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Like Night and Day by Cindy Crissman When I travel somewhere new, I make it a practice to research the accessibility of my destination using the internet. Accessibility is extremely important to me. I have multiple sclerosis (MS) and use a manual wheelchair. I need to be able to maneuver around the room and have access to a bathroom, with an extended shower chair or roll-in shower. The June meeting of the Pennsylvania Rehabilitation was being held at an Erie hotel and conference center. I am a member of the Council, and planned to attend the meeting; The information I found on the internet was positive and satisfied my concerns. Amenities included handicapped accessible rooms and facilities, elevators, non smoking rooms and facilities, room service, in room internet access and valet service. The web page had pictures of the hotel, rooms, and restaurant. Everything looked beautiful. I had a reservation letter stating accommodations agreed upon by the hotel for an accessible room, a roll in a shower or an extended shower chair. After searching the internet, seeing the amenities offered along with the pictures, and the reservation letter I figured I had nothing to worry about, When the journey started on June 14, I felt comfortable and was looking forward to my stay at the hotel. I had a very unpleasant, unexpected surprise when my attendant pulled to the main hotel entrance, only to find the entrance had no visible ramp, no automatic doors, and no one to offer any assistance. My attendant went to the front desk to find out not only was no knowledge about an extended shower chair, but the ramp we were expected to use was around the back of the building. There was no luggage cart and no one to load or unload our luggage. Getting more upset, we went in search of the ramp. Several minutes later we found a ramp the width of a single door. To get the luggage into the building, not to mention getting me into the building, two heavy glass doors needed to be opened by inserting the room key into the first door. I decided the entrance was ridiculous. We drove back to the main entrance. I got the reservation letter from my brief case. We located a small ramp in the front of the building. The ramp led to the side walk, but I still needed pushed to the main entrance. To get to the front desk, we had to go through two sets of double doors that were not automatic. Again there was no offer to help, even after I started to enter. I took my letter to the front desk. I was told that a shower chair had been taken to the room. Feeling tired and stressed, I just wanted to get a shower and go to bed. To get to the room, my attendant had to push me through four or five sets of doors, again with no offer of assistance. In case you haven’t guessed, none of the doors were automatic. My dreams of a relaxing bath were short lived. To enter the accessible room, a table had to be moved from the short entrance hallway and put on end in a corner of the bedroom. There was barely enough space to maneuver around the room. I went into the bathroom to find a very narrow, regularly sized tub. Sitting beside the bathtub was a shower chair that would not fit inside the tub. Not only had my hopes for a shower ended, but my patience was near the end. I called the front desk. I said the shower was not accessible; in fact the shower chair would not even fit into the tub. I also explained I could not maneuver around the room, and there was not enough room to turn my chair around. She assured me the rooms met the specifications for a handicapped room. I told I was quite aware of the regulations, and I personally could not see how this particular room hah passed any inspections. When I requested another room, she informed me all the handicapped rooms in the hotel were the same. And what distinguished those as handicapped rooms were a king size bed. She offered to try to get me a room in another hotel. That hotel had been recently built, and had accessible rooms with roll-in showers. However when she checked, that hotel had no vacancies. Feeling in a no win situation, I told the lady we would stay. Since there was no one available to help load or unload luggage, my attendant drove the van to a small landing right outside the exit sign at the end of hallway. She returned to the room after parking the van, but had not brought the luggage into the room through the two glass doors. By this time my already raw patience reached its limit. I called the front desk and strongly suggested someone to bring the luggage into the room. To my surprise, a very nice man brought the luggage into the room. I found out later that he was the limo driver. After all that, we opted for room service, rather than retrace our steps through all those doors. Our order had to be placed in fifteen minutes before the hotel restaurant closed for the evening. Total time to get everything in the room was approximately two and one half hours. Following the June 15 Council meeting, everything started to take a turn for the better. We went to the hotel restaurant, totally unaware that martinis were two for the price of one. The hostess bravely started a journey into the restaurant to find seats. I looked inside the restaurant to see wall to wall people. Not wanting to feel like a sardine, I asked about room service. We asked about desserts. Instead of bringing a menu, the hostess had a waitress bring a tray filled with desserts. She was the first ray of sunshine. I did not sleep well through the night. I was concerned about the trouble we might have to face to check out. I needed some extra help to stand up in the morning. I was very hesitant to have my attendant contact the front desk. I did not want to have another episode like our arrival, She did call the front desk, and someone from Housekeeping came to the room. She had no problem helping, was very pleasant and extremely easy to talk with. During our conversation I noticed from her badge that she was the Manager of Housekeeping. My attendant and I told her our experience from the first evening. She was upset and said the hotel staff were not to treat anyone in such a manner. By listening to what we were saying, she was able to discern the staff on duty, and assures us the matter would be taken care of. I said we needed help with the luggage. Within minutes a gentleman came with a luggage cart. I said Tuesday night there were no luggage carts and no one to help us. He was very congenial and easy to talk to. I found myself telling him about the troubles we experienced. Luck must have been with us. He was the Maintenance Manager. We discussed concerns I had about maneuvering round the room and the bathtub/shower. He loaded our luggage onto the cart, and took them to the main entrance of the loaded into the building. By the time we went to check out, the Front Desk Manager was aware of all the troubles we experienced. She assured me the proper people would be notified of our experiences, and action would be taken. She assured me we would be treated completely different should we return again to the hotel. Following a late breakfast, we went to retrieve our luggage. Someone came immediately to help with the luggage and opened all the double doors. While my attendant got the van, someone helped me to the “out of way” ramp at the front entrance. Our luggage was loaded into the van. Leaving the hotel Thursday morning was the complete opposite of arriving there Tuesday evening. The whole experience was like “night and day”
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