The best resort for handicapped accessibility

[Teresa44]

My daughter was diagnosed with brain cancer November 7, 2011. She wants more than anything to bring her three children to Disney World. She now has severe visuals impairments and uses a wheelchair. What resort would be the best to fit her special needs?

 

[chocovrdmicears]

I think the folks over at the disABILITIES board would be able to answer your question best:

http://www.disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=20

 

[heidijanesmith]

My daughter was diagnosed with brain cancer November 7, 2011. She wants more than anything to bring her three children to Disney World. She now has severe visuals impairments and uses a wheelchair. What resort would be the best to fit her special needs?

So sorry to hear about your DD. I would check out the link in the prior post.

 

[carrie1626]

My mom uses a wheelchair always when at Disney. She and my dad ( sometimes with or without me or sister) have stayed at Port Orleans French Quarters 3 times. It's one of the smallest resorts and they've had a handicap room very close to either the parking area ( they do rent a car) or very close to the main building.

Prayers to your daughter

 

[chekhovgirl]

I was going to say POFQ as well because we just stayed there and everything is handicapped accessible. You could request ground floor to avoid using the elevators.

 

[pampam]

We use a WC. Speaking from personal expeirience, some resorts are actually better than others. I like the values. Pop is my favourite because I like the idea of not sharing busses with other resorts, although that could change in the spring when the new Animation building opens. My next favourite is AS music. I like it because there are no steps between the food court and the pool. I know this is not a big deal for some but I get agravated when I have to push a WC the long way around to avoid steps. Other than that, AS movies and sports are about the same with quite a similar layout. If you stay at Sports, the bus situation is better, first pick up, first drop of in the evening.

Fort Wilderness is very nice, but the busses can be a struggle. However, for relaxing, it cant be beat.

Caribean Beach resort, and the other moderates have issues with their busses. I dont like those resorts for these reasons.

Contemporary was wonderful, when we were there. Also the Poly was fantastic, but remember that these resorts share busses.

I thought Beach club was hard to get around. It seemed whenever I would try to use a door, there were stairs and I had to take the scenic tour to get where I wanted.

Pretty much the worst experience we had was at OKW. Busses again. However, in their defence, we arrived late and didnt know that they did not have transportation available for us to get to our rooms.

Weve never stayed at GF, CSR or any other DVC so I cant comment on them, but I do know that the DVCs are large with many bus stops so that could be a problem.

 

[Kimberle]

If she has the budget for a deluxe, the CR has the largest rooms. There is a walking path to the MK. She's also on the monorail loop for MK & Epcot.

 

[chainkid]

I like the Boardwalk Villas because when I used my ECV it was very easy to get around . You can either use the walkways to two parks or take boat. If you are uncomfortable talking the bus which is handicapped accessible you can go thru Epcot and use monorail. So many places easy to access and the rooms are spacious.

 

[fla4fun]

I would ask a couple questions. First, is it a manual wheelchair? Second, will you be spending more time in one park (for example, MK) than the others?

For a manual wheelchair, if you are spending a lot of time at MK I would stay at CR or BLT if possible, with Poly as my second choice. You can walk from CR or BLT on level walkways, and you can take the ferry boat back to the TTC and walk to Poly easily. But to get to Epcot from any of these, you do have a pretty steep ramp when you change monorails at TTC.

If you are spending a lot of time at Epcot, I would choose BC/BCV or YC. I wouldn't choose BW, not because I dislike BW, but because you have a fairly steep hill to push the chair up if you choose to walk to Epcot. There is a level walkway that goes under the hill from YC/BC that was put there specifically for wheelchairs.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

I use the wheelchair but only when I am tired etc.

I am assuming you are going with her too, so you need to know the total size of the party.

If its 5 you could do a deluxe.

If you are spending most of your time at MK then I would do the resort based on what theme you would like.

Lately its only dh and I that go and we go to the Beach Club or Yacht Club. As others have said, we take the bridge under to get to Epcot. The MK bus from there is fine. The kids would love stormalong bay there for sure.

 

[SueM in MN]

I would ask a couple questions. First, is it a manual wheelchair? Second, will you be spending more time in one park (for example, MK) than the others?

For a manual wheelchair, if you are spending a lot of time at MK I would stay at CR or BLT if possible, with Poly as my second choice. You can walk from CR or BLT on level walkways, and you can take the ferry boat back to the TTC and walk to Poly easily. But to get to Epcot from any of these, you do have a pretty steep ramp when you change monorails at TTC.

If you are spending a lot of time at Epcot, I would choose BC/BCV or YC. I wouldn't choose BW, not because I dislike BW, but because you have a fairly steep hill to push the chair up if you choose to walk to Epcot. There is a level walkway that goes under the hill from YC/BC that was put there specifically for wheelchairs.

I agree that is makes sense to stay close to the park you plan to spend the most time in.

The walkway from BW to Epcot involves a steep path is because it includes a bridge that goes over the water. The bridge has to be high enough for the boat from Epcot to get under, which means a high hill to go up and down.

