Angela n Rolling Crew

Ken, we are bringing a canopy that has four sides that can be left up or put down. Our plan is to park the wheelchairs in the canopy at night. I hope that will keep them safe and dry!

We checked into the Coach Lift as well as some other options. The Coach Lift was a bit out of our budget, so we went with a Burr Handy Lift. It was about half the cost and I think it will do the job for us. We will still have to lift the girls out of their chairs, but will be able to just step onto the lift with each one and it will lift us up into the trailer. It will save us climbing the stairs holding a 13 year old! And our boys will be able to get themselves on it and operate it as well. So we are hoping it works well for us. It is being installed tomorrow and we are three weeks from our trip to the Fort. Everyone is super excited!

Thanks! Trying to save a few dollars on the full hook up sites. Plus we have a tent as well and a canopy too. I figured the coquina sand wound allow us to stake the tent and the canopy. We use the canopy to keep the wheelchairs out of the rain and over the table. It's a lot to consider! No matter where they put us, I am sure the kids will be happy! I think we are just going to request 1601, 1741, 1825 or anything next to a comfort station path with easy backing! That ought to work! Less than two months for us til we are at the Fort!

We have a 32 ft trailer and will have one tent as well. My husband is fairly new at backing our trailer, and I see some of these sites say "difficult" to back and some say "average". His comfort level is probably between "easy" and "average", so should we realistically cross off the sites that say "difficult"?

Wow! Thanks so much! Those replies are really helpful. You guys are awesome. Will check out all those sites mentioned on the app. This gives us a good variety to request.

Has anyone stayed in site 1601? We are thinking of requesting it for our Labor Day week trip. We have four kids in wheelchairs and need to be able to easily access the Comfort Station for Showers. Will this location work for us? We are not so worried about proximity to bus stops as we will likely take our wheelchair lift van to the parks. However, being able to walk to Meadows area would be nice. How far would the walk be to the marina from this loop? Thanks in advance!

Hey all! Just getting back to FF and this thread. Thanks so much for the links and the pictures! We are gonna give Coach Lift a call tomorrow to chat with them and see how much their lift would cost us. Our boys with Spina Bifida would be able to use this for sure. And I believe it would allow us to get our two total care girls into the travel trailer as well. We didn't get to stay at Fort Wilderness last year after all, as we had a problem with our slide on the travel trailer and it ended up in the shop while we ended up renting a condo for our trip! But we are trying again this year and we are booked at Fort Wilderness for Labor Day week! The kids are very excited and so are mom and dad! Thanks again for the links! Angela

I am pretty  new here, but I will weigh in on this one. :panic: Don't be too rough on me please!  I just wonder how they will handle families like mine (and there are more than you would think) where we have four children with disabilities and several different "needs". In the past we have simply explained our needs to Guest Relations and they would then decide what accommodations we needed and would stamp our GAC with the appropriate message. I have two with vision impairment, three with seizures, and one with mild autism in addition to his Spina Bifida. And I have one who is "just" in a wheelchair. Will they EACH need a DAS pass with their picture on it?

We are a family of seven. But sometimes we split into two groups of four and three as there are some rides that our two girls are not able to ride at all. They usually go with their daddy to find a quiet, shady place to sit, while the other four of us ride some of the attractions the boys love and hate to miss. If there are no quiet, shady spots and the four of us riding take a long time going through the regular line, it gets tough on the girls. In the past, on many occasions, when a CM would see our girls sitting in the sun in their wheelchairs and we would start through the regular line, the CM would stop us and tell us to go through fastpass line even though our girls were not riding that attraction. I have been told several times "If your daughter is not riding but has to wait a prolonged period of time in the sun, then we are not accommodating her needs"   In other words, Disney and all the CM's have always bent over backwards to make our trips magical!  I do not expect that to stop. I really don't think these new changes will affect our trip that much (we are going Oct 11th). Maybe I am naive, but I just think Disney will find some way to accommodate those who really need the assistance. At least I am hoping so!! 

We are going in three weeks (also driving from Texas) and we are trying the Tallahassee RV Park. http://www.tallahasseervpark.com/about.html

Anyone stayed here? 

Angela

Ken, we have DS24 and DD20 who are healthy and both in the army (one in VA and one in GA). We have one angel in Heaven. And we have four at home: DD12 (Hydranencephaly, seizures and CP = total care), DS11(Spina Bifida, very able to push himself and very active!), DS4(Spina Bifida, also active though gets tired so will need to be pushed some) and DD who is 19 mos (Hydranencephaly, DI, Adrenal Insufficiency and CP = total care). They are all sweet kids and we are so blessed to be their parents!  I hope we get to meet you and Judy some day. Would love to chat about our mutual experiences!! 

Our DD20 is taking leave from the army and will meet us at the Fort. We are happy to see her AND happy she will be there to help!  It will be a real experience trying to do this trip with four wheelchairs!  Should be memorable!! LOL

Angela

My daughter who is in the army is joining us on our trip Oct 12 - Oct 22, so she is purchasing the 4 day park hopper military tickets for us all. Will we be able to link those to our MDE and then be able to create the MB and make FP+ reservations?  TIA

Angela

What is the best location to take my two boys in wheelchairs to fish? We will be requesting either the 1200 or 1300 loop near the comfort station. I see there is a canal behind the 1300 loop. It is grassy or flat so that we can take them down that way, or are there docks that might be a better location for them to fish from?  TIA

Angela

Would love to see pictures too!!  This is what we need desperately!

For those going in October, we will be there from October 12th to October 22nd! Would love to meet anyone who wants to say hi!  I am going to order a Fort Fiends sign so we will be easy to spot! The FF app with sites is just awesome as are all the videos of the loops! We are thinking we may ask for the 1300 or 1200 loop near the comfort station. Both of those locations look to be close to bus stop as well. We will be driving our wheelchair accessible van with lift to the parks as we have four in wheelchairs to transport. Our last trip to Disney was in 2009 and we only had two in wheelchairs at that time, one who could push himself and one my husband or I had to push. We have adopted two more since that trip and with four (two who can push themselves and two who can't) we figured now was the time to go to a travel trailer, both for medical supplies AND for transport! Our older daughter will be with us to help push our two little girls and our two boys with Spina Bifida are pretty self sufficient and able to push themselves most everywhere. The boys are our little fishermen too, so they are looking forward to doing some fishing. I am hoping there are some locations where they might be able to fish from their wheelchairs?? 

Again, thanks so much for all the great info and looking forward to maybe meeting some of you in October!

Angela

Thanks so much for all your replies! Judy and Ken, especially thanks for all the info. We have been several times with the kids to Disney World, but this will be our first time at Fort Wilderness and in our camper.  I think we will have a great time!!  Thanks all!!

Angela

Hi all. This is my first post after lurking for a bit!  We are old timers to visiting Disney, but new to camping and to Fort Wilderness. We are really looking forward to our first trip to the Fort in October in our new travel trailer. 

I am adoptive mom to seven sweet kids, and my youngest four are special needs. All four of them are in wheelchairs and I have a couple of questions about what loops we should request.

We will need to use the comfort stations for showering the kids (assuming they have accessible stalls), so we need to be near a comfort station. Also need to be able to get to the bus stop fairly easily. I have two that want to fish as well!  Any suggestions on what a good location might be for us? 

Also, still new at pulling a travel trailer and we are definitely not "pros" at backing into spots yet! Our trailer is 30 ft long. We did request a premium spot and let the reservationist know that we do have wheelchairs with us. Is it correct that all spots are back in? What are the easiest loops to back into spots? 

Any and all suggestions for making things easier for the kids would be appreciated! Thanks in advance!