Looking for info re: carts / motorized wheelchairs - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Looking for info re: carts / motorized wheelchairs
My husband's mother will be joining us and I'm worried about all the walking that will be involved in the parks because she has some difficulty getting around. I'm sure I heard somewhere that you can rent motorized carts, but now I can't seem to find any information about it. Does anyone know anything about this - cost, whether reservations are needed, etc.?
I posted this first in the "Everything Else" Section and someone suggested I post it here.
ECV's "scooters" can be rented at each theme park. They are NOT reserved ahead of time which means they can and do run out on busy days. They are $65 a day but you get $20 back when you turn the scooter back in.
The MK has 1 rental location, which is at the front of the park to the right as you go in the turnstiles.
Epcot has 2 locations, the first is at the front of the park after going into the theme park turnstiles go to your left and they will have a rental counter in the gift shop for you to rent them.
The second location is located in World Showcase at the International Gateway after you enter the theme park to your left.
At Disney's Hollywood Studios, they have 1 rental location located to your right after you enter the theme park at the "gas station".
At Animal Kingdom again only 1 rental location located to your right after entering the theme park turnstiles.
So to get from the bus stops or parking lot your DMil will have to walk a bit to get to the rental location.
If you know she will have trouble walking, standing etc and are staying on Disney Property it might be more economical and less stress to rent from an off site company such as Walker Mobility, Buena Vista Scooters or another company where you would pay less per day and would have use of the scooter around the resorts, as well as getting from the transportation area to the parks themselves.
If the cost of a motorized scooter "ecv" is not in the budget you can also rent push wheelchairs but that requires someone else doing the pushing but would be less expensive.
Using a Wheelchair or ECV will make the walking and stamina easier to handle for your Dmil I'm sure as It does for me. Disney makes it easy for everyone to enjoy their parks regardless of age, or ability so don't worry too much. Just plan to budget for either an on site or off site rental!
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WE used a company called Scootarama last trip because DW was in a boot. They deliver to and pick up from your hotel. It was $35 a day, going down to $30 a day after 4 days. It was a lifesaver. Very easy to get into / out of the car. The scooters you rent at WDW you have to leave when you exit the park and there's no guarantee one will be available when you get there. I highly recommend them
After looking through the "sticky thread", if you still have questions, please try the "search" feature at the top of the page. Type in "ECV" and you will come up with many,many thread about this topic as it's one of the most discussed subjects in this Forum.
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We have used Buena Vista Scooter, a sponsor of this site, for a plain old wheelchair our last two trips. The cost was about $60/week, they deliver and pick up at your resort, and you can do the reservation online. If you get there without one and decide you need a chair, just call them and they will deliver by the next day. Other companies people have used include Randy's and Walker Mobility. Scooters of course cost more (I think around $200-225/week) but they are definitely cheaper than renting them from Disney day by day.
Occasionally someone will say they borrowed a wheelchair from their resort for free, but our resort was out last time. We did end up renting at Epcot when we went back an extra day; the cost was only $10. They also had chairs available for free for us to use to go from the gate to our car. Very nice!
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I also rented 2 from Buena Vista,in October with no problems. Great cost and scooters were great. They had them at the Pop waiting on us. And we just took them back up to baggage the morning we were checking out. I will use them again for our next visit too. We were told they would be OK on all the Disney transportation and they were. And also were informed on how to break them down if we needed to transport them in our car if we were going any where else in Orlando.
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