Amadi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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accessibility_fail2009-06-15 02:33 pm
amadi) wrote in accessibility_fail2009-06-15 02:33 pm
Accommodation Fail
Last fall, my family went on a little four day vacation to a resort in West Virginia, where there is a hotel, golf course, pool, tennis and so on. We were there for a special promotional event, so we discovered when we arrived that we were not to stay in the hotel but in a little building that had four units, two up, two down, each with a bedroom, large spacious bath, and a small sitting room with a TV and a pullout sofa, so technically each unit slept four people.
Since we weren't sure what the accommodations would be before we went, we requested a handicapped accessible room. I'm not in a wheelchair, but I have arthritis which makes stairs a problem, and we've gone places like this before and been confronted with 15-20 steps to get to our room/unit and didn't want a repeat of that.
The fail? The unit was a first-floor unit, no stairs, everything was fairly nicely graded and it was easy to get into it.
But the door had a threshhold too high to get a wheelchair over without help, and the furnishings inside, a desk and the pullout sofa, were both too close to the door to allow for easy maneuvering of a wheelchair into the unit without banging into things, and placed so that it would be difficult to get into the hallway, which was a 90° turn from the front door. The hallway led back toward the bedroom, and the bathroom was off of it. But the bathroom was another 90° turn off of the hallway, which was, again, just too narrow for someone to manage in a wheelchair, and though it was a wider door, I doubt that it was wide enough for someone to manage given the tight turn.
But the fail didn't stop. The toilet was standard height, and had railings on both sides. Someone in a wheelchair would've had to execute a 180° turn gymnastics move like on the parallel bars to move from chair to toilet. Apparently no one ever told them about sideways transfers and how many wheelchairs have a removable panel so that the person can slide from one seat to the other.
In any case, the railings were a serious pain in another way -- they were way too close to the toilet, so it was like being stuck in a too-small public bathroom stall, and made the motions one performs in the toilet-using process a problem. I had a massive bruise on my upper arm from banging into the railing every single time I used the bathroom over the four days.
The tub was nicely tricked out with even more railings, which were nice in terms of providing stability, but the sides were too high for someone who had a mobility issue like mine, but not high enough for someone in a wheelchair to slide onto the ledge and then lower themselves into the tub or slide onto a shower seat. And none of the railings were placed for a wheelchair user either. The showerhead was the handheld sort, in its default position some 6' up when we arrived. It absolutely was not meant to be used in the "hung up" position, though, it just sprayed against the near wall, it didn't get your body wet at all unless you held it and directed the spray. This was hell on my shoulders. I wanted to just stand and let hot water run over my body like in any shower, but no go.
And forget about using the sink in a wheelchair, it wasn't happening. Granted, it did have a counter that one could roll under as opposed to cabinetry that went all the way to the floor, but there was a decorated ledge panel that extended so far down that one would have to be really small to actually fit their legs under, and then there would be no hope of reaching the sink anyway. The counter for the sink ran the entire length of one wall, it would've been fairly easy to add a second sink in a portion at an appropriate height and without the panel, but no.
Lastly, in the bedroom. First, the television was in one of those high, decorative armoires, which was fine, except that the remote control was placed on top of the TV, about 5'6" in the air. And then there was the bed. A nice, big, expansive king sized bed -- that came up to my waist, and I'm 5'9". We spent some time, sitting in the desk chair, trying to figure out how someone in a wheelchair, which would've been lower than the desk chair, would propel themselves up into that bed without significant help, especially if they had no use of their legs at all. It just wasn't possible. And even if they could, there wasn't enough room on either side of the bed for a wheelchair, so they would've had to get onto the bed at the foot and then somehow crawl their way up to be in the right place to sleep. Even with my limited issues, I found getting in and out of that monster bed to be difficult. It was just a very awkward height.
So it was an "accessible" room that wasn't wheelchair accessible, wasn't suitable for people with other mobility issues, and filled with "modifications" that were, in all, a giant waste or actually actively harmful.
When we came home, we wrote to the resort about the room and received no reply. None of the problems are actually ADA violations, but they are enough that someone in a wheelchair would really not be able to stay in that room and someone with mobility difficulties any more advanced than mine would be better off elsewhere too. I came home feeling like I'd not had a vacation, really, because it was just so much work dealing with these little oddities about the place where we stayed. Incredibly, incredibly frustrating and full of a lot of fail.
