The Icarian Suite
In streams the warm sun
liquid gold rising
to fill the room
smoke curls from floor
from coverlet
from the hairs on my arms
too late, I move
to close the blinds
Showing posts with label hotel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hotel. Show all posts
Sunday, October 18, 2020
101820c
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Hotel Review: C+
Hotel Review
Courtyard Marriott Chevy Chase
just outside the District of Columbia
Score: C+ (79%)
Dates I stayed: Nov. 23-30, 2013
Reservations made by Able to Travel, which is affiliated with the United Spinal Association
So I'm a quadriplegic, & when I travel I have specific requirements, of which the most important are a roll-in shower & a roll-under bed. My ride is a Permobil power wheelchair, and out of it there's little I can do. We travel with a portable battery-powered lift called a Trixie Lift, chargers & other small essentials, and a shower chair, the purpose of which is obvious. I used to fill ½ a suitcase. Now it's two, plus lift & chair.
We learned long ago that making our own reservations led to us getting fucked by brainless & uncaring hotel staff 3 times out of 4. This was actually the first time Able to Travel didn't come through with an A+ experience. And I think they might've been lied to.
We arrived about 11:30 pm after a 14-hour drive. My wife used to drive 2-3 hours out of each long road trip. Now it's all on her. One of many clues to how lucky I am. I'd called from the road and sure enough the reserved room really had been saved for us. I don't know what Mary at Able to Travel tells reservation clerks. Maybe how many barrels of cement their next of kin will have to find if they want the whole body to be buried in one place. (Just kidding, Mary, please put down that knife & back away slowly.) My wife said “Roll-in shower and roll-under bed, right?” “They said they'd have that installed by now,” the clerk said, risking taking one for the team. “It's been delivered....” So we go up to the room, and sure enough, we have a platform bed. The Trixie Lift is a long-egged feller, and the legs go under the bed. If not, it's throw me or drop me. And that's going the easy way, getting into bed. Or, that would be the case, but we brought bed lifts. These are stout plastic flat-topped pyramids about a foot high. Drag the mattress & box springs a foot to the side & shove a bed lift under each exposed corner. Then laugh at the platform. The first time we needed a bed lift we didn't have one. Luckily we were visiting my dad. He lent us two cinder blocks. Anyway, the bed in the CMCC wheelchair room was on a platform, & we were damn lucky to have bed lifts.
Otherwise the place was great, except for the non-accessible doors to the back parking lot, which was the only place a wheelchair van fit. Also, the bathroom had no heat lamp. Did I mention that quads have internal thermometers for shit? My body thinks it is ALWAYS COLD. Sweat's rolling down my face and I'm still shivering. So yeah, a heat lamp helps. C+. The large bathroom & roll-in shower are nice, but not nice enough.
David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Courtyard Marriott Chevy Chase
just outside the District of Columbia
Score: C+ (79%)
Dates I stayed: Nov. 23-30, 2013
Reservations made by Able to Travel, which is affiliated with the United Spinal Association
So I'm a quadriplegic, & when I travel I have specific requirements, of which the most important are a roll-in shower & a roll-under bed. My ride is a Permobil power wheelchair, and out of it there's little I can do. We travel with a portable battery-powered lift called a Trixie Lift, chargers & other small essentials, and a shower chair, the purpose of which is obvious. I used to fill ½ a suitcase. Now it's two, plus lift & chair.
We learned long ago that making our own reservations led to us getting fucked by brainless & uncaring hotel staff 3 times out of 4. This was actually the first time Able to Travel didn't come through with an A+ experience. And I think they might've been lied to.
We arrived about 11:30 pm after a 14-hour drive. My wife used to drive 2-3 hours out of each long road trip. Now it's all on her. One of many clues to how lucky I am. I'd called from the road and sure enough the reserved room really had been saved for us. I don't know what Mary at Able to Travel tells reservation clerks. Maybe how many barrels of cement their next of kin will have to find if they want the whole body to be buried in one place. (Just kidding, Mary, please put down that knife & back away slowly.) My wife said “Roll-in shower and roll-under bed, right?” “They said they'd have that installed by now,” the clerk said, risking taking one for the team. “It's been delivered....” So we go up to the room, and sure enough, we have a platform bed. The Trixie Lift is a long-egged feller, and the legs go under the bed. If not, it's throw me or drop me. And that's going the easy way, getting into bed. Or, that would be the case, but we brought bed lifts. These are stout plastic flat-topped pyramids about a foot high. Drag the mattress & box springs a foot to the side & shove a bed lift under each exposed corner. Then laugh at the platform. The first time we needed a bed lift we didn't have one. Luckily we were visiting my dad. He lent us two cinder blocks. Anyway, the bed in the CMCC wheelchair room was on a platform, & we were damn lucky to have bed lifts.
