Thanks so much!
I've been looking at medical supply sites and haven't seen anything like the Travelscoot. It looks great, but it's also definitely more than my wife and I have talked about spending. We'll have to give it some thought.
I think finding a store where we can go look at options is really smart. We'll have a much better idea what we're getting if we can put our hands on them first.
In doing your research, did you find any online places you'd suggest I look?
Thanks again!
I understand the sticker shock when it comes to the Travelscoot. One of the things we looked at was to do the math, and figure out how many trips to WDW it would take for me to recoup the cost. But even more importantly, I looked at my life away from WDW, and I decided that regaining my independence to go wherever I want, whenever I want (to the store, museums, the zoo, concerts, street fairs, in short, every place my family and friends go) was going to be a HUGE bonus side effect of owning my own device. I bought my first one used - it was a "first generation" that I found on Craigslist, and got it for about 1/2 price. After less than a year, my hubby gifted me with my second one; brand new, with the hub motor and reverse! We kept the first one - originally as a backup unit, but lately our daughter (who has always had her own custom wheelchair) has been taking it out more and more; I expect that soon she will claim it for her own
The price for a Travelscoot (for me) is the price of my freedom and happiness. It is my legs.
Actually,
Amazon has an amazing selection of scooters and personal mobility devices. If nothing else, it could give you a solid idea of what else is out there, and some reviews. As
@Bete reminded us (and I know first-hand) Lithium-ion is the way to go for battery technology because it is lightweight and has the most capacity (when compared to other battery chemistries side-by-side)
Where we live in the flyover states, it's tough to find a "scooter store" where you could see and test a lot of models firsthand. I realized after renting "traditional" scooters over the course of multiple trips that I didn't (personally) want anything that was available for rental. But, if you have rented, and found a model that you liked, that's a great place to start, obviously.
One note of caution: At State Fair(s), home shows, travel shows, and similar in this part of the country we are increasingly seeing vendors selling battery powered "scooters". These are easily spotted because they almost always have a "2 for 1" offer that is roughly the price of 1 good quality scooter. We frequently see them near the legitimate, local mobility vendors that rent space at these events, and bring out scooters, wheelchairs and other mobility products. They typically have young, aggressive salespeople manning the booth, but they all have one thing in common: the devices that they are selling are junk. This month, during the Home & Garden show, as we had passed the (I honestly don't remember the name - I think I try to block it out LOL) booth, one of the young men working there had very loudly called me out for having a "piece of crap scooter" and said that I should buy one of his. We ignored him, and went on. Later, I asked one of the vendors who had one of these "scooters" in the corner of his booth how he liked it, because I was curious. He said that he bought it for his wife, who is increasingly having trouble getting around, but after less than 24 hours, it had broken under the seat. When he took it back to the booth to ask for a refund, they told him that it had "obviously" been abused and shouted him down until he left. More distressing was that during the course of the day we spent there, we met 2 other vendors with broken scooters, and both had similar stories. Moral of the story: be careful and research anything before you buy it, whether online or in person (and as always - if it's too good to be true, it's probably not such a good deal) We met 3 couples that thought they were saving a lot of money, and each of them had a broken scooter, and no recourse.
Whatever you decide to buy, here's some of the stuff I looked for when I was considering purchase my own
ECV:
- overall weight with the battery installed
- what kind (chemistry) of battery
- storage
- ease of transport via car
- how many parts/pieces would I have to take off/take apart just to get it in my car (or a rental car?)
- would it be easy to fly with
- would it be comfortable
- would it be easy to get on/off
- does it have a lower center of gravity (to avoid tipping over)
- is it customizable (because I wanted to make it my own!)
I just kept narrowing it down, until I arrived at the one that was best for me. Once I knew what I wanted, I started looking around, and fairly quickly found my first one on Craigslist.
