We came, we saw, we conquered. A TR with new situations health wise.

[jo-jo]

This is not a day by day, moment by moment , super detailed TR. I loved those and am amazed at the people who can keep such details. This is more, this is new to us and how it turned out.


April 1. Our son picked us up and drove to the airport at Philadelphia. No curbside checking for SW. But the check in counter was not crazy, only a few people ahead of us. I had checkin at home and did the machines for the bags and rollator but did it wrong. We wanted to gate check the rollator. The SW agent said the boarding passes were wrong and redid them. ( we get extra seat due to DH's size)

ok, off to find wheel chair help. Walked about 100 ft and waiting for someone to show up at counter. (this is why we wanted the rollator, DH needs it if he has to stand for more than a couple of mins.) Someone shows up, bit of a wait and off we go. Go to special TSA, bypassing a bunch of people. DH didn't even have to get out of chair. Wheelchair guy sort of whispers to me, umm are you over 75???? I said no I knew about the shoe thing. DH is over 75, he got to leave shoes on. Gets us to gate in record time for us. If we were walking and going through normal TSA lines, it would have taken us 4 times as long. DH would have needed to stop and rest several times.

At the gate, I take the rollator to get the gate check tag. SW agent takes the boarding passes and says these are done wrong. Calls someone, click click.....new boards passes and rollator is tagged. We go to board and gate agent says these are done wrong....click click......umm talks to other agent.....click click....ummm go on flight , we'll take care of this. We go. Next day I get an email from SW saying we didn't cancel the extra seat, so no refund or credit or anything. I have written them, still waiting for outcome.

At Orlando, we wait a few mins for wheelchair help. Get message from Tiffany driver. Waiting for us. We go, take elevator , go to luggage pickup. Get another message, where are we??? He must of been waiting at the escalators. Anyway, he found us at luggage pickup. We got the luggage and took off.

We had done a small curbside pickup at Publix. Two hoagies, pack of frozen breakfast sandwiches, gallon of water , and 2 six packs of soda. Worked out pretty good. Even though you hit "we're on our way, we're here", still waited about 10-15 mins.

Got to Kidani about 9 pm, had room number. Only had two medium suitcases , a gym bag and backpack, so didn't wait for help from bell service. Put the soda and water on the seat of the rollator, I carried everything else. Our room was about 3/4 of the way down. Needed to stop a few times along the way. When we were about halfway there. I told DH to stay on bench, let me go check that the door opens. Didn't want him walking there and then we are stuck. But it worked. So 9:30 at night, eating really good hoagies from Publix.

By now you may be thinking "I thought no details"......well, yeah, but the driver , publix, and wheelchair help were all new experiences. It all worked much smoother than we ever hoped.

 

[jo-jo]

The next morning we got groceries from walmart. I had packed a couple of sturdy shopping bags in luggage. I bought them and an empty suitcase down to get the groceries. The driver said to me , do you have a cart? I said no, I have an empty suitcase and two bags. The bottles of water, soda, juice, etc, went into the suitcase. The fragile items, went into the bags. Driver thought it was a great idea and was going to pass it on. Remember it was just the two of us, we didn't order tons of stuff.

I got a call from Gold for the scooter. We go down. She gave us a 5 min lesson on how to use the scooter. We went off to the side and I put the rollator about 7 feet from a trash can and let DH practice" parking on a bus". After a 10- 15 mins of that, we went into the building. Anytime someone was 100 ft away, DH stopped. I thought we won't get to the entrance gate of a park, if he does this every time. But he got used to the controls. The studio at Kidani was fine. Drove in, did a 6 point turn and parked it close to the door without stopping the door from opening. At BLT , we had to move the table some and it was a little awkward with chairs and getting to balcony. Next trip, we will ask to have one of the chairs removed. We couldn't park the scooter like we did at kidani. AT BLT it was close to the dresser.

Our plan was to go to AK about noon, but they were calling for heavy rain, so we didn't go. But we did switch our ADR for Boma from Sunday night to Saturday night. DH used the rollator to go to Boma using the van between the resorts. Had a bit of trouble climbing in and out, but not terrible.

Over the course of the week, we had at least a dozen situations where other guests let us go ahead, held open doors or gates, offered to carry rollator on and off transportation. I really don't remember any rudeness toward us.

