I am really wound up about this one right now. My aunt (who is in her mid 60s, has several health problems and multiple joint replacements) & my 2 female cousins (3 out of 25 of us are female!) and I are going to do an aunt & the nieces kind of getaway in San Francisco. Getting a hotel suite and going around and doing theater, museums, etc.
I, since I live here, was putting together the hotel possibilities. I literally spent hours calling hotels (including ones listed on Access Northern California's website) trying to find an accessible suite. I was shocked at how bad it was. There were NO accessible suites in ANY hotel in the Union Square area. When I questioned managers or however high up I could get as to why there weren't any suites that are accessible, they were like...we're required to have a handicapped room. We make handicapped rooms available. Use that. My explanations of needing a suite was met with everything from rudeness to disinterest. When I asked if they don't have accessible suites because they assume people with disabilities don't have any friends...they basically said yes in several instances. They make rooms for 'a handicapped person and their attendant'. (Which of course is my other hotel pet peeve. When El and I travel we want an accessible room with a king bed and usually they have rooms with twins or doubles, not kings. Many places seem to shudder a bit when I push about the fact that we sleep TOGETHER...like they don't want to think about a gimp having a girlfriend/boyfriend/lover/spouse/whatever).
In general I also find this in theaters, music venues & movie theaters, basically anywhere that there is some type of seating.
You can go with one person, which the venue usually identifies as 'an attendant'. You can't have a GROUP of people. You can't hang with 4 or 5 friends. At some venues they've given a 'special' tag to me and my partner & threatened to throw us out when we tried to switch out my partners sticker with other friends so they can at least come hang with me one at a time (makes me feel like I'm in ICU or something).
These venues see no issue with everyone else having to be separated from me. WTF makes people think we don't have friends?
I'm curious...what have you found in this arena?
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Kriss & Eliot's blog following along on the twists and turns of my experiences in medland.
1 comment:
Hi~ I've been gleaning from your blog and appreciate your frankness! You've done a great job at keeping your sense of humor through it all-
(thank God for laughter, eh?)
I am hoping to have these surgeries done at TCI too and as hard as it is to see in print, I do better knowing a little about what I'm getting into!
I also have EDS and noticed that you have EDNF listed here too- are you a member?
I'm not sure about the no friends rule- as I generally don't get out and- don't have friends tagging along- but finding what one needs is always a challenge!
Thanks for making this blog and sharing yourself!
From somewhere over the rainbow~
zoe
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