[Simon]

You're right Gary, hotels etc cannot be expected to have special beds, we specialise in accessible holidays and have just boughht an electric up/down and foot/head raise too. It can have bed sides andd a monkey pole yoo if required by the client but our budget hass only just allowed us to get it and as this is our 'thing' we've done it, it cost £1000. Obviously, hotels can't do this or be expected to either. I suggest a bed that is the same height as your w/chair for easy transfers on/off, our previous bed was made to 55cm which is around the average w/chair seat height. If you have a travel mattress, then take that as the other issue for me was always the ordinary mattresses.
Hope this helps
Simon

[russ1]

When away with backup in the States we didn't even use adapted rooms - Backup know from expereince that the rooms in the Motel they use work with wheelchairs and that there's enough room to get into the bathroom (just). The matress's are just normal matress's. It's part of the experience to show that adapted rooms aren't always needed. And the hot tub is great!

Most Para's are fine on normal matress's - I don't know what's done for the tetra trips though. I know that I've used standard matress's a few other times too without any problems.

As for bed heights that's all part of the challenge for a backup trip although the beds are pretty high. At home I keep my adjustable height bed on it's lowest setting giving me a 4 inch step up to my chair as a challenge to me to keep my transfers working well. I've stayed at centre parcs which is great with the family but their beds weren't the best in terms of pressure relief matress or bed heights and the 45deg ramp over the door threshold was interesting!

The more specialised and particular your needs the more you need to ask questions to make sure they're met.

[Apparelyzed]

As far as beds are concerned;

If the bed is too low to transfer from chair to bed, or bed to chair, ask the hotel if they have another matress to put under the existing matress.

This will raise the sitting level, and make the bed softer for pressure relief.

Most hotels have an extra matress kicking around, I had to do this a couple of weeks back, and the good thing was, my feet no longer hit the footboard due to my long legs!

Simon.

[bubbleandsqueak]

One thing I want to ask as far as hotels go, I’ve only stayed in one in the 11 months I’ve been in the chair.

How do you manage the shower?

The one that I stated at had a roll in shower but no chair?

Is this normal? If so where can I find a shower chair that folds up?

And the only thing that I need for the john is a grab bar, would the non-adapted rooms have grab bars?

[AHolland]

I take two items with me when I travel. The first is a rollup mattress made of 2 inches of memory foam. This is covered by a normal cotton cover on one side and a vinyl cover on the other side. Ultimately I can put it cotton side up on good days, or vinyl side up if I think there is a chance of an accident. I find some conventional mattresses to be hard and this softens the bed.

For the bathroom I use a commode chair for bowel routine and wheeling into the showers. I always make sure the hotel I am staying at has the roll in showers. I also check to see that the toilet is of standard height as many raised height toilets will prevent me from using the commode chair.

[jacqui]

I run a holiday company that does accessible holidays and although we have bought a fair bit of equipment ourselves, hoists, shower chairs, pressure mattresses for example - I haven't got the funds to get into specialised beds, so we hire stuff locally. It is a relatively inexpensive solution for piece of mind, if a piece of equipment is required. Although they don't hire out the actual mattresses or anything for "personal" care presumably for hygiene reasons.
So we bought a couple of mattresses, and we are responsible for disinfection, etc and the same for the shower chairs.

I really think that hotels, guest houses, etc that offer accessible rooms, certainly should hire the relevent equipment or provide it, or at least know where you can hire it from.

The other thing I recently learnt from one of my guests is that he always travels with a childs paddling pool, then if when he arrives he finds shower is not level access, he uses the shower chair in the paddling pool and therefore doesn'thave to spend the week smelly, or at best stripped washed! INSPIRED!

I actually live in France, so I am sure you guys in other countries must have similar rules, shops, hire companies?

[Simon]

There's a scheme in Portugal for hiring of equipment, trouble is its so bureaucratic its a waste of time. We have a great equipment supplier here who we get everything off, who does hire manual chairs but that's all. Hence we have bought everything we have. Latest addition the electric up/down bed, foot and head raise, bed sides integrated and a monkey pole - which we thought was very reasonable at 1500€ (£1000).

[luis varela]

HI

Well, in Portugal you can rental equipment, accommodations, tours, accessible transfers etc.
Just check: www.accessibleportugal.com
They have lots of options. I hope this will help

Best regards

Luís