Accessibility Issues

Lodging & Public Accommodations

© by Wheel Me On... 2000 through 2008
Revised January 2009

Public accommodations are not limited to hotels, motels, or lodging facilities. They are in fact, public accommodations including any business or facility used by the public, such as restaurants, banks, service stations, etc. This web page addresses public lodging accommodations, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. Awareness about lodging facilities is extremely important because there is nothing more daunting than traveling for long hours and then stopping at a facility where you have reservations to stay only to discover you cannot enter or use the premises. The excuses have become infamous, "We are an old building". "We were built before the ADA came into affect so we are exempt" and "We fall under the grandfather's act". In truth, there is no such thing as a "grandfather's act" for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). "I am sorry that the bathroom will not work for you... are you sure you cannot get out of your wheelchair?" Additional information may be found on the "Members Only" web pages, including letters from our members and hints on how to overcome many of the problems without losing your temper. There are many special needs for persons with disabilities requiring compliance, under the guidelines of the Federal law, and this website deliberately does not list all of them. If you need assistance, we encourage you to contact us. We will help our members with disabilities and assist proprietors to meet or exceed ADA compliance.

Julia Hollenbeck

Accessible Lodging?

There seems to be a serious problem with obtaining a "wheelchair accessible room with a roll-in shower" for a person using a wheelchair as a means of mobility, unable to walk or stand, having balance or other physical limitations and possibly traveling with a companion. If you travel with a companion or personal care attendant (PCA) who should be in the same room with you, you are fortunate to obtain queen size beds much less two double beds because most often rooms are equipped with only one bed. Why is this? Why should a person with a disability (PWD) traveling with a companion be forced to sleep in the same bed? (Persons without disabilities can often have as many as four people assigned to one room!) Hotel management explain they had to make adequate room for the enlarged bathroom to accommodate the wheelchair. This explanation is rather bizarre when seeing enough room for two beds and proven when finding a king-size bed, desk, chest with television, large table with desk chair, and a roll-a-way stretched out with still enough maneuvering room for a wheelchair.

Apparently, there is some confusion with the definition of an "accessible room" or "wheelchair accessible room with a roll-in shower". Management appear to have difficulties with knowing politically correct language, whom to accept a reservation from for an accessible room and the correct questions to ask if in doubt. The truth of the matter is there is no such thing as a "handicap" room. A room for a PWD is either accessible or not - if a person had a "handicap", the person would be involved with sports and not trying to obtain a place to sleep.

A requested and reserved "wheelchair accessible room with a roll-in-shower" may contain anything from one double bed to a larger room with two king size beds and an equipped roll-in shower. Whether traveling alone or not, it is dangerous and awkward to end up with a bathtub if you depend on a wheelchair for mobility, have paralysis, balance difficulties, limited strength or a variety of other physical limitations requiring transfer into a shower stall and not a bathtub. After distinctively requesting a wheelchair accessible room with a roll-in-shower, reserving a room with a guarantee should provide you with the accessible room you requested providing your reservations are made correctly.

Reservations for an accessible room should contain a bathtub and all the required fixtures and accessible ADA compliant transfer bench. In addition, if a lodging facility is not in compliance with accessible accommodations, (meeting readily achievable and feasible criteria), the facility could be placing itself in an awkward situation with potential liability should a PWD encounter injury and most PWD do not want to add injury to insult.

Is This Discrimination?

Persons without disabilities are typically offered two beds with up to four adults in one room, but PWD cannot typically obtain two beds in the same room. The easiest solution for lodging accommodations is to offer an adjoining room without charge for the second bed when the accessible room cannot accommodate more than one person, but managements will sometimes demand additional charges.

Board Directors of Wheel Me On… are finding persons without obvious physical disabilities briskly walking from accessible rooms to and from the lobby and out to where their vehicle is parked while carrying luggage, (the vehicle typically parked in an accessible area intended for a van with a lift). In many cases, management makes no effort to controlling parking areas.

PWD are lucky to get two beds in an accessible room with a roll-in shower and in many cases offered a roll-a-way bed for the second person. This is simply not acceptable, anymore than being questioned about your traveling companion. Furthermore, many hotel and lodging properties have included accessible rooms with renovations making them inaccessible, matching rooms not intended for persons with disabilities. A common complaint among members are accessible room (often referred to as "handicap" rooms) not providing the same amenity such as smoking when the same property offer persons without disabilities smoking rooms.

