I will be traveling with my mom and two children. I can get us there super early, but my mom has to stop and rent an ECV (we will not be renting one offsite). Will the time it takes to do this put is so far behind that it’s worthless to go early in an attempt to get ahead of the pack?
I should mention that the day we attend there will be EMH so the park opens at 8. We are staying onsite so the plan would be to be driving into the parking lot at 6:30. Thanks for your advice.
If you are on sight why would you not rent one from an outside vendor. You will have it to get around the resort and you can then use Disney buses, monorail, ect. Plus they are cheaper to rent off sight.
We will not be going to the parks eveyday. We will be having a rest day in between 4 park days. So the cost for renting 4 days in park is the same (or a little less) as renting offsite each day. Plus on the very first day we will be heading straight to the park and not going to resort first. Mom doesn’t need it to get around resort just needs it for the long days at the resort.
When we went in September, my mom rented an ECV and it really didn’t take a lot of time (we were there prior to rope drop at each park each day). It’s a relatively quick process- less than 10 mins.
However, she regretted not renting from the outside vendor. She didn’t think she needed it to get around the resort, which is true. But the long walk from the bus stop to the front of the park every morning and evening was enough to make her wish she would have had one outside of the park.
Even if she’s in relatively good shape, those walks to the bus stop are long. My advice is regardless of money, it might be worth the outside rental.
Thank you. I thought the bus dropped and picked up right in front of the park. I didn’t know that there was a long walk. I got a preferred room at the resort so that she would not need a ECV at the resort. Thanks for the advice.
I don’t know where you’re staying, but for example, see the attached from the WDW site - The red X shows where you rent the ECV and the 4 rows of bus stops are to the bottom right of the page (close to the blue 1). Depending on which resort you’re at depends on how far you’ll walk. It’s a little different set up for each park, but this is just an example.
Thank you. We are staying at a value resort(Movies) so those bust stops are probably always in the back. Another reason we did not want to rent offsite is because the value room are very small and keeping the ECV in the room will take up so much space.
That’s a good point about the rooms being small. It might be tough, but I’m sure you could manage to find a way to fit it in the room without feeling too much more cramped.
And yes, the value resorts are usually some of the farthest away. We stayed at AoA and it always seemed to be the very farthest stop no matter where we went.
You know her physical capabilities better than I do, so maybe she’d be fine getting one at the park each day. I just know there were multiple times I wished my mom had one outside of the parks. She never once complained, but I could tell she was tired and hurting.
Good luck and have a great trip!
Thanks are there places to sit along the way. For example if it was a 20 minute walk but we could sit after walking about 10 minutes she would be fine. In the morning we plan to leave extra early so that we do not have to rush and in the evening there is no real rush.
From my recollection, there will be benches along the way from the bus stops. Some of the paths have restrooms (I know one of the paths to the bus stops at MK has a restroom). I just saw where you are planning to drive in - so that might be a little different than the bus stops and I haven’t driven to the parks in over 15 years so I can’t help with the driving in part.
Thank you. we are only driving the first day. We are heading straight to the parks. The other days we will be taking the Disney bus.
I’m renting a heavy duty ECV for 7 day and it is about $225. I’m staying at All Star Sports I was told we could leave it out side our room. My wife will also have one not heavy duty for 7 day and its about $175. Better to have it and not need it then need it and not have it. Scooter Reservations - they have ECV from $25-$40 a day Disney charges $50 a day.
Just trying to help
I won’t weigh in on the on/off site rental question; we’ve only used on site at each park. If you’re at the front of the pack at RD, you’ll be at the front of the line at the rental counter and it will only take 5 or 10 minutes. I haven’t noticed it to be too bad an issue for timing. With the new entry process at the MK, I assume it would be even less of a problem there.
We had two ECVs in our ASMu room, and yes, it was a bit cramped, but it was doable. Of course, we had an accessible room with accessible tub. Our bathroom was huge, and we put one ECV in there, and one between the bed and the wall. I saw some people leave their ECV outside next to their door.