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Over the last couple of years that I have been regularly visiting Walt Disney World and staying on-site as a resort guest, one thing has become abundantly clear: resort room doors are heavy! This can certainly be a challenge if you or someone in your group is using an ECV. Even with an extra set of hands holding the door open, a number of onsite resorts have a narrow entryway hallway inside the guest rooms, and trying to navigate this can be cumbersome at best, and difficult at worst.

Being a solo traveler with an ECV, I tried a variety of techniques to hold the resort room door open while trying to maneuver an ECV into and out of the room in which I was staying. First, I tried the obvious technique: using myself to hold the door open. I would set the ECV into manual mode, then open the door, and slowly and carefully drag the ECV either into the hallway or into the room. At some point, the door is going to hit the ECV, and I always worried about scratching the door. Or the ECV. I’m glad I bought that damage waiver. Surely there had to be a better way.

Then I tried a traditional door stop. Surely this has to work, right? It’s a door stop. Its purpose is to stop doors! This is when I learned that a regular door stop is no match against the mighty Disney door. It stood no chance! As the door began to close on its own, while dragging the door stop with it, I swear I could hear it laughing.

So I doubled down on the door stop method. I had purchased a set of door stops where you can put two of them together to make an even mightier door stop. They say two heads are better than one, so surely two door stops are better than one, right? Wrong. Again, as the door closed while taking the door stop with it, I swear I again heard the door laugh at me. Now it’s getting personal. I will not let you win, insanely heavy Disney resort room door! I will get my revenge! I hope.

That leads me to this little gadget: The Stoppy Universal Door Stop!
(available at Amazon)

At first glance, one would think this little thing wouldn’t stand a chance against these Disney resort room doors, but looks can be deceiving! I’ll admit, when it arrived at my doorstep, even I had my doubts. “This puny thing isn’t going to work, there’s no way!” I said to myself.

How wrong I was, as you can see from the picture. Not only did it work, but it worked extremely well. Not only did it work extremely well, it worked extremely well on both carpeted and hard floor surfaces. I should have paid more attention in school because I’m not quite sure the physics behind the shape of this door stop, but it’s the combination of its shape and the physics involved with that shape that keeps the door open. As a side note, while many Disney onsite resorts are converting to a hard floor surface, there are some that still have carpet. So this Stoppy was used on both, and luckily it works well on both.

As a result of this lovely and relatively inexpensive gadget, there is less hassle maneuvering an ECV into or out of a Disney resort room. The device holds the door open wide enough where it doesn’t make contact with the ECV, and its smaller size means you can easily take it with you if needed, or place it inside the room within arm’s reach for when you return. I placed mine on the counter next to the coffee maker. Some resorts have a larger entryway with a little shelf by the door, and it fits there as well. I’ve even impressed Bell Services with this little gadget when they deliver my luggage to the room.

So rejoice, Disney friends! If you are using an ECV while staying on-property at Walt Disney World, you can use this little gadget to prop your resort room door open in order to get your ECV into or out of your room if keeping it in the hallway is not allowed or frowned upon.

What other gadgets would you recommend?