Since we weren't sure what the accommodations would be before we went, we requested a handicapped accessible room. I'm not in a wheelchair, but I have arthritis which makes stairs a problem, and we've gone places like this before and been confronted with 15-20 steps to get to our room/unit and didn't want a repeat of that.
The fail? The unit was a first-floor unit, no stairs, everything was fairly nicely graded and it was easy to get into it.
But the door had a threshhold too high to get a wheelchair over without help, and the furnishings inside, a desk and the pullout sofa, were both too close to the door to allow for easy maneuvering of a wheelchair into the unit without banging into things, and placed so that it would be difficult to get into the hallway, which was a 90° turn from the front door. The hallway led back toward the bedroom, and the bathroom was off of it. But the bathroom was another 90° turn off of the hallway, which was, again, just too narrow for someone to manage in a wheelchair, and though it was a wider door, I doubt that it was wide enough for someone to manage given the tight turn.
But the fail didn't stop. The toilet was standard height, and had railings on both sides. Someone in a wheelchair would've had to execute a 180° turn gymnastics move like on the parallel bars to move from chair to toilet. Apparently no one ever told them about sideways transfers and how many wheelchairs have a removable panel so that the person can slide from one seat to the other.
In any case, the railings were a serious pain in another way -- they were way too close to the toilet, so it was like being stuck in a too-small public bathroom stall, and made the motions one performs in the toilet-using process a problem. I had a massive bruise on my upper arm from banging into the railing every single time I used the bathroom over the four days.
The tub was nicely tricked out with even more railings, which were nice in terms of providing stability, but the sides were too high for someone who had a mobility issue like mine, but not high enough for someone in a wheelchair to slide onto the ledge and then lower themselves into the tub or slide onto a shower seat. And none of the railings were placed for a wheelchair user either. The showerhead was the handheld sort, in its default position some 6' up when we arrived. It absolutely was not meant to be used in the "hung up" position, though, it just sprayed against the near wall, it didn't get your body wet at all unless you held it and directed the spray. This was hell on my shoulders. I wanted to just stand and let hot water run over my body like in any shower, but no go.
And forget about using the sink in a wheelchair, it wasn't happening. Granted, it did have a counter that one could roll under as opposed to cabinetry that went all the way to the floor, but there was a decorated ledge panel that extended so far down that one would have to be really small to actually fit their legs under, and then there would be no hope of reaching the sink anyway. The counter for the sink ran the entire length of one wall, it would've been fairly easy to add a second sink in a portion at an appropriate height and without the panel, but no.
Lastly, in the bedroom. First, the television was in one of those high, decorative armoires, which was fine, except that the remote control was placed on top of the TV, about 5'6" in the air. And then there was the bed. A nice, big, expansive king sized bed -- that came up to my waist, and I'm 5'9". We spent some time, sitting in the desk chair, trying to figure out how someone in a wheelchair, which would've been lower than the desk chair, would propel themselves up into that bed without significant help, especially if they had no use of their legs at all. It just wasn't possible. And even if they could, there wasn't enough room on either side of the bed for a wheelchair, so they would've had to get onto the bed at the foot and then somehow crawl their way up to be in the right place to sleep. Even with my limited issues, I found getting in and out of that monster bed to be difficult. It was just a very awkward height.
So it was an "accessible" room that wasn't wheelchair accessible, wasn't suitable for people with other mobility issues, and filled with "modifications" that were, in all, a giant waste or actually actively harmful.
When we came home, we wrote to the resort about the room and received no reply. None of the problems are actually ADA violations, but they are enough that someone in a wheelchair would really not be able to stay in that room and someone with mobility difficulties any more advanced than mine would be better off elsewhere too. I came home feeling like I'd not had a vacation, really, because it was just so much work dealing with these little oddities about the place where we stayed. Incredibly, incredibly frustrating and full of a lot of fail.
no subject
*shakes head*
no subject
Re: Accommodation Fail
(Disclaimer: I am in the UK, not the US, so the regulations are different.)
Re: Accommodation Fail