Guest Author - Jessica Steinmetz

Between May 1 - May 7, 2005, my husband and I took a vacation to Walt Disney World Florida. The trip was to mark our third wedding anniversary. I'd like to give you suggestions for your Walt Disney World trip.

I have athetoid/spastic cerebral palsy. I need assistance in daily personal care and I use a motorized wheelchair. For this trip, I took my AT'M motorized chair. It's a very good chair for travel.

PLANNING THE TRIP AND ORDERING TICKETS:

1. You cannot buy accessible rooms over the Internet on the Walt Disney web site. I'm not quite sure why that is, but you need to fill out a form and they email you. Instead of that hassle, I suggest calling Walt Disney directly. Explore their site and figure out what you want and then call and book it.

2. We choose to fly on Southwest Airlines. We never flew them before, but I'm afraid of flying so we picked the number one safest airline. I really don't have any complaints. They sat us in the first row. They don't have first class or in flight entertainment, but the flight was smooth.

3. Now that they have Magical Express you don't have to worry too much about transportation when you arrive. You might want to mention you need a lift on the bus, but it looked like a lot of the buses had wheelchair lifts.

PACKING TIPS:

1. Try to pack enough clothes because laundry service is expensive. Remember you can wear clothes for multiple days by rinsing or cleaning them in the sink and drying them on a drying rack.

2. Pack medicines. If you're like me, you get sick frequently and easily. I regretted not asking my doctor for antibiotics to take with me. The first day we were there, I got strep throat and we had to take time and money to go to the medical facility to get treated. Also pack cold medicine, headache medicine, and any other medicine you might need.

3. Pack plenty of sunscreen and sunglasses. I wore a lot of capris because they cover a lot of the thigh of the leg that can easily be burned when sitting in a wheelchair.

4. Pack rain ponchos and rain jackets. It does rain in Florida and the rain is not good for your wheelchair.

Part 2: Airport, Security and Hotel
Part 3: Magic Kingdom
Part 4: Epcot