Buena Vista Scooters are horrible. What an awful day.

CVW

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jun 26, 2003
They were to deliver a scooter to us at Royal Pacific Resort. They were an hour late, leaving my wife in the lobby with crutches waiting while I tended to other matters.

Fully charged scooter finally delivered. We drove it to CityWalk. I left with food for the kids (who were napping in the hotel. She left a few minutes later with a pizza in the rain.

The battery had almost completely run out. Thankfully, I was walking back to meet her again, but I had to push it about half a mile back to the hotel. I plugged it in, and five minutes later it said it was fully charged.

They’ve informed me there’s no discounts or partial refunds. Tomorrow is our only day at Universal, and they won’t be there to help. They’ll bring me another one tomorrow, but we’ll lose several hours on our only day.

They didn’t perform a very basic check on a bad battery.
 
They were to deliver a scooter to us at Royal Pacific Resort. They were an hour late, leaving my wife in the lobby with crutches waiting while I tended to other matters.

Fully charged scooter finally delivered. We drove it to CityWalk. I left with food for the kids (who were napping in the hotel. She left a few minutes later with a pizza in the rain.

The battery had almost completely run out. Thankfully, I was walking back to meet her again, but I had to push it about half a mile back to the hotel. I plugged it in, and five minutes later it said it was fully charged.

They’ve informed me there’s no discounts or partial refunds. Tomorrow is our only day at Universal, and they won’t be there to help. They’ll bring me another one tomorrow, but we’ll lose several hours on our only day.

They didn’t perform a very basic check on a bad battery.

I'm really sorry to hear this happened. Honestly, I have never rented from BV, but have (generally speaking) heard good things about them. And, to be totally transparent, I've never gone to Uni (in Florida) either.

I'm not there, so I can't speak to their procedure, but I would presume that if the scooter was returned to BV by a previous customer, and it appeared that the battery was fully charged, they most likely cleaned it, made sure the charger and the key were present, checked it over for damage, and brought it to you, believing that they were delivering a working unit.

As far as the wait at the lobby of the hotel, we have (in the past, before I owned my own personal mobility devices) waited on average 30 minutes for a scooter to be delivered, because we were flying in and taking Magical Express from MCO to WDW, so we didn't know *exactly* when we would be "boots on the ground" at our Resort. As a result, we had to call after we arrived, and wait for the vendor to arrive. It's not uncommon.

I am surprised to hear that they couldn't replace the scooter today/tonight, or at the very least, first thing in the morning, so that you could at least have full use of it while at Uni.

And, I am kind of surprised that BV didn't offer you a discount if they couldn't replace the scooter today; that's kind of disappointing to hear. You can always try to speak to a manager tomorrow, and see if they can give you any kind of adjustment to your rate to help offset your inconvenience.

I hope the rest of your journey is uneventful!
 
Wow, how unfortunate. I've rented from them twice, and had good service both times. So disappointing to have such an experience-you don't want to need a scooter, and when you have bad service, it really is upsetting.
 
Honestly, when their scooters are good, they are decent, but I have found their customer service to be very bad like this. Other companies would offer a partial refund for this kind of a situation, after all it is not your fault that they delivered a defective scooter.
 
Can you rent a WC or scooter at Universal for the day, to at least save your day?
 
We’ve rented from them 4 times and never had a problem. They even brought a new one to AK when one was acting up and not holding a good charge. Hopefully you can get this taken care of tomorrow.
 
Sorry to hear this. Perhaps speak with mgmnt. Don’t let it ruin ur vacation. Hope next day is wonderful.
 


Yeah, bad batteries seem to be a Buena Vista thing. Got stranded at MK at midnight after MNSSHP. Luckily we were at BLT so DD, aka "Marilyn Monroe", pushed me, aka "over-aged hippy", back to the resort.

Not a scooter novice so I understand that things can happen. But like you, they couldn't have given a rat's behind and offered nada. So I moved on. Too many other scooter companies to waste my time on one which gave me such poor customer service.
 
They were to deliver a scooter to us at Royal Pacific Resort. They were an hour late, leaving my wife in the lobby with crutches waiting while I tended to other matters.

