My sister, visiting from Arizona, wanted to do one...

My sister, visiting from Arizona, wanted to do one thing: go to the Bronx Zoo. She had an injured knee, but based on experiences from other major zoos and amusement parks we did not anticipate a problem. We traveled 90 minutes to get there and went immediately to rent a wheelchair. Three attendants told us there were no more and had no alternate suggestions to help us. However, while we were standing there someone returned one. The attendants could not accept a return without a supervisor. We waited for one to arrive so we could rent the returned chair. The supervisor did not check the wheelchair and it proved to be defective. After struggling with it for 20 minutes we decided to try the shuttle. The attendant there could not let us access the handicap line without a supervisor's ok. By the time that happened the car that has wheelchair access was full of healthy visitors and we had to wait for another shuttle. We got off in Asia near the monorail where we heard there was another customerr assistance stand. There were no wheelchairs here either, so we tried to return this one and at least get our money back as the only way we could get it to function was to drag it backwards. After another supervisor was called we were told to go to an exit gate, and return it. No suggestions on how to get back. My sister was having tears of frustration at this point. We decided to just get on the monorail. At this point, we met Zoo employees Michele, Raoul and 2 others who approached us and helped us as best they could. They took the defective wheelchair, handled the paperwork to refund our money and physically assisted my sister onto the monorail without wait. We were given a supervisor signed card to access the monorail and shuttle. We were told we would be able to get a courtesy ride to our car. Unfortunately, the rest of the staff did not follow through. We were denied the courtesy ride to our car when we asked for it. After the monorail, we slowly limped to the shuttle. The attendant called his supervisor to ask if he could drop us off closer to the Gorilla exhibit instead of at the designated stop. He was told no. After 4 hours of struggling, waiting for supervisor permissions and seeing only exhibits from the monorail we gave up and left. Michele, the one hero of the day had given us free return tickets. Besides this being a one time opportunity for my sister, why would anyone want to repeat such an awful experience? The Bronx Zoo is much more enjoyable on TV.