With us staying in the room mostly the first day, I tried to attach the rollator to the scooter. I could have used the wide velcro but the wheels hit the ground and didn't know how disney security would like this. Does it count as towing? As it was , DH did ok with the scooter. He never went very fast. I asked hiim if sub turtle in 1 and fast rabbit is 10, how fast did he go. He felt he never went above a 3. Once or twice in a open spot, he did go faster just to get a feel.

 

[jo-jo]

Sunday we headed out to AK late morning, Didn't want to try first thing in the morning with the rope drop crush for the first time boarding a bus. DH drove on and then bus driver took over. This happened about 2/3 of the bus trips. We went on several rides, came back to rest and returned to AK. We had to wait for several buses before we got on. I believe that was the only time it happened that week, but then again we moved to BLT so used monorail mostly .

DAS, never used it before, but with DH health changes, it came in handy. Except I couldn't figure out how to use it on the phone. My DD got into our account and was able to request time for a ride.

We didn't use any special areas for viewing outdoor shows or fireworks, so no input there. Having 2 very rainy days really cut into park time. We don't have the stamina to say ok, we missed it there, we'll just go 12 hours tomorrow. Which comes to why the park passes are a pain. If I have MK, Epcot, AK, HS. But if it rains on day 2, It would be nice to be able to switch days .

various other thoughts......
The mini fridge in the studio at AKL had a freezer but no door. I used a flatten cardboard box to tuck in to hold the cold air in. The studio at BLT also had a freezer AND a door. Kidani had the bottles of shampoo, etc on wall. BLT had the tubes of stuff.

We bought a drink mug so we bought limited amount of soda for the room. I hate it when we over order and lots of stuff at the end. And with the scooter, we just carried the cup, every time we came back to room, we refilled the mug.

For the scooter, we had extra ponchos to cover during rain . I bought two lengths of elastic to use as a giant rubberband to hold the ponchos down. I saw several people fighting to hold ponchos down.

Southwest had curb side checkin operating.

In addition to the scooter, we always had the folding cane with us. Every time, he got out of the scooter, he'd use the cane until the ride.

Tips....for the wheelchair help, car service we tipped $20 each leg. Scooter drop off/pick up $5. Bell services $8 each time, we had 4-5 items. Curbside check in for two bags $5
Not sure how that meets the norm, but that's was we gave.

The scooter was easier to use than we thought. I usually walked next to DH with my hand resting on the seat back. When ever he needed to back up, I stood behind him to make sure the path was clear.

I want to thank everyone who answered my questions before this trip. We went into this trip not knowing how much we could do . But we were surprised how well things went. No we didn't do everything we wanted. But we got done more than we thought.

We are now planning to do the 2 week trip we had planned last Nov that we had to cancel three days out. Covering the same time span as last year.


I'm happy to answer any questions. And thank you for reading.

 

[serenitynow]

Sunday we headed out to AK late morning, Didn't want to try first thing in the morning with the rope drop crush for the first time boarding a bus. DH drove on and then bus driver took over. This happened about 2/3 of the bus trips. We went on several rides, came back to rest and returned to AK. We had to wait for several buses before we got on. I believe that was the only time it happened that week, but then again we moved to BLT so used monorail mostly .

DAS, never used it before, but with DH health changes, it came in handy. Except I couldn't figure out how to use it on the phone. My DD got into our account and was able to request time for a ride.

We didn't use any special areas for viewing outdoor shows or fireworks, so no input there. Having 2 very rainy days really cut into park time. We don't have the stamina to say ok, we missed it there, we'll just go 12 hours tomorrow. Which comes to why the park passes are a pain. If I have MK, Epcot, AK, HS. But if it rains on day 2, It would be nice to be able to switch days .

various other thoughts......
The mini fridge in the studio at AKL had a freezer but no door. I used a flatten cardboard box to tuck in to hold the cold air in. The studio at BLT also had a freezer AND a door. Kidani had the bottles of shampoo, etc on wall. BLT had the tubes of stuff.

We bought a drink mug so we bought limited amount of soda for the room. I hate it when we over order and lots of stuff at the end. And with the scooter, we just carried the cup, every time we came back to room, we refilled the mug.

For the scooter, we had extra ponchos to cover during rain . I bought two lengths of elastic to use as a giant rubberband to hold the ponchos down. I saw several people fighting to hold ponchos down.

Southwest had curb side checkin operating.