Otherwise the place was great, except for the non-accessible doors to the back parking lot, which was the only place a wheelchair van fit. Also, the bathroom had no heat lamp. Did I mention that quads have internal thermometers for shit? My body thinks it is ALWAYS COLD. Sweat's rolling down my face and I'm still shivering. So yeah, a heat lamp helps. C+. The large bathroom & roll-in shower are nice, but not nice enough.
David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Accessibility among the Friscoites
Review of institutions dealt with on a trip to San Francisco
We visited the San Francisco area as a multipurpose vacation. Our oldest daughter was in a wedding across the Bay. She lives in Finland, and we don't see her too often. Also, only I had been to San Francisco before, and that as a teenager. Finally, we were going to meet a friend with whom I have previously only communicated at a distance. Whenever we travel, we find out how various organizations handle the needs of disabled people, and I usually report on the result.
State of Alabama
Because my injury was acquired while I was on state business, a lot of my care is paid for and handled by the state. Mostly I work with an RN at the State Employees Injury Compensation Trust Fund. My current case manager does a very good job; this has not always been true with some of her predecessors.
Accent Care, home health agency
One of the tasks handled by my case manager at the state involves finding a home health care agency in a city I visit. Typically, these agencies have to provide people to help me get up in the morning and go to bed at night. This is skilled work, but people who can do it are available in every major city and plenty of smaller cities. In this particular case, I needed 12 visits, and two individuals were assigned to the case. On two of the 12 occasions my caregiver did not show up. This is a failure rate of almost 20%, which would certainly not be acceptable in the long term. The management of Accent Care sent replacement caregivers for the subsequent days, and the three caregivers I actually worked with were all competent, friendly, and professional. I enjoy working with talkative people when they have something to say. I learned a lot about the Bay area, life as a Chinese immigrant, and many other things. So I would probably give the company a B- grade.
Delta Airlines
I have reviewed Delta Airlines in the past. Their quality of service is spotty at best. On this particular trip, we traveled on four different planes and visited three different airports. At the Birmingham Airport on the day of our departure of all of their computers were down. Employees were disgruntled, and audibly blamed the highly paid CEO of the company ($24 million/yr). I don't know whether this person is 100% responsible, but certainly the check-in personnel are not. I would say that a Delta Airlines is in trouble if they can't purchase 21st-century computer technology and keep their employees happy enough with their jobs to at least pretend to enjoy working for the company. So we missed a meal because we spent nearly an hour waiting for overtaxed equipment to finally cough up our boarding passes. My youngest daughter is thin and she gets hungry fast. So this is actually a serious problem for us.
We had no significant problems in Detroit or San Francisco. When we returned to Birmingham, we had to wait about 20 minutes for my wheelchair to be brought up from the cargo hold of the air plane. This might have been partly because we got off of the small plane relatively quickly.
Overall, I would give Delta a C+, for making us miss a meal because they were too cheap to upgrade their computer systems.
Sheraton Fisherman's Wharf (San Francisco)
This is a very expensive hotel, but not for the touristy part of San Francisco. We were somewhat limited, because we needed a place with a fully wheelchair accessible room. Funny thing is they gave us the wrong room. We did not realize right away, so when we did realize we had unpacked everything. This necessitated repacking everything in a hurry and a couple of things are still lost as a result. They gave us five vouchers to their breakfast buffet by way of apology. The buffet normally costs $25 a person (it's worth about eight dollars a person). Of course, we would never have gone there if it wasn't free, but it was still very nice of them to do that. Every employee of the hotel we interacted with was very nice and very helpful. Several of them spent a lot of time with us, as we tried to figure out the best way to get around the city, and so on. I would rate the hotel an A.
several taxi companies
I don't remember which taxi companies we used, but all three cabbies were very helpful. Of course I need a special wheelchair accessible cab, and there are a lot of those in the city. Anyway, we had a lot of luggage, and we needed a fair amount of help, and all three guys did what we needed. When we went way up in the mountains for the wedding, the cabbie was actually kind of grumpy, but we made it there on time.
