Yeah. Hockey game + bad turn = broken ankle. We're leaving in just under six weeks and right now we're mostly just hoping he doesn't have to have surgery. If he doesn't, I think I've convinced my sister and her fiance that it's not the end of the world if we have to rent a wheelchair. I've been reading about all the wheelchair accommodations and am very impressed with how well set up everything is, but most of it seems to be directed to people with permanent disabilities rather than injuries.

I think we'll be fine but I'm wondering about the jostling on a few of the rides. Will he be ok climbing into the ride cars and having his casted foot on the roller coasters and stuff? And what about Soarin'? Will he be ok having his cast dangling and stuff?

He'll have his crutches and I think he should be fine to hop over the few stairs and stuff, but any suggestions are much appreciated. How does Nemo work? I know about the alternate viewing room but I think we'd rather go in the subs if possible. Did I read something about that being possible?

Help. My sister and her fiance are kind of overwhelmed and I volunteered to be in charge of figuring everything out so we can still go, because their first reaction was that they wouldn't be able to go any more, and I am working hard on convincing them that we can still have lots of fun.

What about the fireworks and the parade and Fantasmic?

Ok first of all, I strongly recommend you rent an EVC rather than a wheelchair, it gives everyone much more freedom and less backaches of pushing a rental chair all over the parks and it gets him to/from the hotel much easier.

As for in the park, you can look at the different rides and take his athletic ability into account. For Space the HCA rocket allows plenty of time to transfer then slides over and off you go. For Thunder you have to be able to get in/out in under a certain time frame and I'm not sure but it's less than 30 seconds I 'believe' I'm sure one of the CM's or another padder will correct me if I'm off on that. Any of the coasters you pretty much have to be able to get in/out fairly fast or it risks cascade stopping the attraction (not good). As for Nemo, unless he is VERY athletic and has incredible upper body strength I don't think I'd recommend attempting to go down into the subs, the stairwell is a tight 'circle and while they will let him board last meaning no one would be behind him to accidentally bump him and cause him to lose his balance it is still a cramped space. As for Soaring, I have actually seen casts on feet or the walking boots for ankle injuries on guests in the attraction so I don't think that one is an issue.

Mamma has covered most of it. I would recommend Deckerts and rent an ECV.

There are areas to view Fantasmic! and the parade from in a wheel chair. I personally don't like the view of Fantasmic! from the accessible area.

By the 6 weeks, hopefully they will have put him in a boot. It will be so much easier if they do and if he is comfortable, you can avoid the wheelchair/ECV.

They did say no weight bearing at all for six weeks, so my sister is not feeling very optimistic, but hopefully things will improve by then.

Fortunately he is in VERY good shape, and also helpfully, he's a fairly slim guy so we can help him out quite a bit if need be. He was really depressed today and when my sister told him he could still go on roller coasters he got really excited so we'll work on getting him really speedy so he can hop in and out. He was really excited about California Screamin' so we'll have to give him speed trials while hopping, or something. I'm hoping his general excellent state of health means he'll be up to the task.

Good advice on the ECV over the wheelchair - I'll talk to my sister and see what they think. Since he can use his crutches when need be presumably that should work ok - he doesn't actually need the Buzz wheelchair car, for example, because he can hop onto the regular one, but can he still access in the handicapped entrance and take his time getting on? That moving sidewalk makes me a bit nervous!

Great news about Soarin! I love that ride.

Thanks so much, guys. They're pretty bummed out so I'm arming myself with as much information as possible!

For both Buzz and for HM they can and will graciously stop the moving walkwak for him to board the vehicle. When you go to the HM you'll need to explain that they need to stop the walkway for him and they'll give you the appropriate colored card. Keep in mind that the HM stretching room gets full so it's a wiser choice to ask to take the EVC down with you if he's non weight bearing for six weeks.

Awesome! Thanks so much. He was super depressed and I said "don't worry! The Mousepadders will know what to do" and he is feeling much better about the whole thing.

The good news is that (a) we're going when it shouldn't be totally nuts (my last two trips were over Easter, so my standards are very low for what constitutes not busy!) and (b) better that it interferes with our trip than their wedding this summer. :)

I'd really recommend using the accessible entrance for any ride that has a moving walkway to enter the ride vehicle. I can just see someone hopping on those things and losing their balance and hurting themselves even more (especially getting onto the moving part). That would be bad.

