I dream about winning a huge lottery. One of the main reasons this is at the top of my wish list is because it would enable me to create some of the many things I want to create. I would love to create a play center for able bodied children with less-abled parents. If there’s a seat belt that secures a child to a parent’s lap on an aircraft, surely someone out there could come up with a swing that works on a similar principle. I would love to create a hotel with proper facilities for less-abled travelers. I would love to create a range of baby furniture that would allow less-abled parents to lower and lift their babies in and out of cribs and strollers and the various things babies are lowered into and lifted out of. These are just some of the many things I have on a whole host of wish lists.
I have never made any kind of serious investigations into travel facilities for dis/less-abled people other than visit a few websites on the subject. In most hotels, just taking care of basic needs becomes an exhausting physical nightmare.
Whenever we travel, we enquire about rooms with disabled facilities. Our experience has shown that when hotels say, “yes we do cater for disabled guests” it amounts to the following:
The room will probably be for single occupancy which immediately becomes a problem. Chances are greater that a disabled person will have a wheelchair to negotiate in and out the room and around the room. Single occupancy rooms rarely have floor space to spare. The bed will be pushed against the wall on one side of the room. This is to create more room on the other side of the bed for a wheelchair. This situation makes the room uncomfortable for the partner, be they less or full abled. A roll in shower should be the one facility a room with disabled access will offer. If you are fortunate enough, the toilet will be higher than usual and not a trendy, mounted on the wall with no “stem” crapper! As pleasing to the eye as these may be, a pole slapped on the wall next to the loo makes it no easier to get down on to a low loo, and offers little, if any assistance in getting up off a low loo.
Whenever Daniel makes hotel reservations, we ask if the room has a walk-in shower or if the shower is over the bath. Invariably it is over the bath and for someone like me, climbing over the side of the bath is really difficult. I have used things like telephone directories, baby booster seats, and other insanely inappropriate items to create a step to make it easier to climb into the bath to take a shower.
On our recent trip, we were told there is a walk in shower. While there was indeed one, it presented some interesting challenges. There was a step up into the shower and obviously then down into the shower that was too high for me to negotiate. Once in, the interior was a molded piece with curves at the bottom so the only part of the cubicle that was actually flat, was in the center. It was hard to get there! One night, we brought my portable steps/blocks into the bathroom, built a staircase and placed one block inside the shower as well. This was ridiculous. The “staircase” got wet from the spray because I had to leave the shower door open so Daniel could help me from outside the shower. The blocks are really slippery when wet, so the whole scenario was insane. When I look back now and picture the scene, I can laugh – but in the moment it is actually scary. I feel insecure and vulnerable and the frustration I have to deal with about the lengths Daniel and I have to go to just to take a shower, are, well, frustrating!
Then there’s the Jacuzzi bath. How nice it would be to get into a Jacuzzi and enjoy the massage of the jets on my weary body. Yeah right, less than f*ck all chance of that. There are three hugely deep steps up to the Jacuzzi and if, like me, you can’t sit yourself down on the floor, what are you gonna do, plop butt or belly first into the water? Oh well, simple pleasures like that you learn to just brush aside and you take lots of digital pics of your kid splashing around in the Jacuzzi.
There are so many different ways in which people can be less-abled that I understand it is impossible to cater to everyone. Does it not seem weird though that none of the hotel chains see any value in appointing just one single staff member to really research this? I wonder if the hotels even record how many requests they might get in a year about their ‘disabled facilities’.
I don’t mean for this to sound like a grumble or moaning session at all. Like everything else, it is all about the attitude you approach things with. I am fortunate in that have a husband and child who will move mountains if necessary to allow me to participate as much as possible in all activities. They have however given up on the Jacuzzi – we all let go of that one. Whenever I suggest to them that they should go ahead without me, that I will wait for them – they demand I come with as it is not as much fun for them without me.
I can’t help wondering though about those people who might not be as fortunate as me. What about those people who have way more severe restrictions than me because they are way more afflicted than me? Who includes those people on a vacation? Maybe I should write to Paris Hilton and give her a purpose in life. Maybe I should write to Richard Branson and see how he would respond. There’s got to be someone out there who would see some value in making a hotel with functional facilities for anyone with a less than perfectly functioning body.
