Thanks for the wheekchair discusison

[Hewolf]

I myself will be in a wheelchair on my honeymoon. I have cerebral palsy and walking around Disney would just be way to hard for me to walk around the park. I really am thankful for the discussion you had about dealing with a wheelchair in Disney. I have went to Disney once before and I can tell you from personal experience that people have little regard for people in wheelchairs. I can't count the number of times people cut out in front of me and the person pushing my chair. I won't even go in to the personal hell that was exiting the magic kingdom in a wheelchair. Thanks podcast crew for bringing up this issue to the listeners. Hopefully we can slowly change how people behave to people in wheelchairs and scooters.

 

[scarlett873]

My dad uses a wheelchair when he goes to WDW, or anywhere that he needs to walk for an extended period of time as well. I know that i've become much more aware of wheelchair users and try to give them the space that they need!

 

[cchev]

I was just there during Christmas and I felt so BAD for anyone in a wheelchair since it was so crowded. Many seemed to have trouble navigating through the crowds (as even people who were walking had trouble, it being so crowded). There really need to be an increase in awareness that its not easy using a wheelchair or other vehicle is such crowded areas and also realize that they are big and heavy devices and can injure you if you aren't careful.

 

[IWISHFORDISNEY]

I am so glad you did this segment also. My sister recently had to rent an ECV due to her knee being blown out. She is over weight so she got the stares but the worst was people just walking right in front of her causing her to come to a jerking stop each time. Finally I just said run them over. They are the ones being rude by literally running in front of her cart. You really never know until you have HAD to deal with this issue. It stinks.

 

[soxnation]

spend one afternoon in a wheelchair at the local mall and you will have a whole new view of the world. i had my ankle reconstructed and that experience has changed my view of people in chairs, please respect others situations. Thanks for talking about this!

haha just as i was writing this he mentioned going to the mall!

 

[chirurgeon]

I had to use an ECV for my December 2006 trip. I was recovering from chemo, so my disability was very invisible. I was lucky and didn't get the looks ( that I noticed) and I had very little problem on the buses. My only problem was the people walking in front of me. I can't count the times I needed to add my feet as brakes. I was able to just put my feet down on either side and come to a quicker stop than if I just let go of the accelorator switch. I was lucky not to hit a few people. Riding in an ECV, while a good thing for my health, it was not a joy ride.

Kim

 

[lovethecastle]

My son is in a wheelchair full time. I can't tell you the number of times people would not only cut him off as we weremoving along but people would walk in between his leg rests when we would be stopped. What is up with that. He is not a short cut. Ok clearly I have some issues to deal with.
good luck.

 

[uconn01001]

Hi,

I am the one that sent the email about the scooter/wheelchair to the podcast. I hope my email help people understand how difficult it is for people like myself to manuver through disney especially during the busy times. I don't want to blame anyone in particular but there are always those rude people that think they can walk infront of scooters/wheelchairs and not get hit but that is impossible. It is very hard to "stop on a dime" like John said.

 

[Hewolf]

I remember one time in particular for me when I was going on space mountain. I had gotten to the point in the line where the wheelchair people take a different route than the other people waiting in line for the ride. Well, when people saw me and my brother taking the alternate route to get on the ride we got our share of nasty stares. Two people went as far as jumping to our side of the line. I got a big smile on my face because a couple minuites after they were rushing past us I saw security escorting them from the ride.

 

[SueM in MN]

The podcast brought up a lot of good points (many of the kinds of things that disABILITIES Board posters write when a discussion comes up complaining about wheelchair/ECV users).

In case people are not aware, I wanted to mention that the DIS site has a discussion forum for people with disabilities (permanent or temporarily disabled). There is a link to the disABILITIES Board in my signature.

Also very helpful, the disABILITIES FAQs thread, near the top of the disABILITIES Board. It has lots of information, including links to the WDW Guidebook for Guests with Disabilities for each park. In post #2 of that thread, there is information about renting wheelchairs and ECVs. My signature also has a link to the disABILITIES FAQs thread.

 

[SFBayDon]

The pod cast is so good for life education and not just Disney. This topic was very informative and handled so well, I say BRAVO!

As someone who is lucky enough to not need a wheelchair, I have always made an effort to stop or move out of the way for someone in a wheelchair. Having a perspective of the people pushing or in the chair just validates how another point of view can help us all learn. Thanks to everyone for sharing on this topic, and your comments about personal space are right on track.
Don

 

[Jacksmom99]

The podcast brought up a lot of good points (many of the kinds of things that disABILITIES Board posters write when a discussion comes up complaining about wheelchair/ECV users).

In case people are not aware, I wanted to mention that the DIS site has a discussion forum for people with disabilities (permanent or temporarily disabled). There is a link to the disABILITIES Board in my signature.