If you rent an ECV from off-site, tell them you need a crutch holder. Generally it is about a $10 (per rental, not per day) add-on which makes driving much easier shince they are out of the way.

And just want to check one thing, are you talking about DisneyLand Resort or Walt Disney World?

OP mentioned NEMO, that would make it Disneyland.

Oh, whoops! Yes, Disneyland, thanks.

And that is GREAT advice about the crutches holder - I was thinking those would get reeeeally annoying. Thanks!

Oh my goodness, I just realised I didn't come back here and say THANK YOU. Holy crap, you guys, you were so helpful. We ended up with a wheelchair instead of an ECV, because my BIL figured that it was smaller and easier to manipulate into smaller spaces. Plus he is cheap. We took turns pushing, and he pushed himself quite a bit, so it worked out really well. The best part was they checked his crutches for him - we'd anticipated having to get a locker for those, so that was a nice surprise!

Because of your awesome tips, we managed to work things pretty much perfectly. We hardly had to wait in any lines - because we knew to go on things like Pirates and Space Mountain early, we got on with no trouble at all. When we went back later in the day, there were huge lines of wheelchairs, so we clearly timed it right.

He managed to get onto every single ride that we wanted to go on. (We skipped a few, but not because of the broken ankle.) He is, like I said, in great shape, so he hopped incredibly well and probably a dozen cast members commented on how good he was at getting in and out of rides. He had no trouble getting into the subs - funnily enough, the hardest ride was the Storyland Canal boats, which hadn't even occurred to me as a potentially tricky one!

Dave had the attitude that he didn't want to be treated any differently except for the lineups (which I realise is half the problem with the handicapped access entrances and why they've cracked down on it, but he DID legitimately have a broken leg!) so he hopped down for the Haunted Mansion and went in the stretching room, leaving his wheelchair up top, and just hopped along the hallway and the moving walkway. (Did I mention how good a hopper he was?!?)

It was particularly useful for Indiana Jones, Space Mountain, Nemo, Peter Pan (wow, was it ever nice not to wait forty minutes for that ride!) and Splash Mountain. We got a good sized bag from one of the stores and kept it on us, and we just covered up his cast once we got onto Splash and Grizzly. I think over the course of the four days, we didn't wait in line for more than 10 minutes at any point, despite there being an influx of cheerleaders. Oh! And the Fantasmic Wheelchair seating was AWESOME! I didn't even know about that, and we were sort of milling around trying to figure out where to watch it from so Dave could see, when there were hoardes of people (it was the first night Fantasmic was back on, so it was pretty busy), and a nice cast member said, "oh, wheelchair seating for Fantasmic? Right this way!" and we got the front and center spot. AWESOME!

The ONLY downside was we didn't really spend any time in Downtown Disney, because it was too much hassle to return his wheelchair, and he got pretty tired with too much crutching. Fortunately, my sister (who hadn't been to DL before) went and spent some time there while the rest of us went on Tower of Terror, which she didn't want to ride. We told her that she is now ruined for any future visits she makes to DL, because she has absolutely no concept of waiting in line. We figure we'll draw straws for who has to break an ankle next time. (Although none of us hop as well as Dave, so it won't be as convenient.)

Even in California Adventures, where the lines are all accessible, we found we saved a lot of time having the wheelchair. We got fast passes for all the FP rides, and on things like Grizzly and Screamin', we skipped most of what little lines there were with the FP, which was awesome. Of course, on Screamin', we didn't actually save any time because we waited for the front every time, but that was ok. Worth the wait!

The best setups are definitely Space Mountain (MAN, it was nice to be able to wait sitting down, and the little side entrance thing is really cool. Two thumbs up for whomever came up with that plan!) and Grizzly River Run - we really liked being able to take as much time as we needed to get Dave set up, especially because he needed to bag his cast on that one. We rode that one four times, I think, because everyone liked it so much. The first time we rode we were with another wheelchair group, and it was an absolutely hilarious group of women who freaked out about getting wet, but the other times it was just the four of us, and we were in absolute hysterics every time.

Anyway, if you guys hadn't been so helpful and enthusiastic, my sister would have decided that they couldn't go at all, and that would have been a HUGE mistake, since the wheelchair was almost never a problem and frequently a bonus! Huge, huge props to the staff in the parks, too - they were really awesome with the wheelchair and universally helpful and nice. (The best part was running into Mr. Incredible on the day that Dave wore his Mr. Incredible tshirt. I have a great photo!)

Mouseplanet is the best. Thank you!