.
4. Putting your 4 year old in a stroller.
5. Letting the kids ride their bike or skateboard to school instead of walking. 6. Letting the kids ride their mini-bike across the field to visit friends instead of walking.
7. Choosing to sit down in an air-conditioned theater at Disney to rest my feet instead of walking over to yet another ride.

All of the above activities burn less calories than walking or running the same distance. Yet we have no problem when someone choses them.

I spend 9 days every year walking around Disney World, my feet hurt at the end of the day and really hurt at the end of the week! So if someone wants to rent a scooter at Disney because they would rather not walk, so what. It's there b*** that's getting fat, not mine!

It's all about choices and thankfully we all live in a free country where we can make our own choices (good, bad or indifferent).

P.S. How many of us pay $50 a month to belong to a gym, then ask the the box person at the store to load the 40 pound bag of dog food for us??

 

[Talking Hands]

That seems odd about the drugs for Type 2 Diabetes. My dad and grandpa were just diagnosed with that and were both told it was brought on by being overweight. SO they are on big time diets to lose weight to control the diabetes. SO why would they give meds that caused weight gain?

Because these are the drugs that work to allow the body to use the insulin they have which btw they may have in excess. By allowing the receptors of the insulin to attach to and metabolize the carbohydrates that are eaten. In type 2 diabetics it is the receptors that are blocked and not that there is reduced or no production of insulin as in a type 1.

 

[SueM in MN]

I just think some of you have e guilty conscious and have taken advantage of the ECV and that is why you are being so defensive.

Just for the record, I want to say that I am a size 10, "normal" weight for my height and have never used an ECV myself.
I am, though, the mother of a child with multiple disabilities. She is not overweight. She is, in fact, a tiny young adult (5 feet tall and 84 pounds - but she's not anorexic, I don't want to go down that road).
She uses a wheelchair and we have heard people make comments about her using a wheelchair because, in their eyes, she does not look disabled enough. According to their comments, they thought we were using the wheelchair to get some "advantage".
She can't walk.
She can't stand.
She can't talk.
She spent some of the afternoon and her entire evening last night sleeping after a seizure. But, people in the past looked at her for a few seconds in a WDW park and decided she was "not disabled enough" and that they had a right to say that where we (and she) could hear it.

People have said on this thread "Oh, we're not talking about people like her. She is truely disabled," but that hasn't stopped the few people who did make comments to us.
I am not made of stone.
It hurts, it hurts bad to hear those kinds of comments about my DD when I know so many things she is never going to be able to do.
It hurt to know that my FIL (who I loved dearly) was more afraid of what other people might think and say if he used and ECV than he was about the pain that would come out of a day at the parks. It hurt to know that he was giving up time in the parks with his family because he had heard the comments people made to/about his granddaughter and didn't want to hear any of those comments about himself.
It hurts to know that my MIL's doctors have told her to limit her walking because the arches in her feet are collapsed, which causes pain when she walks. We tried to convince her to get an ECV, but she was afraid. Oh, and for the record, she's not overweight - she is 5 feet tall and weighs all of 118 pounds.
It hurts to know that people on this thread have posted the same fears and reluctance to use an ECV.
It hurts to know that the nice woman who was looking forward to a WDW trip after losing 50 pounds and was planning to use an ECV because of her bad knees has a good chance of another guest calling her names and deciding she is using an ECV out of laziness.

That's what some of the, so-called defensive" comments people have made in this thread are about. People making judgements on things they have no knowledge about.

There are people who use ECVs for convenience and out of laziness - this is not the first article I have seen about it. I've seen pictures of rap stars using them - a new fad after Missy Elliot rode one onstage at a Videogame Awards show. (For the record, she had a reason for using it, she was recovering from foot surgery, but other stars thought it looked like fun and now we have "pimped out" ECVs for people with way too much money). People who use them as a lifestyle choice are sad human beings - like Michael Jackson who was shown in the interviews with Martin Bashir joyriding thru the corridors of a Las Vegas hotel using one. Martin Bashir asked him something like, why would you use this, you are not disabled. And Michael Jackson's response was that he was just having fun.

But (big news flash - those people already know they are using them for fun or convenience or laziness. They DON'T need to be told that. They won't even notice if someone says it. They already know it and THEY DON'T CARE and no one's comments are going to make them change. That's part of the ME! ME! thing that seems to be going on in the US.

But, negative comments do have an impact on people who are looking at themselves and thinking, "if I don't use it, I know I will be in pain. But, if I do use it, people might think I'm not disabled enough."

And, it doesn't have to be comments. We can feel the stares, the appraising looks, the raised eyebrows and little bits of body language.

When I write that, the response is usually, "We're not talking about the truly disabled. It's the people who are NOT disabled and are abusing priviledges who make us suspicious and are ruining it for you."