San Francisco
For such a hilly place, San Francisco is a very accessible city. The streetcars, the buses, and the trains are all wheelchair accessible. Of the three, we only used the streetcars, but that was quite satisfactory. You either roll up a concrete ramp that puts you at streetcar-floor level, or you are carried up in a small outdoor lift. Certain places in the streetcar have to be cleared if a wheelchair traveler wants to use those spaces. During rush-hour, the streetcar is too crowded for someone in a wheelchair to get on and off without help. Fortunately, the drivers provide that help. Some of the hills are extremely steep, and going down them in a wheelchair is dangerous. When I'm going downhill, the weight of my arm pushes my hand against the joystick. I am not strong enough to pull my hand back if I get going very quickly. I did not have a wreck, but only because I was very cautious in certain steep spots. If I lived there, I would find the smoothest and gentlest ways to get up and down, but I know some areas would still only be accessible over steep terrain.
We visited the San Francisco area as a multipurpose vacation. Our oldest daughter was in a wedding across the Bay. She lives in Finland, and we don't see her too often. Also, only I had been to San Francisco before, and that as a teenager. Finally, we were going to meet a friend with whom I have previously only communicated at a distance. Whenever we travel, we find out how various organizations handle the needs of disabled people, and I usually report on the result.
State of Alabama
Because my injury was acquired while I was on state business, a lot of my care is paid for and handled by the state. Mostly I work with an RN at the State Employees Injury Compensation Trust Fund. My current case manager does a very good job; this has not always been true with some of her predecessors.
Accent Care, home health agency
One of the tasks handled by my case manager at the state involves finding a home health care agency in a city I visit. Typically, these agencies have to provide people to help me get up in the morning and go to bed at night. This is skilled work, but people who can do it are available in every major city and plenty of smaller cities. In this particular case, I needed 12 visits, and two individuals were assigned to the case. On two of the 12 occasions my caregiver did not show up. This is a failure rate of almost 20%, which would certainly not be acceptable in the long term. The management of Accent Care sent replacement caregivers for the subsequent days, and the three caregivers I actually worked with were all competent, friendly, and professional. I enjoy working with talkative people when they have something to say. I learned a lot about the Bay area, life as a Chinese immigrant, and many other things. So I would probably give the company a B- grade.
Delta Airlines
I have reviewed Delta Airlines in the past. Their quality of service is spotty at best. On this particular trip, we traveled on four different planes and visited three different airports. At the Birmingham Airport on the day of our departure of all of their computers were down. Employees were disgruntled, and audibly blamed the highly paid CEO of the company ($24 million/yr). I don't know whether this person is 100% responsible, but certainly the check-in personnel are not. I would say that a Delta Airlines is in trouble if they can't purchase 21st-century computer technology and keep their employees happy enough with their jobs to at least pretend to enjoy working for the company. So we missed a meal because we spent nearly an hour waiting for overtaxed equipment to finally cough up our boarding passes. My youngest daughter is thin and she gets hungry fast. So this is actually a serious problem for us.
We had no significant problems in Detroit or San Francisco. When we returned to Birmingham, we had to wait about 20 minutes for my wheelchair to be brought up from the cargo hold of the air plane. This might have been partly because we got off of the small plane relatively quickly.
Overall, I would give Delta a C+, for making us miss a meal because they were too cheap to upgrade their computer systems.
Sheraton Fisherman's Wharf (San Francisco)
This is a very expensive hotel, but not for the touristy part of San Francisco. We were somewhat limited, because we needed a place with a fully wheelchair accessible room. Funny thing is they gave us the wrong room. We did not realize right away, so when we did realize we had unpacked everything. This necessitated repacking everything in a hurry and a couple of things are still lost as a result. They gave us five vouchers to their breakfast buffet by way of apology. The buffet normally costs $25 a person (it's worth about eight dollars a person). Of course, we would never have gone there if it wasn't free, but it was still very nice of them to do that. Every employee of the hotel we interacted with was very nice and very helpful. Several of them spent a lot of time with us, as we tried to figure out the best way to get around the city, and so on. I would rate the hotel an A.
several taxi companies
I don't remember which taxi companies we used, but all three cabbies were very helpful. Of course I need a special wheelchair accessible cab, and there are a lot of those in the city. Anyway, we had a lot of luggage, and we needed a fair amount of help, and all three guys did what we needed. When we went way up in the mountains for the wedding, the cabbie was actually kind of grumpy, but we made it there on time.
