Travelling While Disabled
Today has been an exercise in frustration. Booking accommodation while disabled is... difficult. I have to make sure that I can get in and out of the bathroom by myself without immediately forcing my new boyfriend into "carer" mode when he's never even met me in person.
We were looking at apartments on AirB&B and TripAdvisor… the problem is that all a person needs to do to make their flat “wheelchair accessible” is to tick a little box. So there were a whole load of apartments that I could apparently get around fine until it got to the bathroom. Whereupon there were suddenly no grab rails, a bathtub with no seat or dropped sides, and a fixed shower head rather than a detachable one.
The Download Festival is more accessible than most of these condos, and that's an outdoor music festival where you sleep in a tent! But at least it has grab rails in the toilets and enough space to transfer from a wheelchair if you can't walk at all, and roll-in showers with a seat and grab rails.
Also, the most frustrating thing on any website is the phrase “This hotel has accessible rooms that may include the following accessible features”. Just fuck off! I don't care about what you "may" provide, I want to know what you definitely "will" provide!
Grargh.
In other news, I have discovered that Electric Wheelchair Hockey is a thing. That's positively amazing - I hadn't known there were any sports accessible to users of electric wheelchairs before. Wow :)
We were looking at apartments on AirB&B and TripAdvisor… the problem is that all a person needs to do to make their flat “wheelchair accessible” is to tick a little box. So there were a whole load of apartments that I could apparently get around fine until it got to the bathroom. Whereupon there were suddenly no grab rails, a bathtub with no seat or dropped sides, and a fixed shower head rather than a detachable one.
The Download Festival is more accessible than most of these condos, and that's an outdoor music festival where you sleep in a tent! But at least it has grab rails in the toilets and enough space to transfer from a wheelchair if you can't walk at all, and roll-in showers with a seat and grab rails.
Also, the most frustrating thing on any website is the phrase “This hotel has accessible rooms that may include the following accessible features”. Just fuck off! I don't care about what you "may" provide, I want to know what you definitely "will" provide!
Grargh.
In other news, I have discovered that Electric Wheelchair Hockey is a thing. That's positively amazing - I hadn't known there were any sports accessible to users of electric wheelchairs before. Wow :)