That's ridiculous. The people who are "ruining it" are those who think those using wheelchairs and ECVs have some "priviledges" that they don't have. Those are often the jealous people looking around and spying to see who doesn't "deserve" the priviledges. That's truely sad.

 

[taximomfor4]

That seems odd about the drugs for Type 2 Diabetes. My dad and grandpa were just diagnosed with that and were both told it was brought on by being overweight. SO they are on big time diets to lose weight to control the diabetes. SO why would they give meds that caused weight gain?

Because the immediate problem is keeping a Type 2 diabetic from going into a health crisis or lifethreatening complication. This requires careful maintenance of their blood glucose, keeping it neither too high nor too low. Sometimes diet alone cannot accomplish this. The drug manufacterers are going to create drugs which have the greatest benefit...in this case, helping to control some of the glucose that is not getting properly taken up into the body's cells. If weight gain is a side effect, at least the excess glucose is being taken care of, in the drug manufacturers minds. Plus if someone goes into full-blown diabetic complications, death could be immediate. Excess weight gain is not such a big deal compared to the very serious diabetic ketoacidosis! While obesity is ONE of the risk factors for Type 2 Diabetes, it is not the only risk factor. Unlike Type 1, in which genetics is NOT a strong player, in Type 2, there seems to be a strong genetic factor. Also, many other health problems can cause it. I have an autoimmune disorder (my body is fighting off part of itself) and that particular disease has a very strong correlation to Type 2 Diabetes.

 

[taximomfor4]

Wow, Sue. That's one to frame. I think that anyone who doesn't really "get it" might after reading that. : and here's hugs as well. You do a lot for us on these boards, and many of us really respect you.

 

[minnie61650]

Wow, Sue. That's one to frame. I think that anyone who doesn't really "get it" might after reading that. : and here's hugs as well. You do a lot for us on these boards, and many of us really respect you.

I second that.
Thanks Sue.

 

[steffali]

My daughter is disabled and uses a wheelchair/scooter. I would give ANYTHING for her not to have to use one so it just makes me soooo mad that people who are healthy and really do not need to use the scooters are using them!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SueM in MN]

Wow, Sue. That's one to frame. I think that anyone who doesn't really "get it" might after reading that. : and here's hugs as well. You do a lot for us on these boards, and many of us really respect you.

thanks
Now, please, for everyone else, can we please have a truce for the night.
I have spent most of the day "babysitting" this thread and i would like to put my DD to bed.

 

[MyGoofy26]

DO you have it in your little mind that I go around WDW commenting to people about their weight!! I really don't think so!! I do judge those I see riding in the scooters as they are gobbling down a turkey leg and other junk and then they park their scooters and run through the queue of the line.

I'm sure you're being sarcastic - I sure hope you aren't spending so much of your trip watching the same person, noting what they eat and which attractions they go on. But realistically, the only way you could come up with those judgements when someone steps off of their ECV would be based solely on size (unless they had the turkey leg hanging out of their mouth as they ran through the queue) You have no idea why that person has an ECV. A couple years ago my aunt, who is not petite (not lobbing over the sides of her seat, but not a skinny minnie either), broke down and got an ECV halfway through the second day. At the time she was coming off a string of 8 unsuccessful surgeries to fix a bad hysterectomy and was healing from the most recent surgery a couple months prior where she was literally split end to end across her abdomen. She had also recently been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. She could walk, but any real distance and she would have been laying in the hotel the rest of the trip. So if you, or anyone who thinks like you, would have seen her park her ECV and visit an attraction with us, I'm sure there'd be accompanying glares and judgements that she was just another fat, lazy slob.

Keep in mind that weight isn't always the problem and that many "disabilities" don't have a person totally disabled, simply limited, and that the only way they can "run through the queue" is by using assistance getting around. Just because a person isn't thin, doesn't necessarily mean that weight is their problem.

 

[Annam26]

Just for the record, I want to say that I am a size 10, "normal" weight for my height and have never used an ECV myself.
I am, though, the mother of a child with multiple disabilities. She is not overweight. She is, in fact, a tiny young adult (5 feet tall and 84 pounds - but she's not anorexic, I don't want to go down that road).
She uses a wheelchair and we have heard people make comments about her using a wheelchair because, in their eyes, she does not look disabled enough. According to their comments, they thought we were using the wheelchair to get some "advantage".
She can't walk.
She can't stand.
She can't talk.
She spent some of the afternoon and her entire evening last night sleeping after a seizure. But, people in the past looked at her for a few seconds in a WDW park and decided she was "not disabled enough" and that they had a right to say that where we (and she) could hear it.

