Do hotels understand accessible rooms

janer1967

As you all know I went away this weekend we had booked a disabled accessible room at a well known hotel chain and even sent an additional email to make sure this had been picked up on the booking and had confirmation it had 

We checked in to be told we had been upgraded to executive suite with walk in shower.  We queried if this included rails in bathroom they said no but to have look see if it was OK as that was only room they had 

We checked the room out to find wheelchair wouldn't even go through bathroom door.

They obviously thought a bigger room with walk in shower was all a wheelchair bound person needs 

Went back to tell them not suitable. They did sort it by ringing the guest that had a disabled room allocated to see if they needed disabled rooms or not thankfully they didn't so we were swapped rooms 

While they were helpful and it was resolved we would have been stuck if the other guest needed it.

Rant over has anyone else had similar experience 

SueHeath

It does make you feel that they did not read your requests properly, or didn't communicate with the reception about your needs. xx

Alex_Alumni

It is frustrating to hear another example of the kind of access issues which make going away more of a chore than a holiday! 

I am glad to hear that it all worked out @janer1967, it's puzzling to hear that they assumed you'd wanted to be upgraded in the first place, and further, that this "upgrade" would make things easier for you!

I went away to Brighton recently and played a rather risky strategy by not double checking if the room I booked was accessible. The room was, but the lift was only just big enough to squeeze my chair inside backwards, and risked damage not only to my chair, but the lift itself. They mentioned at reception it was from the 1920s, but nobody accompanied us to check we could access and use it safely.

I think I'll feedback, and tell then to publish the dimensions of the lift on their website. But really, this sort of prompting and checking shouldn't be down to hotel guests.

janer1967

@Alex_Scope it is something that always bothers me before we go away if the accommodation will be actually accessible as I don't think they realise what is required 

Also constantly having to check or ring places to make sure it makes booking lot more complex 

We stayed in another well known chain a bit back the room was accessible but the bed was really low which I struggle to get off 

Alex_Alumni

There's an awful lot of "admin" we do to access pretty much anything smoothly, which we shouldn't have to, but in many ways it's helpful to read about other experiences

I think unless there's someone who knows about access needs working on site, it's not something staff are generally aware of, and building awareness should be an organisation's priority. 

Siwheels73

I must admit, we have been to hotels of varying types in the UK, and most of them have massive differences in the interpretation of access. We have also been to several places in the US and Canada, and they have it wonderfully right and have proper legislation explaining exactly what you can expect. Here, not so much!

L_Volunteer

Oh, these differences are really interesting @Siwheels73. I am intrigued, are they different in the types of things they provide as well as the information they provide?

They say you learn something new every day! Thanks for sharing these observations with us