San Francisco
For such a hilly place, San Francisco is a very accessible city. The streetcars, the buses, and the trains are all wheelchair accessible. Of the three, we only used the streetcars, but that was quite satisfactory. You either roll up a concrete ramp that puts you at streetcar-floor level, or you are carried up in a small outdoor lift. Certain places in the streetcar have to be cleared if a wheelchair traveler wants to use those spaces. During rush-hour, the streetcar is too crowded for someone in a wheelchair to get on and off without help. Fortunately, the drivers provide that help. Some of the hills are extremely steep, and going down them in a wheelchair is dangerous. When I'm going downhill, the weight of my arm pushes my hand against the joystick. I am not strong enough to pull my hand back if I get going very quickly. I did not have a wreck, but only because I was very cautious in certain steep spots. If I lived there, I would find the smoothest and gentlest ways to get up and down, but I know some areas would still only be accessible over steep terrain.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Hotel review - accessibility
Hotel review
From the point of view of a guest in a wheelchair
Holiday Inn Express, Katy Freeway, Houston, Texas
On my last out of town overnight trip I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express at 7625 Katy Freeway in Houston. Despite being right next to one of Houston's major radial arteries, or perhaps because of that, this hotel was in a rather seedy looking neighborhood. I don't think it was dangerous, but it would not be a pleasant place to walk around. Also, the frontage road, which is the only road you can exit to from the hotel, is a one-way street. If you are familiar with how frontage roads work in Houston, I'm sure this is not a problem. For us it took some getting used to.
Inside, the hotel looks nice and the accessible room had all the features I needed. But it was a little strange. First they checked us in very professionally and gave us keys, and it turned out that the room I had been given was accessible enough for a paraplegic, but not for me. So we went back down, and it turned out their only suitable room was a suite. Now, they should have known they had to give me that room, because the reservation was made for me by Able to Travel, and they are very explicit and specific about my needs. I was mentally preparing this review, when they said that my nurse and caregiver could have the room next door, even though that was also a suite. As it turned out they preferred to use the sofa bed in my suite, so they would be close enough to hear me if I needed help. That was very nice of them and everything worked out fine after that. The hotel gave us absolutely no trouble about wanting a lot of extra towels, for instance.
In the end I have to give this Hotel four out of five stars, or maybe even five. It didn't look so good on the outside, and they were confused at first, but it turned out to be as nice as could be from then on.
David C. Kopaska-Merkel
From the point of view of a guest in a wheelchair
Holiday Inn Express, Katy Freeway, Houston, Texas
On my last out of town overnight trip I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express at 7625 Katy Freeway in Houston. Despite being right next to one of Houston's major radial arteries, or perhaps because of that, this hotel was in a rather seedy looking neighborhood. I don't think it was dangerous, but it would not be a pleasant place to walk around. Also, the frontage road, which is the only road you can exit to from the hotel, is a one-way street. If you are familiar with how frontage roads work in Houston, I'm sure this is not a problem. For us it took some getting used to.
Inside, the hotel looks nice and the accessible room had all the features I needed. But it was a little strange. First they checked us in very professionally and gave us keys, and it turned out that the room I had been given was accessible enough for a paraplegic, but not for me. So we went back down, and it turned out their only suitable room was a suite. Now, they should have known they had to give me that room, because the reservation was made for me by Able to Travel, and they are very explicit and specific about my needs. I was mentally preparing this review, when they said that my nurse and caregiver could have the room next door, even though that was also a suite. As it turned out they preferred to use the sofa bed in my suite, so they would be close enough to hear me if I needed help. That was very nice of them and everything worked out fine after that. The hotel gave us absolutely no trouble about wanting a lot of extra towels, for instance.
In the end I have to give this Hotel four out of five stars, or maybe even five. It didn't look so good on the outside, and they were confused at first, but it turned out to be as nice as could be from then on.
David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Saturday, August 7, 2010
wheelchair accessible hotel review
Hotel review
Holiday Inn, downtown Turku, Finland
EERIKINKATU 28, TURKU FI 20100
Phone: 358-2-338211, Fax: 358-2-3382299
July 17-July 29, 2010
David C. Kopaska-Merkel
jopnquog gmail.com
Let me just say that this is the best wheelchair accessible hotel room I have stayed in (with the possible exception of the only other Finnish Hotel where I have stayed). Also, an unlimited breakfast buffet made the price (a little more than €100 per night) extraordinarily reasonable. When we go back to Turku, we will stay there again.
In the interests of full disclosure I should say that I like small children and was traveling in a manual wheelchair with which I need considerable pushing help.
The Finns don't understand the relationship between wheelchairs and thresholds. Had I been rolling in my power chair I would have been able to get in over the bumpy spots. They were a problem. The lobby was as large as it needed to be and the desk clerks all spoke English. This was lucky for me, because I don't speak Finnish or Swedish, the two languages of Turku (besides English: most people in their 40s or younger speak at least a little English). There were only two elevators, but it is a fairly small hotel, and we usually did not have to wait long.