People have said on this thread "Oh, we're not talking about people like her. She is truely disabled," but that hasn't stopped the few people who did make comments to us.
I am not made of stone.
It hurts, it hurts bad to hear those kinds of comments about my DD when I know so many things she is never going to be able to do.
It hurt to know that my FIL (who I loved dearly) was more afraid of what other people might think and say if he used and ECV than he was about the pain that would come out of a day at the parks. It hurt to know that he was giving up time in the parks with his family because he had heard the comments people made to/about his granddaughter and didn't want to hear any of those comments about himself.
It hurts to know that my MIL's doctors have told her to limit her walking because the arches in her feet are collapsed, which causes pain when she walks. We tried to convince her to get an ECV, but she was afraid. Oh, and for the record, she's not overweight - she is 5 feet tall and weighs all of 118 pounds.
It hurts to know that people on this thread have posted the same fears and reluctance to use an ECV.
It hurts to know that the nice woman who was looking forward to a WDW trip after losing 50 pounds and was planning to use an ECV because of her bad knees has a good chance of another guest calling her names and deciding she is using an ECV out of laziness.

That's what some of the, so-called defensive" comments people have made in this thread are about. People making judgements on things they have no knowledge about.

There are people who use ECVs for convenience and out of laziness - this is not the first article I have seen about it. I've seen pictures of rap stars using them - a new fad after Missy Elliot rode one onstage at a Videogame Awards show. (For the record, she had a reason for using it, she was recovering from foot surgery, but other stars thought it looked like fun and now we have "pimped out" ECVs for people with way too much money). People who use them as a lifestyle choice are sad human beings - like Michael Jackson who was shown in the interviews with Martin Bashir joyriding thru the corridors of a Las Vegas hotel using one. Martin Bashir asked him something like, why would you use this, you are not disabled. And Michael Jackson's response was that he was just having fun.

But (big news flash - those people already know they are using them for fun or convenience or laziness. They DON'T need to be told that. They won't even notice if someone says it. They already know it and THEY DON'T CARE and no one's comments are going to make them change. That's part of the ME! ME! thing that seems to be going on in the US.

But, negative comments do have an impact on people who are looking at themselves and thinking, "if I don't use it, I know I will be in pain. But, if I do use it, people might think I'm not disabled enough."

And, it doesn't have to be comments. We can feel the stares, the appraising looks, the raised eyebrows and little bits of body language.

When I write that, the response is usually, "We're not talking about the truly disabled. It's the people who are NOT disabled and are abusing priviledges who make us suspicious and are ruining it for you."

That's ridiculous. The people who are "ruining it" are those who think those using wheelchairs and ECVs have some "priviledges" that they don't have. Those are often the jealous people looking around and spying to see who doesn't "deserve" the priviledges. That's truely sad.

Well said, Sue!

And isn't it funny how those people ignored the post where you talked about your DD having to wait 30 of 40 minutes more than the ambulatory guests for some rides, and asked if that was fair?

Where was the outrage from those who spend so much time of their vacation watching other people to see if they are gatting any "advantage"?

Where was the outrage from those that want everything equal and "fair"?

 

[bayoutinksmom]

I'm sure you're being sarcastic - I sure hope you aren't spending so much of your trip watching the same person, noting what they eat and which attractions they go on. But realistically, the only way you could come up with those judgements when someone steps off of their ECV would be based solely on size (unless they had the turkey leg hanging out of their mouth as they ran through the queue) You have no idea why that person has an ECV. A couple years ago my aunt, who is not petite (not lobbing over the sides of her seat, but not a skinny minnie either), broke down and got an ECV halfway through the second day. At the time she was coming off a string of 8 unsuccessful surgeries to fix a bad hysterectomy and was healing from the most recent surgery a couple months prior where she was literally split end to end across her abdomen. She had also recently been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. She could walk, but any real distance and she would have been laying in the hotel the rest of the trip. So if you, or anyone who thinks like you, would have seen her park her ECV and visit an attraction with us, I'm sure there'd be accompanying glares and judgements that she was just another fat, lazy slob.

Keep in mind that weight isn't always the problem and that many "disabilities" don't have a person totally disabled, simply limited, and that the only way they can "run through the queue" is by using assistance getting around. Just because a person isn't thin, doesn't necessarily mean that weight is their problem.

Go back and read my post on page 3 and you will see exactly what I am talking about.