Also very helpful, the disABILITIES FAQs thread, near the top of the disABILITIES Board. It has lots of information, including links to the WDW Guidebook for Guests with Disabilities for each park. In post #2 of that thread, there is information about renting wheelchairs and ECVs. My signature also has a link to the disABILITIES FAQs thread.

Thanks for pointing that out, Sue. I used the info on the Disabilities board quite a bit when planning our last trip once I realized I'd need a scooter. The info was very helpful.

I also agree that people just completely ignored me in the scooter. On one hand I can understand that most people are not looking at that level, especially at WDW. I found the majority of the people were looking up at everything around them. However, just b/c someone is amazed by all the new shiny objects around them isn't an excuse for being oblivious. I was probably guilty of it at some point myself. I had to lecture my own children a bunch of times from my scooter as they ran out in front of other people.

I was also very impressed for the most part about how well Disney handled things with me. I was not able to ride many rides, but my children wanted to. However, they are too young to wait in lines by themselves. All three of us were allowed to go through the HC lines and I was allowed to wait there for the kids while they rode things like BTTR and Star Tours. I didn't go to any park on NYE. DH and I felt that the crowds would be too crazy for me to deal with in the scooter. I feel for the people who have to use wheelchairs and scooters all the time. I don't know that I would have the patience for the crowds. Other than the crowds, my only real negative experience was with an impatient bus driver who was practically yelling at me to turn the speed of my scooter down...it was all the way down, which I was trying to explain to her. Then she actually reached over and grabbed the controls herself to check. Of course this was on the only full bus I had to take the whole time, and I was embarrassed. She did try to make up with me when I got off, and I just chalked it up to her having a bad day.

Kim
DD6 wanted me to add this.

 

[wishspirit]

I understand where you are coming from Kevin, when it comes to pushing! I work at a playscheme for disabled children, however some of our kids can be up to 18 years old, and boy are they heavy! I only have to push around a zoo or a park and on and off with other people, and the amount of control on those things is almost zero, especially if the person on it isn't as light as a feather! The amount of effort to go up hill can be backbreaking (we have had 3 members of staff trying to get one wheelchaired child up a hill in a 'wheelchair friendly' place!) and if you have to stop to let others pass it can be dang near impossible to start again!

We get trained on how to push wheelchairs, and to understand the experience we all have to be pushed around in one for a while and its SCARY!! Someone else is in control of where you go and what you do. I would be down right scared to be in one at Disney!

Thank you for bringing this up, just as a reminder to everyone to be considerate.

 

[astrodrummergirl]

Here here. There are many occasions where I've witnessed people stupidly walking in front of wheelchairs and ECV's and thanks to that, I can happily say that I would rather wait for someone in a wheelchair to pass than to cause an accident.

I've only seen one occasion where the fault of an accident wasn't people walking in front of wheelchairs deliberately, but rather an ECV going too fast round a quite sharp and blind corner at Finding Nemo the Musical (ECV driver went round to fast, and right on the other side ran into someone who was walking)

 

[Pletch]

Thanks for the discussion. My first and only trip to the world was with my aunt (who paid) who has health problems leading to her being overweight. I was totally unprepared for the challenges of pushing a wheelchair around the parks. And I had to laugh/cry about the bit about walking into France, so true. We pushed all around Epcot and MK in one afternoon!!! Every time I cross the bridge from DD to the west side I wonder what I was thinking taking my aunt over that, it is so steep!!! If I had heard this discussion before I went, I would have known what to expect. It is so true what Kevin said, it is a full time job watching the crowds, that you don't see anything in the park!!! The last time we went to DD and I rented her an ECV. It took her a little while to adjust, but I think she appreciates the independence, it is still very difficult to maneuver the crowds.

 

[MkyMws]

The last time the crew talked about wheelchairs and not feeling guilty about needing them, I meant to send in a thank you email.

My 13 yr old daughter has Juvenile Arthritis (diagnosed at 20 months old), but looks as normal & healthy as any other 13 yr old, but she gets very soar after lots of walking. To ensure she doesn't get into great pain we rent a wheelchair for our trip.

She doesn't get sore the day she is walking, it's the night & the next day that get completely ruined because she is in pain.

I'm sure we get dirty looks because we get to load the bus 1st & we tell the driver she can get out of the chair, and we get to by-pass a line, but we save up for 2-3 years to go on this trip & I don't want to ruin her trip. I wanther to have as much fun as we do.

Thanks for the topic, the email & the podcast.

See you on Mar 11th.

tim

 

[Alice2020]

I am glad that you pointed out the difficulty of traveling around WDW with a wheelchair. My grandmother was a CM for 15 years and my grandfather has been in a wheelchair my entire life. My grandparents have always enjoyed the parks and they always considered the special attention that cast members gave my grandfather as the reward after navigating through an aggresive and rude crowd to arrive at an attraction.