Fully charged scooter finally delivered. We drove it to CityWalk. I left with food for the kids (who were napping in the hotel. She left a few minutes later with a pizza in the rain.

The battery had almost completely run out. Thankfully, I was walking back to meet her again, but I had to push it about half a mile back to the hotel. I plugged it in, and five minutes later it said it was fully charged.

They’ve informed me there’s no discounts or partial refunds. Tomorrow is our only day at Universal, and they won’t be there to help. They’ll bring me another one tomorrow, but we’ll lose several hours on our only day.

They didn’t perform a very basic check on a bad battery.
I’m looking into renting a wheelchair for our trip to WDW. I was all set to contact Buena Vista rentals. First I took a moment to check reviews online. They are not good. Mostly 1 out of 5 with angry reviews detailing battery issues and dirty equipment. Also mentioned was a $200 deposit that customers were unaware of. I guess I need to find another vendor.

Sorry about your bad experience.
 
Yeah, bad batteries seem to be a Buena Vista thing. Got stranded at MK at midnight after MNSSHP. Luckily we were at BLT so DD, aka "Marilyn Monroe", pushed me, aka "over-aged hippy", back to the resort.

Not a scooter novice so I understand that things can happen. But like you, they couldn't have given a rat's behind and offered nada. So I moved on. Too many other scooter companies to waste my time on one which gave me such poor customer service.
Exactly and while we have had issues with other companies, they at least offered an appropriate form of compensation, depending on the situation.
 
I used Buena Vista in October 2017 and Walker Mobility in May 2016. I had no issues with either company but liked being able to pick up my scooter at luggage services at my convenience with Buena Vista. HOWEVER, if recent reviews are bad I will be thinking twice before using them again.
 
We have used Buena Vista a few times. This last time, I rented 2 ECVs for our group. We needed the Go-Go Sport for both of them so we could get the ECVs and our group of 6 into a rental van for travel to US. The first day we had the scooters at MK and my sister's scooter was losing power the whole way back to BLT. I called and left a message including the type of scooter replacement we would need. It was late so our replacement scooter wasn't brought to BLT until around 8:30am. Well, it was NOT a Go-Go and would not break down to use in the van even though they argued that it was. After some phone calls, they said they would bring another one. When it arrived past 10am, it was dead...the BV guy didn't even bring it in because it wouldn't work in the truck to unload it. He called me and came into the Contemporary to talk to me and figure out what could be done. I told them we were already late going to US and we would meet them at Royal Pacific to get the correct replacement. (I figured the rest of the family could go to the parks and I could wait for the replacement if it wasn't there when we arrived.) It was a special first trip for my niece and her 2 boys so I hated for things to be so screwed up on our first day at Universal. It was also my birthday and Buena Vista put the whole day out of kilter because of their inability to do what was promised....worst bday ever!

After all this mess, we never were offered a discount or an apology which surprised me greatly.
 
I always use Apple Scooter. They are cheaper and when I had a chair issue and battery issue this past February, they changed out the scooter each time. I also get a 10% VIP as they call repeat customers discount.
 
I've rented from BVS many times and while I've had a few scooter hiccups here and there I've never had them say they wouldn't replace a scooter - usually within 2-3 hours at most. They couldn't bring another scooter to the hotel the same day? I've only rented from them once when I wasn't at a WDW hotel but I'm surprised they wouldn't come out. Was it late in the evening? If she went out in the rain with it - could the rain have messed something up? I'm sorry you had this issue. I had one with a wonky battery once and called them - they offered to run one out to DHS in the late evening when we were there to see the special fireworks (Jingle Bam or whatever it was). I decided to keep it in the end (tho did have to charge it fairly often). The worst issue I've had with them was getting literally two scooters in a row with squeaky wheels - they replaced both but they weren't happy about it. No way was I going to spend a week listening to that EEEEHHH noise with every turn of the wheel.:crazy2:

Someone mentioned a $200 deposit and I've never had them charge me that. I see a charge go on my credit card for the rental at some point near my trip.

I rent from BSV because I want the hand controls on the "tiller" to be a certain way because I have carpal tunnel and my hand will fall sleep otherwise. I'm not sure any other company offers one like it.
 

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