 

[schlepsnort]

I agree that people who do not need the ECV's should not be renting them, but I also am a person whose disability is considered 'invisible' . I have severe RA, hip replacements, and a fused ankle. Some days I can keep up with all 3 of my kids no problems, other days I can't even dress myself.
I am on steroids which cause me to retain fluids and also gives me the appetite to end all appetites. So I am overweight, I'm on w.w. and try to exercise when my body allows me to.
But there are times that I have needed to get an ECV or wheelchair and I have heard the utterly nasty/disgusting comments coming from people nearby. It is hurtful and it doesn't just get forgotten after awhile. I still remember comments made to me from when I was in elementary school.
And what makes it even worse now is that my kids have to hear it when they are with me and I'm having a bad day. My DS heard a comment once and asked me why the man said that. Didn't he know that I have boo boos? So how do I explain to my kids why people are vicious and judgemental?
Some people on this thread are prime examples, refusing to believe that a medication can cause weight gain or that fat can just meltaway if we really really tried. Some of us have tried, have even tried in ways that aren't healthy and it just doesn't happen. Or it does but we suffer from the after effects. I've been on medications that the side effect is an increase in the chance of getting cancer. I also was on one that could cause a heart attack. But I had to try these meds just to stop my pain. I couldn't take a single step without feeling like the bones in my hips were just shattering. I couldn't put weight on my ankle because I could FEEL the grit of the bone as it was disintergrating. I've lived with mind shattering pain and I will take whatever med is necessary, regardless of side effects just to have some moments of PEACE.
So don't judge those in an ECV or wheelchair until you actually TALK to them and maybe learn something about them. Obviously the ones who get up and announce that they don't need one then do deserve a well placed kick in the ****. But the ones who assume, make comments or rude gestures without getting the facts are the ones who deserve a kick in the **** and a slap across the head.

 

[Talking Hands]

Let say if you need scooter for health reasons then by all means you should have one!!


Now let me tell you a little story!! Back in July 2000 while on my honeymoon I came upon the most un Disney like situation that it caused me to go to guest services. We were getting in line for a ride and a nice women and her husband came up and asked if her husband could stand in line while she and her 5 adopted mentally disabled children could wait inside until he arrived to the front. On of the children she preceded to say suffered from some sort of disease and she was trying to make him a little more comfortable. Was not asking to cut the line but just wait inside until it was there turn. The RUDE cm told her absolutely not so the whole family got in line. Well seconds later comes the big obese family of four on their ECV’s. It was the 2 parents and there teenage children all chewing down on turkey legs and drinking regular coke. Well they get a pass to the front of the line no questions ask. They get off their EVC”s and park them and take off inside the building and I mean take off. I was so mad that we got out of line and went straight to guest services to complain. I mean if you are that over weight and unhealthy that you can not walk around then instead of spending money on WDW vacation get into a fitness center with some who can help so you can live longer. These lazy people sometimes make WDW miserable for the rest of us.

Did the family with the 5 children have a Guest Assistance Card? If not what was the CM to do? What the CM should have done is explained that they needed to go to guest servicces to obtain a card if they needed accomodation. As to the fami,ly on ECVs, iunless they had a GAC, if they were leaving them outside they would have been asked to go through the
regular line. Riding an ECV and parking it doesn't give you access to the fastpass line at all. Even power wheelchairs in many go through the regular line except in a few rides at MK unless you have a GAC allowing to use the fastpass line for another reason. Wheelchairs and ECVs are not a pass to skip the lines.

 

[kaytieeldr]

If you are truly concerned about the weight problem in America then you must begin to try to understand why people are overweight. Over half of the overweight people I know, and I know quite a few, have emotional issues. Some of them see mental health professionals. Guess what, they are not immediately recommended a diet.

And even if they DID, weight loss (believe it or not) is not instantaneous.

You know I was a big girl once!!

Given the lack of compassion in many of these posts, don't you thing euphemisms are a bit ingenuous? Fat is fat; obese is obese. "Big girl" is just cushioning the facts.

I just think some of you have e guilty conscious and have taken advantage of the ECV and that is why you are being so defensive.

Thanks for analyzing us. Now we can stop spending thousands of dollars a year for professional counseling. No, I know my needs; I my conscience is clear.

DO you have it in your little mind that I go around WDW commenting to people about their weight!!

Not at all. Instead, you post such comments on a forum where they'll exist forever.

Back to the original subject.
I personally like to walk and would probably never rent a scooter to get me around. However, is it really any different than these things?:
1. Segways.
2. Driving your car to the local store.
3. Pulling your kids around the sidewalk in a wagon.
4. Putting your 4 year old in a stroller.
5. Letting the kids ride their bike or skateboard to school instead of walking.
6. Letting the kids ride their mini-bike across the field to visit friends instead of walking.
7. Choosing to sit down in an air-conditioned theater at Disney to rest my feet instead of walking over to yet another ride.

Oh, sure - BE sensible
Seriously - of the items listed, letting kids (safely) ride bicycles or use skateboards to get to school IS healthy!

P.S. How many of us pay $50 a month to belong to a gym, then ask the the box person at the store to load the 40 pound bag of dog food for us??

LOL - I used to get a kick out of the people working out at a health club at a local mall who would circle around and around the parking lot to park as close as possible to the club entrance.