Four days at Disney World with a wheel chair
Monday, February 15, 2021 Animal Kingdom
As I learned from reading in this forum, we arrived at the parking lot at 7am- one hour prior to opening. Even being in the first rows of standard parking ($25) we still had quite a walk to the temperature check and then on to the gates. (Note: We planned to rent a
scooter for my wife because of a bad knee. We saw some wheelchairs in the lot, but did not know what they were for until our second day. These are courtesy wheel chairs with a tall pole sticking up above one of the handles. Use it if you need it!) When we got to the rental location in the park I was sticker-shocked by the cost of an ECV. We were here in November, 2019 and I swear the cost was $60/day. It is now $70/day. My “cheap” kicked in and I rented a wheel chair for $12/day. (I learned on day 3 that I could have got a multi-day discount that knocks the price down to $10/day.)
So our first day was at Animal Kingdom. We went straight to Nav’i River, then to Expedition Everest (two rides), then to Flight of Passage. I was so happy that my wife was able to experience this with me this time! She has lost enough weight to fit in the banshee this year. I rode this again later in the day. To keep it short, we did everything we wanted to do during the day and were even able to do some of our favorites more than once. Most wait times were less than shown in the app. The challenge was finding the end of the lines, especially when pushing a wheel chair! Look for a cast member holding a sign showing the ride name saying “End of Line”. We were very pleased with mobile ordering from the quick service restaurants here. We chose Animal Kingdom for President’s Day because it is the least crowded of the four parks. Breezy, high of 87, lots of shade here. Most challenging day of the four to push a wheel chair.
Tuesday, February 16, 2021 Magic Kingdom
Arrived at Magic Kingdom parking lot one hour before 9am opening. Again a long walk to ticket and transportation center. (Still didn’t know about courtesy wheel chairs.) Looked like a long line for the monorail and a cast member said we had about the same wait to use the ferry, so we walked further to the ferry. At some point during the day, we began to wonder how people were using the fast pass entrance to rides. Finally, a cast member told us about a separate entrance for mobility access to one of the rides and we learned you could get one fast pass at a time for mobility access to many of the rides. This saved me a lot of time and energy when it was available. Just imagine how much time we could have saved had we known this from the beginning! Other groups or individuals with no visible mobility limitations were using the fast pass entrances everywhere, but I have no idea how or why. Still, we did everything we wanted to do during the day and wait times were at estimates or shorter than the times shown on the app. When returning the wheel chair at the end of the day we asked if there was a way to get to our car easier than walking. They told us to use the chair we already had and just leave it in the parking lot. That’s when we learned about the courtesy chairs.
Wednesday, February 17, 2021 Hollywood Studios
This was our Hollywood Studios day. It actually started with some education from Guest Services on Tuesday night. I had a cast member explain exactly how to use the virtual queue for Rise of the Resistance. We checked my cell carrier’s coverage map and found the strongest signal area. I didn’t rely on wi-fi, only on my data signal (As a matter of fact, I turned my wi-fi off. My phone often gets confused when there is a nearby wi-fi signal that I am not signed into, and it gets slower than molasses!) I started using the procedure the cast member showed me at 6:59am and got boarding group 74! I was so excited about this that I started reading this forum to see other queue experiences and lost track of time. We didn’t get to the parking lot an hour before park opening and had a considerable wait before getting to the booth. I had 3 priority rides here. We went for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway first. 45 minute wait was just a little shorter than the estimate. Next was Rockin Roller Coaster at 70 minute estimate. I think this one took a little longer. Then Tower of Terror at 70 minutes estimate. TOT was broke down last time we were here and it broke down again today after an hour of waiting. Total wait time was 2 hours plus. I rode these solo. We planned for lunch at Woody’s Lunch Box, but by the time I finished TOT there was no availability for this quick service restaurant for another 2 hours, so we settled for Rosie’s. Not really what we wanted. Our boarding group was called sometime between 1 and 2pm. If you get to ride this, have your camera ready for some good shots during the ride. It is awesome! I had not planned on Slinky Dog Dash, but we had time and I really enjoyed it! (70 minute wait as estimated) We did not do Smuggler’s Run. I don’t do well with extended motion simulators and I didn’t know how a single rider would fit in. I have heard that there are 4 people controlling the ride.
Thursday, February 18, 2021 Epcot
This was our Epcot day. We got to the parking lot too early and had to go around and come back later. We got back before they started letting cars in and were frustrated to be in a line that was not moving, but we were far enough forward that there was no way to change lanes. When we finally got moving they were having computer trouble and our parking was “On Mickey!” Once we got in and picked up our wheel chair we went straight for Test Track (35 minute wait) which we finished by 11:05am- 5 minutes after the posted park opening time! Next was Soarin. There has to be a better way for a wheel chair pusher to get into Soarin! That may have been the hardest push up a hill of all four days! Needless to say, we did everything, including lunch, in The Land before coming out. I was not going to push up that hill again, even for a no wait ride on Soarin. Then we did Spaceship Earth. A cast member informed me to go up the hill to the right of the stand by entrance where there is a handicap entrance. That saved us time again. We like Spaceship Earth, but I miss Walter Cronkite who narrated it on our first ever visit in 1991. Next was Frozen Ever After in Norway. The line was all the way into China, but the wait was about 45 minutes. After that was the boat ride in Mexico. The wait needs to be separated for this. We all had to wait just to get into the pyramid where the shops are. Then you have to wait in another line for the boat ride, even if you did not want to shop. By the time we finished our boat ride in Mexico we had less than 5 minutes to be on time for our dinner reservation in Italy. I learned that there is a 15 minute grace period for reservations, but I practically ran (pushing my wife in the wheel chair) all the way. It was a hot day in the upper 80’s and I was out of breath and sweating profusely, but we made it on time! I would say Epcot was my favorite day, because we were able to do everything we wanted to do and were together on every attraction. My wife doesn’t do roller coasters or drops anymore.
We spent the whole day, opening to closing, inside every park. It was rainy on Hollywood Studios day. Going back to the car when renting either the wheelchair or the scooter is not an option. You can’t take the scooter out of the park and pushing the wheelchair would have been too much work. Parking lot shuttles were not running at any of the parks. Be prepared and take in everything you will need for the day. Hope this helps someone. Have a great time at Disney World!