After our recent trip to Canada, I want to give a big WooHoo! to Continental Airlines. They were willing to offer us all the assistance we needed and they made our air travel a pleasure.
WooHoo to my husband. Thank you for lifting me, lowering me, pushing me, pulling me, and most of all, loving me.
I have never made any kind of serious investigations into travel facilities for dis/less-abled people other than visit a few websites on the subject. In most hotels, just taking care of basic needs becomes an exhausting physical nightmare.
Whenever we travel, we enquire about rooms with disabled facilities. Our experience has shown that when hotels say, “yes we do cater for disabled guests” it amounts to the following:
The room will probably be for single occupancy which immediately becomes a problem. Chances are greater that a disabled person will have a wheelchair to negotiate in and out the room and around the room. Single occupancy rooms rarely have floor space to spare. The bed will be pushed against the wall on one side of the room. This is to create more room on the other side of the bed for a wheelchair. This situation makes the room uncomfortable for the partner, be they less or full abled. A roll in shower should be the one facility a room with disabled access will offer. If you are fortunate enough, the toilet will be higher than usual and not a trendy, mounted on the wall with no “stem” crapper! As pleasing to the eye as these may be, a pole slapped on the wall next to the loo makes it no easier to get down on to a low loo, and offers little, if any assistance in getting up off a low loo.
Whenever Daniel makes hotel reservations, we ask if the room has a walk-in shower or if the shower is over the bath. Invariably it is over the bath and for someone like me, climbing over the side of the bath is really difficult. I have used things like telephone directories, baby booster seats, and other insanely inappropriate items to create a step to make it easier to climb into the bath to take a shower.
On our recent trip, we were told there is a walk in shower. While there was indeed one, it presented some interesting challenges. There was a step up into the shower and obviously then down into the shower that was too high for me to negotiate. Once in, the interior was a molded piece with curves at the bottom so the only part of the cubicle that was actually flat, was in the center. It was hard to get there! One night, we brought my portable steps/blocks into the bathroom, built a staircase and placed one block inside the shower as well. This was ridiculous. The “staircase” got wet from the spray because I had to leave the shower door open so Daniel could help me from outside the shower. The blocks are really slippery when wet, so the whole scenario was insane. When I look back now and picture the scene, I can laugh – but in the moment it is actually scary. I feel insecure and vulnerable and the frustration I have to deal with about the lengths Daniel and I have to go to just to take a shower, are, well, frustrating!
Then there’s the Jacuzzi bath. How nice it would be to get into a Jacuzzi and enjoy the massage of the jets on my weary body. Yeah right, less than f*ck all chance of that. There are three hugely deep steps up to the Jacuzzi and if, like me, you can’t sit yourself down on the floor, what are you gonna do, plop butt or belly first into the water? Oh well, simple pleasures like that you learn to just brush aside and you take lots of digital pics of your kid splashing around in the Jacuzzi.
There are so many different ways in which people can be less-abled that I understand it is impossible to cater to everyone. Does it not seem weird though that none of the hotel chains see any value in appointing just one single staff member to really research this? I wonder if the hotels even record how many requests they might get in a year about their ‘disabled facilities’.
I don’t mean for this to sound like a grumble or moaning session at all. Like everything else, it is all about the attitude you approach things with. I am fortunate in that have a husband and child who will move mountains if necessary to allow me to participate as much as possible in all activities. They have however given up on the Jacuzzi – we all let go of that one. Whenever I suggest to them that they should go ahead without me, that I will wait for them – they demand I come with as it is not as much fun for them without me.
I can’t help wondering though about those people who might not be as fortunate as me. What about those people who have way more severe restrictions than me because they are way more afflicted than me? Who includes those people on a vacation? Maybe I should write to Paris Hilton and give her a purpose in life. Maybe I should write to Richard Branson and see how he would respond. There’s got to be someone out there who would see some value in making a hotel with functional facilities for anyone with a less than perfectly functioning body.
After our recent trip to Canada, I want to give a big WooHoo! to Continental Airlines. They were willing to offer us all the assistance we needed and they made our air travel a pleasure.
WooHoo to my husband. Thank you for lifting me, lowering me, pushing me, pulling me, and most of all, loving me.
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