That being said- on our last trip I saw a group of 3 19-22 year old people. They were easy to spot because they were speaking Japanese and the female had the most annoying, high pitched giggle I have ever heard. They had a rental wheelchair. I saw the female sitting in the wheelchair in the morning and a male sitting in the chair when they went to the front of the bus line at the end of the night. They were at my hotel. Over the next few days, I saw ALL of them at one point or another in their wheelchair. I am a nurse, I understand that many types of pain or disability are difficult to "see". However, because I saw these young people taking turns in the wheelchair, it is difficult for me to believe that they truly NEEDED a wheelchair for anything other than a shorter line at attractions, shows, restaurants and first seating on the overcrowded All-Star hotel bus.

I would hate to see more people like these disgusting Japanese tourists using a wheelchair to jump line. I know that the guys said that no one would ever get into a wheelchair for fun, but I am 99.9% sure that those people were pretending to be disabled. It may not happen a lot, but I think it does happen from time to time.

 

[DisneyKevin]

I am glad that you pointed out the difficulty of traveling around WDW with a wheelchair. My grandmother was a CM for 15 years and my grandfather has been in a wheelchair my entire life. My grandparents have always enjoyed the parks and they always considered the special attention that cast members gave my grandfather as the reward after navigating through an aggresive and rude crowd to arrive at an attraction.

That being said- on our last trip I saw a group of 3 19-22 year old people. They were easy to spot because they were speaking Japanese and the female had the most annoying, high pitched giggle I have ever heard. They had a rental wheelchair. I saw the female sitting in the wheelchair in the morning and a male sitting in the chair when they went to the front of the bus line at the end of the night. They were at my hotel. Over the next few days, I saw ALL of them at one point or another in their wheelchair. I am a nurse, I understand that many types of pain or disability are difficult to "see". However, because I saw these young people taking turns in the wheelchair, it is difficult for me to believe that they truly NEEDED a wheelchair for anything other than a shorter line at attractions, shows, restaurants and first seating on the overcrowded All-Star hotel bus.

I would hate to see more people like these disgusting Japanese tourists using a wheelchair to jump line. I know that the guys said that no one would ever get into a wheelchair for fun, but I am 99.9% sure that those people were pretending to be disabled. It may not happen a lot, but I think it does happen from time to time.

Then they are idiots and need to live with their actions.

This is not the norm and folks riding in a wheelchair or ECV should not be forced to deal with negative looks or comments because of the actions of a few thoughtless jerks.

This is brought up in any discussion of wheelchairs and ECV use in the park and at this point....it's a card thats been overplayed and frankly....I'm tired of hearing about it.

The VAST majority of people using wheelchairs and ECVs are doing so out of neccessity and should be treated with the exact same kindness and consideration that every other guests in the park expects.

If the occasional idiot abuses these forms of assitance then it's our responsibility as ambulatory guests to suck it up and make the best of it. They are far and away the exception and not the rule.

If you feel that guests needing assistance are a burden or inconvenience, then you are in the wrong place.

It's my opinion that if you let a guest needing assitance feel that they have inconvenienced you in any way shape or form or if you feel the need to rush three feet to the other side of the sidewalk in front of a moving wheelchair or ECV...then you fall into the category of idiot as well.

Spend a day in a wheelchair or ECV and come back and tell me how easy you found it.

 

[Disneybridein2k3]

Having spent a vacation with a friend who had a niece in a wheelchair, I can agree with everything you are saying. My friend had a tough time pushing her grown niece through the parks (we learned Animal Kingdom was the hardest, Epcot was 2nd worst for us) and even though she appeared to be a healthy teen, no one knew she had foot surgery that prevented her from being able to walk everywhere. But the one that had it the worst was her aunt; my friend Tracey was just exhausted every day when we got back to our hotel rooms with the kids. Being hard-headed, she really didn't want to take my help but many times I just had to insist because she was just exhausted. It is tough work pushing someone in a wheelchair! People were incredibly rude - more rude than I have ever seen in Disney. Unfortunately, it is just the way some people are it appears. Thankfully, there are some kind hearts still out there in all of you

 

[challer]

Great discussion, Dis folks. Except I disagree with one thing.

I do frequently see some people grab an ECV for "laziness" or even a "joyride."

Target near me happens to have free ECV's for customer use. I have seen multiple times young guys walk into the store without disability, hop on the ECV's, and maneuver their way around the busy store. I've seen drag races down the isles. I have seen people take kids on the ECV with them to give them a "fun" experience while the other parent shops. While morbid obesity is surely a disability, being somewhat overweight is not, yet they feel an ECV is for them - even though they just walked out of Marshalls right next door carrying multiple bags.

There are some people who act like animals out there.