Resort busses & wheelchairs??

[MarieS]

I have a question regarding the feasibility of using the resort busses with my two children who have wheelchairs. How much of a hassle is it to get them on and off? I am also concerned about their being two wheelchair spots available.
We are driving and will have our own van. I was thinking of driving to Epcot, MGM and AK. But I'm not sure how to get to MK. Would it be easier to ride the bus from the resort or drive and go by monorail or ferry? I had heard that the ramp to the monorail was steep and I don't know if this would work for us. Has anyone rode the ferry with a wheelchair?
Thanks for any advice!
Marie

 

[SueM in MN]

Welcome to disABILITIES.
Each resort bus has space for 2 wheelchairs (or 2 ecvs, or 1 wheelchair and one ecv). The older buses have wheelchair lifts located at the back door of the bus. The newer buses have capability to kneel and they have ramps.
To wait for the bus with a wheelchair, your party waits at about the area the back door will be at when the bus pulls up to the stop. Sometimes there is a sign, often not. If you are at your resort, buses for all locations will be stopping at the same spot, so watch for your location and let the driver know whether you want that bus or not. We usually nod our heads and wave when the right bus comes and shake heads no if we don't want that bus. When the bus driver stops, he will open the back door and load wheelchairs before loading other passengers.
If it's a bus with a lift, you back onto the lift (ther is usually room for the wheelchair plus one person standing), the lift is raised and once you get onto the bus, the driver will tell you where to position the wheelchair. Tiedowns and a seatbelt are attached and you are ready to go. It is helpful if you know appropriate spots to attach the tiedown belts to the wheelchair. They need to be parts of the frame, not parts like antitip bars or swingaway footrests. We usually use bright colored tape to mark the appropriate spots before we go to WDW. Very easy to tell the driver he/she can attach anyplace they see hot pink tape. (If your children ride a schoolbus with a lift, everything pretty much works the same way).
For Epcot, AK and the Studio, it doesn't really matter whether you drive or take the bus. You do need a handicapped parking permit or license plate to park in the handicapped parking are.
Riding the bus to MK is always better. If you drive to MK, you will be parking near the TTC and need to take either the monorail or boat. We haven't done it for a wheile, but other posters have an mentioned that it's a bit of a hike to both of those from the parking area. As you mentioned, the monorail has a very steep ramp (have to get to a high second floor level to board and get off). The boats are OK, but if you take the bus, you skip all that. The bus lets you off right near the turnstiles so you can go right into the park.

 

[Choppertester]

Marie S,

We've travelled to WDW many times with our son who uses a manual wheelchair.

Monorail - Epcot has an elevator but the ramp down is a blast, TTC has ramps, MK has ramps, Poly exits to hotel which has elevators, Contemporary exits into hotel with elevators. Need small ramp to get in and out of vehicle.

Boats:

MK TTC Ferry boat - No problem getting on or off, large ramp just bottom deck though.

MK Wilderness Lodge, Campground boat - No problem small ramp a little tight.

Epcot boats - No problem small ramp on/off

MGM, Dolphin, Boradwalk Epcot boats same as Epcot boats, ride from Epcot to MGM is very relaxing.

MK Train - Ramps at Main entrance & Frontier (a little steep), toon town no problem at all, room for three or four chairs

Busses - Room for two chairs, pretty quick, sometimes lift is broken or no lift but this is rare.

Heading south on tuesday for a 8-night cruise and then ending up at WdW on 29th Dec for 10 days (Dolphin & Pop Century). Wife is a Commando style planner and she snuck in the Disney part of this Uber vacation by getting the only available frequent flyer flights on 16 Dec and 8 Jan.

I keep saying Yes Dear, yes dear of course dear LOL

Cheers,

 

[MarieS]

Thank you both for your helpful advice! As I understand it then, the busses will work just like our school bus does. We will load from the back and tie them down. We will use our own van then for everything but MK.
We have a van with a lift and I wanted to be sure they have enough van accessible handicap parking. I never realized what a problem this was until we got the new van. Most places will have handicap spots, but many don't have van spots for a lift.
Can't wait until October!

Marie

 

[Cheshire Figment]

At the parks, as well as at Downtown Disney, it appears to me that all the disbles spaces are extra wide and can easily be considered van accessible.

 

[SueM in MN]

As I understand it then, the busses will work just like our school bus does. We will load from the back and tie them down.

Yes, you are right. it works pretty much the same as the bus my DD takes her wheelchair in to school. The one difference is that WDW (or any city-transportation type) buses sit lower to the ground than school buses do. The tiedowns on the WDW buses are almost the same as DD's school bus has. Also, the WDW buses have seats across from the back door that are normally folded down for people to sit in and folded up to make room for wheelchairs.

We have a van with a lift and I wanted to be sure they have enough van accessible handicap parking. I never realized what a problem this was until we got the new van. Most places will have handicap spots, but many don't have van spots for a lift.

We have a van with a side ramp at home, so I'm very aware of the difficulties with finding an appropriate spot to park it. We have (so far) just brought DD's manual wheelchair with us to WDW, rented a regular van and transferred her to a seat. We have found that there are a fair number (not a large number) of van spaces, but we seldom end up with one. Even though we are not using a lift/ramp van, we still need to have space beside the van to pull in DD's wheelchair and transfer her to it.
It seems like when we get to the parks, it takes quite a bit of hunting to find an empty one. Many of the van accessible spots are filled with cars. Many (but not all) of the regular handicapped spots at the parks and at Downtown Disney are big enough to pull a wheelchair next to the open door of the van and transfer into, but I don't feel you would be easily able to use any but the van assessible ones with a lift. (Unless they have changed the size of the spots since last March or a lift takes a lot less room to operate than a ramp). We often had to park the wheelchair in front of the van and carry DD to the wheelchair because there was not space.
If you don't find a spot big enough to let out your lift, you can just unload the wheelchairs before you pull into the parking spot.

 

[MarieS]

Originally posted by SueM in MN

It seems like when we get to the parks, it takes quite a bit of hunting to find an empty one. Many of the van accessible spots are filled with cars. Many (but not all) of the regular handicapped spots at the parks and at Downtown Disney are big enough to pull a wheelchair next to the open door of the van and transfer into, but I don't feel you would be easily able to use any but the van assessible ones with a lift. (Unless they have changed the size of the spots since last March or a lift takes a lot less room to operate than a ramp). We often had to park the wheelchair in front of the van and carry DD to the wheelchair because there was not space.
If you don't find a spot big enough to let out your lift, you can just unload the wheelchairs before you pull into the parking spot. [/B]

Sue--
I agree with you on needing the double wide spot. Because even if there was enough room for the lift to go down you still need room to manouever the chair onto it.

Marie