The room was small, but it was large enough. We had rented a portable lift, and there was room to maneuver it so that I could get in and out of bed and in and out of my manual chair and shower chair with no problem. I could not really reach the desk, but we could have moved it so that I could reach it. I could see out the window, but there wasn't much of a view. If the neighbors across the way had been exhibitionists, the view might have been a little interesting!
The bathroom has a low threshold, but I was able to get over it by myself, and I am not very strong. The shower area is small, and I kept bumping off the water with my elbow as I used the hand-held shower. It would have been nice to be able to get away from the controls without being out of the shower curtain.
The breakfast buffet was awesome. I had not even realized we got one, but I think it's the main reason other guests choose the son of having it in in quite a few restaurants in tour crew on this trip, I estimate that the breakfast was worth at least €20 per person. (If you eat a big breakfast, which we did.) We ate so much breakfast that most days we were able to skip lunch, and we like to eat lunch. We're talking smoked fish, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage, pancakes, three kinds of bread, salad, watermelon, diced melons and other fruit, bananas pears and oranges, coffee and all of the usual variety of breakfast drinks, Archipelago bread, which is almost like a dessert bread, yogurt, dry cereal, and I'm sure there was more.
Right across the street from the front door of the hotel is the bus stop for Moominworld. This is like Disney World. And this explains why the free breakfast buffet is full of families with two or three children below the age of seven. I'm sure lunch is expensive and not nutritious at Moominworld. If you eat enough free breakfast at the hotel, you don't have to buy lunch at all. By and large, the kids are well behaved, and we had no problem with them.
To summarize, what I like least about the hotel are the danged thresholds. What I like most about it is the wonderful breakfast. I have to say that the location, just a few blocks from the Turku town square, isn't too shabby either.
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Holiday Inn, downtown Turku, Finland
EERIKINKATU 28, TURKU FI 20100
Phone: 358-2-338211, Fax: 358-2-3382299
July 17-July 29, 2010
David C. Kopaska-Merkel
jopnquog
Let me just say that this is the best wheelchair accessible hotel room I have stayed in (with the possible exception of the only other Finnish Hotel where I have stayed). Also, an unlimited breakfast buffet made the price (a little more than €100 per night) extraordinarily reasonable. When we go back to Turku, we will stay there again.
In the interests of full disclosure I should say that I like small children and was traveling in a manual wheelchair with which I need considerable pushing help.
The Finns don't understand the relationship between wheelchairs and thresholds. Had I been rolling in my power chair I would have been able to get in over the bumpy spots. They were a problem. The lobby was as large as it needed to be and the desk clerks all spoke English. This was lucky for me, because I don't speak Finnish or Swedish, the two languages of Turku (besides English: most people in their 40s or younger speak at least a little English). There were only two elevators, but it is a fairly small hotel, and we usually did not have to wait long.
The room was small, but it was large enough. We had rented a portable lift, and there was room to maneuver it so that I could get in and out of bed and in and out of my manual chair and shower chair with no problem. I could not really reach the desk, but we could have moved it so that I could reach it. I could see out the window, but there wasn't much of a view. If the neighbors across the way had been exhibitionists, the view might have been a little interesting!
The bathroom has a low threshold, but I was able to get over it by myself, and I am not very strong. The shower area is small, and I kept bumping off the water with my elbow as I used the hand-held shower. It would have been nice to be able to get away from the controls without being out of the shower curtain.
The breakfast buffet was awesome. I had not even realized we got one, but I think it's the main reason other guests choose the son of having it in in quite a few restaurants in tour crew on this trip, I estimate that the breakfast was worth at least €20 per person. (If you eat a big breakfast, which we did.) We ate so much breakfast that most days we were able to skip lunch, and we like to eat lunch. We're talking smoked fish, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage, pancakes, three kinds of bread, salad, watermelon, diced melons and other fruit, bananas pears and oranges, coffee and all of the usual variety of breakfast drinks, Archipelago bread, which is almost like a dessert bread, yogurt, dry cereal, and I'm sure there was more.
Right across the street from the front door of the hotel is the bus stop for Moominworld. This is like Disney World. And this explains why the free breakfast buffet is full of families with two or three children below the age of seven. I'm sure lunch is expensive and not nutritious at Moominworld. If you eat enough free breakfast at the hotel, you don't have to buy lunch at all. By and large, the kids are well behaved, and we had no problem with them.
To summarize, what I like least about the hotel are the danged thresholds. What I like most about it is the wonderful breakfast. I have to say that the location, just a few blocks from the Turku town square, isn't too shabby either.
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