Wheel Chair Rentals

I just got back from SFGAm and once again the wheel chairs are the most popular way to get on the ride w/o waits. I despise the people who do it. It's really morbid to get a healthy kid to act sick so his whole family and himself can ride the ride. Shouldn't they put restrictions on this?

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Tuesday's Gone With The Wind.
Elijah Rock.
Is it written in the stars?
La Vie Boheme!!!

It is sad, although it serves a purpose. Recently, my knees have gotten progressively worse, and it's caused me great leg pain to stand for an hour climbing up and downhill in the queues. I plan on using the exit pass program on my next visit to SFGAm, although it may appear that I am not hurt because I'm not wearing a cast or the like. It serves a purpose, but far too many abuse it.

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Welcome to Six Flags Great America, home of the fastlane and delay-ja vu! We have now officially been deemed the world-wide wait!

PKI has a way of fixing that, they have assigned times to come back to rides, they still get to the exit, but they have to wait just as long as anyone else. Although I think people can wait for Son of Beast, Face/Off, Flight of Fear. Those 3 are all big enough for a wheel chair. I thinkt he kids fianally can't get on without waiting.

Last November at PKI the only line my wife and I were required to go through were for SOB. Both Face/Off and Flight of Fear has us use the exit. I found PKI to be difficult with a wheelchair due to the number of small hills there. The worst was Top Gun, that walk down and then back up was a killer. The entire staff was very helpful to us.

This spring when my wife used a wheel chair at CP was also pleasant. When in a wheelchair, you go to the information center and you are given a booklet that gets "stamped" with a ride time at each entrance. That way, people in wheelchairs must wait like everyone else. If you want to ride the front seat, just ask and they make you wait longer.

Personally, I do not think people with temporary injuries should be able to skip the line, especially when they bring their friends along with them. Last year at SFMM, my wait was extended because some kid wearing a *walking cast* and *four* of his friends got to skip the line.

There should be some sort of program where you wait at the exit while your friends/family go through the line, or something like that. I dunno.

I rented a wheelchair for my wife at PKI last year after she sprained her ankle. However, she did not ride anything and we did not skip any lines.

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He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking; can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.

As the father of a handicapped child, I am bothered by those who abuse accomadations for the handicapped. However, please remember that not all handicaps are visible. Someone may be in a wheelchair because of problems such as asthma or previously mentioned bad knees which don't cause them to appear visibly handicapped. Many asthmatics have problems at amusement parks due to the heat. This is especially true for hilly parks.

I've personally experienced some negative reactions when using the handicapped entrance to some of the shows at Disney. We were using the handicapped entrance legitimately due to a member of our party being deaf. You are supposed to use the handicapped entrance so they can set you up for the reflective captioning. The patrons in the regular line didn't seem to understand that not all handicaps requre a wheel chair. Actually, in this case you sometimes have to wait longer than the people in a short regular line since it takes them a little time to get set up; and if you get there just before a shoe starts, you have to wait for the next show to give them time.

I believe CP also limits the accompanying guests as well. At least a wheelchair bound friend was told only one of the adults accompanying him could ride with the pass.

Don't most parks require a doctors slip of some kind if the handicap isn't readily visible? I would think it would make it more difficult for someone to "fake" a handicap.

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead

At CP the handicap guest is allowed to have up to three friends( or family memebers). Before receiving the boarding pass, you must state the nature of your injury. This seems to be more for safety reasons than anything else, some rides are unsafe for certain injuries.

Den, I have to disagree with you. What do you consider to be temporary, 1 week, 2 months, 6 months, a year? Are you saying that someone whose injury requires an entire season to recover shouldn't be allowed to ride any rides? When my wife was in her wheelchair we would have gladly gone through the normal line if we were able. It is not her fault that the park didn't make it possible for wheel chairs to make it through the queue.

My friend has a leg muscle disability. Sometimes he is in crutches or a wheel chair, other times during his therapy he walks, although only for short periods of time. Though we have never been to a park together, I would be fully willing to wait the time in line and come back later. To be honest, I would be very dissapointed if people scoffed at us at a park if he walked onto the ride from a wheelchair, no matter what the park policy was.

Pointman, I guess it should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. I just get irked every time I see a kid getting in front of people in line because of a cast on his arm or whatever. I picture him and his friends saying, "Hey, if we go to PKI today we can skip lines! Let's go!"

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He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking; can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.

I understand how you feel Den. There are definately people who abuse this policy. However, I think that if more parks adopted a policy similar to CP's or created queues that could handle wheelchairs, this type of abuse could be significantly reduced.

You never know, one day you may need to use a wheel chair at a park yourself.

*** This post was edited by PointMan on 7/26/2002. ***

I think if I had a temporary injury, such as a broken leg, I would put off my park visit until I was healed, knowing that:

a) I would be the object of scorn from the people I was jumping ahead of; and

b) I would enjoy myself more anyway after I was healed.

Now, if I was permanently handicapped, I would skip the lines.... and I am glad to let such people in front of me in line. I'm sure their lives are hard enough.

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He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking; can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.

When I was at SFGAm, I saw some kids rent a wheel chair and go to Guest Services to get an exit pass and they said they needed a doctor's note saying you couldn't walk in line.

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I am proud to say my homepark has 3 B&M's, soon to be 4, hopefully.;)

They must be very lenient Gamfan because I saw two kids together and they hopped on V2 with the one kid in the wheel chair and then later in the day I saw the other kid in the chair being pushed up the exit for the Viper and this time I had to wait for the next train because they took the back seat.

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Tuesday's Gone With The Wind.
Elijah Rock.
Is it written in the stars?
La Vie Boheme!!!