Disabled Travel – Disney World here we come!

My wife and I are flying out to Orlando, Florida tonight for a two week vacation. I am really looking forward to this vacation since work has been pretty intense after the Christmas Holidays all the way up to now. It never seems to be a good time for me to go on a vacation, but I completed all my major assignments this week and I feel pretty confident my team will be able to operate smoothly without me while I am gone.

We had planned this trip a year and a half ago when we were visiting my family in Belgium. We asked my brother when he would come visit us in California, but instead we worked out a deal where we meet each other half way, in Florida. My brother is coming over with his wife and three kids and we are all staying in a three bedroom timeshare. Actually, I haven’t spent this much time with my brother and his family since I left Belgium 26 years ago and we are looking forward to it.

We will be spending a lot of time in Disney World of course, but we also plan to take a trip to Cape Canaveral. I have been to Disney World a few times before in a wheelchair when I lived in North Carolina and I found it quite accessible. However, this time I plan to pay more attention to Disney World’s accessibility as I plan to publish a story about my experiences as a disabled traveler in Disney World in the Travel category when I get back.

My wife and I are looking forward to the trip, but we are not exactly looking forward to the flights. No matter how well we prepare to fly as a disabled person confined to a wheelchair, we always seem to run into some issue with the airlines. The transfers to the aisle chair are usually a challenge because the people who assist never seem to be trained well enough to handle a person who is paralyzed and in some cases they aren’t even strong enough to do the transfer safely and I am not that heavy. Though, hardly having any balance, I have to admit that I may feel like a sack of potatoes to them. The other major issue is that it often seems to take a long time before my personal wheelchair is brought to the jet way. On the way back we have a stopover and we have less than one hour to make it on the next flight. That should be interesting! Let’s hope everything will go smoothly this time.

So long, we are leaving in a few hours.

Luc

*Update – we published a full report of the trip, along with information on rides, where to stay, and park accessibility. Here’s the article on Accessibility for People with a Mobility Disability in and around Disney World.