what is special assistance like at mco

[sonic_heroes]

Now Heathrow is another question!
As my wife had her own chair they had to go and find it as it has not come up to the door. The guy was not keen to push her in her own chair but did and then took us to the bus to change terminals where he promptly dumped her and said that he wasn't coming on the bus and we would manage ok ourselves. The bus driver and him had a big argument whilst my poor wife was caught sitting in between them. Yes I was there but as we also have a daughter with autism, a younger child as well paperwork, passports and hand luggage to juggle, hence why we had specifically requested assistance.
The bus driver took his ID to report him later and was very apologetic and advised that if a person has their own chair then special assistance must accompany them on the bus transfers.
He didn't come. We had to manage from there to the terminal and onwards to the gate on our own. Luckily we had 2.5 hours between arrival to our next plane leaving but by the time we got through passport and security (all our hand luggage bags were searched - only time in all the transfers we did) our next plane was already loading. It would have made it easier to have had someone with us as we had to go down in a lift to get to the gate and had to wait for someone to come and enter their security pass, which all took time.
Hope anyone going via Heathrow has better luck. (On the way down we went via Heathrow and then over to Gatwick. heathrow was quite bad then as well with the guy annoyed that I had my own chair and that he would have to dump his and come all the way back later to collect it. He kept asking everyone where to go and kept saying that he shouldn't have to do this as if he went the wrong way he would get badge taken from him. He was very reluctant to take us to arrivals hall and couldn't wait to leave once we had collected our luggage. Luckily the taxi driver we had booked helped us from there.)
Gatwick offered assistance to take us through but we agreed to meet them at the gate as we didn't have as much hand luggage on the way out and managed a lot easier. They took over at the gate and helped us board easily.
Hopefully you will have an ok time at Gatwick. Just watch out that if you get a pager that it actually works - once before when we relied on their assistance (didn't take own chair), they used the pager to let people know when they would transport them in their little carts and the pager didn't go off. We kept asking and they kept saying wait for the pager to flash. It never did yet and we nearly missed our flight.

[richard29]

Originally Posted by Dory15

Luckily it is only a maclaren major so for this year at least it's ok for us to take it to the gate :-) what about Gatwick side arriving home?

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The service has always been very good at Gatwick on arrival, a wheelchair waiting at the aircraft door.

[Guest]

That are fab at MCO much better than manchester where the guy just winged all the time don't worry about it it will all be fine

[Dancingducks]

I agree, very helpful even when busy

[DIBBadmin]

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