Picture This!

You are a mother traveling with your 23-year old son who is a recent quadriplegic of approximately two-years. The hotel you stay in does not have two beds in the accessible room with a roll-in shower and provides a room a few doors away at no charge. You accept the room because there is not sufficient room for a roll-a-way bed with the King-size bed positioned where it is and the cumbersome wheelchair. Your son is a large man and your concern for him having sufficient sleep prevails over everything else.

You decide to check on your son before retiring for the evening. (Remember, your son cannot move. Cannot pick up the telephone to call for help, so you leave him with a cellular he can operate.) You reach the door to his room but the key does not work, so you return to your room and call the desk clerk, who asks you to go and get a new key. You do so, and return to your son's room, but this key also does not work. Your heart begins to pound and fear sets in as you realize the door to your son is jammed. You go back to your room and call the desk clerk again, who sends a security guard upstairs. The security guard uses his master key, but cannot open the door. You explain to him that your son could not possibly lock the door, and you call your son on the cellular to tell him everything is okay, but there is a problem with the door. You explain there is a security man there with you, and promise to be inside the room shortly but to be aware the noises he may hear are all right.

At this, the security man realizes the seriousness of the problem. He is a large man, taking several steps backwards, he rams the door with all the strength he can muster with his shoulder. The door bursts open and you fight the tears as you realize everything is okay, even though it seemed to take an eternity to reach your son. Then the security guard discovers the night latch was loose, flipped over, as you closed the door behind you earlier. This is a true story. It happened to a member in Hendersonville, Tennessee. According to our resources, the night latch problem is not uncommon in hotel rooms. Please do not let this happen to you if you are traveling with a person who needs your assistance. Prevent it by demanding two beds in the same room as the room with the roll-in shower, or an adjoining room with a connecting door in the interior of the accessible room that can be left open, at no charge to you. (Roll-a-way beds are not acceptable.) This could be a matter of life or death. Don't risk it.

Marriott Hotels & Resorts
(Cigarette Smoke Bother You?)

Marriott Hotels & Resorts include JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Renaissance Hotels & Resorts, Courtyard by Marriott, Residence Inn by Marriott, Fairfield Inn by Marriott, Marriott Conference Centers, TownePlace Suites by Marriott, SpringHill Suites by Marriott, Marriott Vacation Club International, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C., The Ritz-Carlton Club, Marriott ExecuStay, Marriott Executive Apartments and Grand Residences by Marriott. According to Customer Relations, all properties are compliant with the ADA, but if you desire a "smoking room", forget staying at any one of the Marriott properties because now all properties offer no smoking rooms (including regular rooms not falling under the ADA). If cigarette smoke bothers you, this is the property especially for you! (2008)

InterContinental Hotels Group
Average Little to NO Compliance!
(Revised 5/17/08)

The InterContinental Hotels Group has successfully turned hundreds of their franchised properties into a nightmare for persons with disabilities requiring accessible rooms, especially persons requiring use of wheels as a means of daily mobility. Apparently in May 2007, guidelines from InterContinental Hotels Group were sent out to every single hotel under their umbrella - "change the bedding; change the mattresses and ultimately raise the beds for a more luxurious room". Alerted first by members, travel by Board Directors proved something was terribly wrong beginning in mid 2007, but now we know for certain; beds were increased in height as high as 30-inches or more and the explanation given was the order came from InterContinental Hotels Group. Try this one from a wheelchair!

This "order" from apparently the corporate office of InterContinental Hotels Group evidently affects all properties but wait a minute - all "properties are privately owned and operated". Which hotel properties do these "new rules" affect? Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express Hotels & Suites, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites, and Candlewood Suites. Unless of course, proprietors operating their lodging facilities have the education to know and understand "accessibility", some things simply should not be changed with accessible rooms regardless of what is suggested to them. Corporate facilitators should also know and understand ADA compliance (and have a little common sense) for accessible rooms of both types, but some facilitators do and some apparently do not. Think about it, but whatever you do, do not forget to ask about the bed frame and height if you are using a wheelchair and/or a Hoyer lift.

Note: Some of the InterContinental Hotel Group properties have lowered their beds, but not all. (January 2009)

Obstacles and Potential Hazards to AVOID!