In addition to the scooter, we always had the folding cane with us. Every time, he got out of the scooter, he'd use the cane until the ride.

Tips....for the wheelchair help, car service we tipped $20 each leg. Scooter drop off/pick up $5. Bell services $8 each time, we had 4-5 items. Curbside check in for two bags $5
Not sure how that meets the norm, but that's was we gave.

The scooter was easier to use than we thought. I usually walked next to DH with my hand resting on the seat back. When ever he needed to back up, I stood behind him to make sure the path was clear.

I want to thank everyone who answered my questions before this trip. We went into this trip not knowing how much we could do . But we were surprised how well things went. No we didn't do everything we wanted. But we got done more than we thought.

We are now planning to do the 2 week trip we had planned last Nov that we had to cancel three days out. Covering the same time span as last year.


I'm happy to answer any questions. And thank you for reading.

I’m so happy for you!

 

[KPeterso]

Glad you had a good experience the first time with the scooter. And I agree - BLT studio with a scooter just does not work well. The tiny studio with trying to find a spot for the scooter is one of the reasons I have crossed it off my list permanently.

 

[jo-jo]

Glad you had a good experience the first time with the scooter. And I agree - BLT studio with a scooter just does not work well. The tiny studio with trying to find a spot for the scooter is one of the reasons I have crossed it off my list permanently.

Well with just the two of us and we aren't heavy packers, I'd rather deal with a tight space in room and have the short distance to MK. I think getting rid of one of the chair will make an improvement. We had that chair pinned against the wall, so we couldn't use it anyway.

 

[KPeterso]

Well with just the two of us and we aren't heavy packers, I'd rather deal with a tight space in room and have the short distance to MK. I think getting rid of one of the chair will make an improvement. We had that chair pinned against the wall, so we couldn't use it anyway.

It was just my Mom and myself in the studio too. But we come almost 2 weeks so bring a lot with us too. BLT just did not work for us. And now that she and I have stayed in a 1 bedroom (because of my glut of dvc points like many others), she wants to always have a 1 bedroom. Makes parking the scooter much easier overall but is a ton of points (bought more as a result).

 

[jo-jo]

It was just my Mom and myself in the studio too. But we come almost 2 weeks so bring a lot with us too. BLT just did not work for us. And now that she and I have stayed in a 1 bedroom (because of my glut of dvc points like many others), she wants to always have a 1 bedroom. Makes parking the scooter much easier overall but is a ton of points (bought more as a result).

Yeah, those one bedrooms seem ten times bigger than the studio. We knew how small BLT was, but when we switched from AKL to BLT , we were kind of surprised how tight the space was with the scooter.

But although we love AKL, we also loved the transportation choices at BLT for us. And seeing fireworks all the time.

 

[jo-jo]

I just realized I didn't say anything about rides. We went with the thought "we'll try but if's it too hard, we'll leave"

Teacups. I had read some where, maybe here...that a tea cup opens more. So yes, there is a teacup that instead of an opening big enough fo a 2 year old to get through, it has two parts, so about twice as wide as the normal opening. But we got in, went on ride and then when the CM came over to release the second door, he first turned the teacup, so we would climb out in open space. Not tying to climb between teacups.

Thunder mountain...I mention to CM being unsure of ride. He told me they can open the side of some of the cars so you're not stepping over the side. And he also told us "take all the time you need to get in and out, no rush" It was so much better. We had no idea.

Navi, didn't have anything that we could use, but taking our time and using the handrails, it worked out. The CMs told us they could do this and that to help. Not just take spot 4 and climb in.

One weird thing. at Remy, DH drives scooter to almost the ride. CM says leave the key. LEAVE THE KEY??? Yes , leave the key so we can move the scooter. We left the key, but felt very uneasy doing so. After we got out of ride, we spoke to someone at the front of the ride. Told him about leaving the key. He said I'm sorry you felt you were forced to .....I interrupted him and said I think forced is too strong of a word.......he repeats I'm sorry you felt you were forced to leave your key, but we need you to do this so we don't injure our bodies.

Ok, then. No one else in any ride told us to leave the key. I did speak to a manager in MK wandering around to tell him how helpful the CM at thunder mountain was and oh by the way......at Remy.......His response was "How Odd".

I wrote an email to disney to mention how pleased we were with the CMs, minus the ones at Remy.