Booking a Hotel / Room: Getting accurate information about the accessibility of a hotel or guesthouse can be difficult and sometimes frustrating. Most people don't intentionally give you bad information. It happens because they don't understand what it is you are asking or they don't understand the importance of their answers. In an effort to be helpful they sometimes tell you what they think you want to hear.

A good idea is to get hold of the publications issued about your disability or general disability papers / magazines and look through the advertisements sections.  They often carry adverts from properly accessible hotels and guest houses.  They also carry adverts for places to stay abroad too.
 
Most high street travel agents or even Internet booking agents only have limited accessibility information on their computers.  They can however contact the hotel directly on your behalf to get more detailed information for you.  If you can, talk directly to the hotel you have picked to potentially stay in. When contacting the hotel tell them that you need to talk to someone who can give you some details about their rooms equipped for guests with disabilities. Make sure the person you are speaking to has been in the rooms in question, or get them to phone you back from the room if this is possible.  Make sure you get your questions answered in good detail. Some peoples idea of what constitutes a disabled bathroom is far from what is actually needed by the end-user.  Just throwing up a couple of handrails near a WC without there being sufficient space to transfer from a wheelchair doesn't mean a disabled person can use it.  You will know your own capabilities and more importantly where you may be able to compromise to make more places suitable for you.  It's a good idea to know in advance the seat height of your wheelchair, the overall width of the chair and the space required to turn around in.  Most places will willingly measure door widths and bed heights for you.  A big problem often found is that the hotel bed is far too low to transfer safely from a wheelchair.  This can normally be solved by putting an additional mattress on top of the bed which most hotels willingly do for you.  A lot of the big high street travel agents keep details of all door widths, ramps and other access information  on their computers now.  

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