YC/BC are on the same side of the water as the entrance to Epcot, so you can walk there without crossing the water. That is the reason that the walkway from YC/BC to Epcot is mostly level (there is a hill, but nowhere near as big as the one to cross the water).
If you walk from YC/BC to the Studio, you will need to cross the water, so will need to go up and down a hill.
But, you can take the ferry boat to both Epcot and the Studio from YC/BC and from BW.
The one problem with the Boardwalk area resorts is getting to Downtown Disney, MK and AK. All of the Boardwalk area resorts share buses. On a trip in October, we walked from Epcot twice and used the buses to get to Downtown Disney. Both times the bus was standing room only when we got on and both times guests with wheelchairs were waiting and were told they would need to wait for the next bus.

A previous poster did not like OKW and wrote the buses were the reason why.
We have been OKW DVC members since 1993 and travel with a DD who uses a wheelchair. We have had no problems with OKW buses. In fact, they are some of the least crowded buses. Since the parking is very close to each building and many people drive, there are less riding the buses. OKW also does not share with any other resort.
One nice thing about OKW is the boats that go between OKW and Downtown Disney. They are wheelchair/ECV accessible and the trip takes about 20 minutes.

When you check in, there is golf cart like vehicle to take guests to their rooms. It is not wheelchair accessible, but if she is able to get out of the wheelchair, fold it and sit on the cart seat, she would be able to use the cart. We don’t because our DD does not have balance to sit in a moving cart and her wheelchair doesn’t fold.

If she is tired and needs a place to lie down and rest in the parks, each park has a First Aid station where she could do that.
You can follow the link in my signature to get to the disABILITIES Board or the disABILITIES FAQs thread.

 

[SueM in MN]

Another thing you may want to consider is whether she would like to go swimming. Some of the resorts have pools with zero entry - this is a gradual, ramped entry to walk or take a water wheelchair into the water. There is a list of the resorts with zero entry pools (with pictures in a post on page 2 of the disABILITIES FAQs thread).
You would need to ask for the water wheelchair to be brought out - to prevent joy riding with it, they only out it out when it is requested.

Other resorts have lifts that will be brought out on request (at the main/feature pool if there is more than one pool) or bump steps. These are are set of steps that start at wheelchair seat height. Some people using wheelchairs are able to transfer to the top step and then sort of ‘bump’ down step by step into the water.
They are actually called a “transfer tier” or “transfer steps”, but many people call them ‘bump steps’ because that is really descriptive of how to use them.

 

[I Love Pluto]

I like the values for wheelchair/ECV access because -

1 - the paths are all concrete
2 - you can get from "here to there" without a blockade of any type
3 - the central air makes getting ready (in the bathrooms) easier
4 - the doors to the main building & food courts open automatically for you
5 - the LARGE icons help you to know where you are, and not get lost

There is nothing worse than "pushing the HC button" for a door to open, having several families cut in front of you so that you still had to wait to get through that door, then getting STUCK in the door as it closes on you. All of this can happen (and it did!) with at least 100 people around. They were probably too BUSY to notice that I pushed the door button, that I was horribly delayed due to their pushing me out of the way, and that the door was capturing me and my ECV. [I lost the battle. You should have seen my leg!!!!!]

There is NO CHANCE of this happening at a value. All of the doors at the main building electronically open for you. WHAT A GREAT CONCEPT!!!!!

 

[bethclayton]

My daughter was diagnosed with brain cancer November 7, 2011. She wants more than anything to bring her three children to Disney World. She now has severe visuals impairments and uses a wheelchair. What resort would be the best to fit her special needs?

I am so sorry for what your family must be going through. I cannot even imagine.

We have traveled with my mom in a scooter, so i think I can help.

I am going to make a few assumptions based on your post. 1) as a mom, she is looking for her kids to have a fabulous time and she does not want her challenges to impact them any more than necessary, 2) that the kids have never been there before, amd 3) I am going to make a risky assumption that she probably wants to spend ample time in the Magic kingdom with them since that's the image most people have of Disney world (the castle and all that). If I am correct, then I would suggest staying somewhere on the monorail because the monorail has the easiest wheelchair access to the MK and the Contemporary even has a walking path. You can also take the monorail to Epcot. The buses are a little harder to deal with than the monorail (for a wheelchair). I know a lot of people don't mind the buses but my mom found the lift system to be very scary and she really truly hated dealing with the buses.

Of the three monorail resorts, the contemporary has the walking path (and the monorail) to the MK and to get to Epcot, you just get on the monorail at the hotel, ride it for just a couple of minutes, then get off and get on the Epcot monorail. From the Polynesian, you can walk to the Epcot monorail and the MK is just a few minutes away by monorail. From the Grand Floridian, you have to take the monorail to both, you cannot walk to either. The GF and the Poly both have zero-entry pools. I am not positive about the Contemporary. I think many kids tend to prefer the Poly, but you really cannot go wrong with any of the three.

My mother had an amazing experience at the Grand Floridian and will only stay there as a result. We stayed Club Level in the main building and the club level staff went way above and beyond to make sure everything was convenient for her. She really loved having the food almost constantly available in the club level lounge, she (and my kids) did not need to go far for anything.

I have never stayed at the Epcot resorts, so if your family plans to spend a lot more time at Epcot, then that might be a better fit.

Best of luck for a magical trip.