Roll-in Shower without an ADA compliant transfer bench

Lodging rooms without an ADA compliant transfer bench in the roll-in shower.

Accessible bathtub without transfer bench

Roll-in shower stall with hand-held shower head too high to reach

Long wall containing sink and portable bath stool

1) Accessible bathroom with bathtub not containing an ADA compliant transfer bench, 2) Hand-held shower head located too high to reach and, 3) Non-compliant transfer "seats".

Non-compliant transfer bench outside of bathtub

Non-compliant transfer bench placed outside of bathtub obstructing commode

Two legs of shower bench on threshold; no space to access commode

Non-compliant transfer bench blocks path to commonde

1) The proverbial non-compliant transfer bench, 2) is placed in the roll-in shower with two legs on threshold, 3) only to discover one can not access commode.

Caution!

When accepting a hotel room without ADA compliance - you are putting your safety at risk!

The Very BAD

Travel during 2001 with a PCA proved to be a year of experience in the world of inaccessible hotel accommodations. After over twelve (12) years of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) providing standards for lodging accommodations in the Code of Federal Regulations from the U.S. Department of Justice, few hotels complied with the federal law. To say this was disappointing is absurd; to say this was positively despicable is fact. Wheel Me On... became determined to help make forthcoming years more accessible for travel away from home. If hotel facilities are not aware of what PWD require, then for our own safety and the well-being of others, persons who do know, need to let proprietors know. Approaching the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, travel is only "somewhat better" with obtaining a completely accessible room and the correct number of bed(s) reserved.

Another important "amenity" are smoking and non-smoking rooms. Many hotel properties allow smoking in accessible rooms containing bathtubs, but not in accessible rooms containing roll-in showers. Why are proprietors discriminating against persons requiring a roll-in shower? It is important to mention there is no "requirement" regarding smoking VS non-smoking rooms, but if the lodging facility is going to allow a percentage of rooms for able-bodied persons to be smoking, then why not offer the same to PWD? Furthermore, commercial equipment containing air freshener and disinfectant is readily available for commercial properties and lodging accommodations.

Why Not Two Beds?

Often, it is extremely difficult to understand the method to the madness of placing a king-size bed into a hotel room with a roll-in shower that could clearly contain two regular size beds or even two queen size beds. Why are hotels so insistent on providing only one bed? The manager at a hotel had no reason, but was quick to offer an adjoining room, free of charge for an attendant. Now, this is perfectly acceptable, if you don't mind being separated from your Care Attendant or Companion, but what about the many travelers who need 24-hour care situated within hearing distance and not on the other side of a wall, down the hall, or on a completely different level of floor?

And finally... this photo is a great example of leaving a "wheelchair accessible" room in the morning. Fondly referred to as "Trash City", this mess remained directly in front of the room to the door of the so-called "accessible room" overnight, and into the next morning. The question is: "Is THIS what hotel management(s) think of people who use wheelchairs as a means of mobility?

If you have a problem with hotel accessibility after viewing this page, please consider retaining your receipts, documenting with photos, making notes of dates, problems, and persons at the facility you complained to, then join the efforts of Wheel Me On... by correcting the problem through the proper channels or working with us as a team.

Persons with disabilities using wheelchairs for mobility have waited long enough for accommodations to meet the requirements set by the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Department of Justice.

Rooms May Not Only Be The Problem

The following photos give a clear idea of other potential problems at a hotel. When I first saw the motorcycle prominently parked in the middle of a no-parking zone, my first thought was to pull in front of the main doors and honk my horn.

However, a passenger said, "Go ahead and pull into the space, and we'll see if you can clobber the bike with your lift." The passenger jumped out of the van with a camera and proceeded to take some of these photos, then handed it back to the driver to obtain scenes from the lift of the motorcycle. To say the least, this was an interesting experience with the camera being passed back and forth. Please notice how close the lift on the van comes to the center-line (divider) of the "no parking zone".

Apparently, it was also interesting to either a passerby or a hotel employee who stood at the curb and watched to see if the lift was going to hit the motorcycle. Unfortunately, the lift did knock over the motorcycle, but the driver did manage to get a bird's eye view of the license plate.

Moreover, whom did this motorcycle belong to?

THE MANAGER!!!

Just Keep Wheeling...

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