Some think the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) insures bathrooms in hotels will be wheelchair accessible.  That is oh so wrong!  Apparently hotels can install a grab bar or two in the vicinity of the toilet and are judged to be ADA-compliant.

In the early days we encountered many bathrooms of varying sizes and shapes that impeded accessibility for Cheryl.  Probably the worst example was a Holiday Inn Express in south Florida about 5 years ago.  We knew the hotel had been recently renovated and assumed that was a good thing.  When we arrived after a 10 hour drive, we discovered that the renovations were primarily in the lobby and front desk area plus some paint and carpet in some of the rooms. The footprint of the handicapped room was unchanged from the original construction of the hotel many years before. The bathroom was narrow with a tub with no access room around the toilet.  But it was ADA-compliant because 2 grab bars had been installed, one behind the toilet and one adjacent to the toilet.

Our complaint to hotel management fell on deaf ears and they had no alternative room to offer us. We were able to muddle through because it was only for one night before we boarded our cruise ship.

The lessons learned from this near disaster were:

1. Insist on a handicapped room with a rollin shower.  This guarantees enough space around the toilet for accessibility.
2. Never stay at a hotel that was constructed more than 10 years ago.
3. Do not fall for the “newly renovated” label unless there are certainties that the handicapped rooms have been rebuilt.

Another point to emphasize with hotels is to ask if their wheelchair accessible rooms have raised toilets.  I’m not talking about the hard plastic, removable raised toilet seats but the taller commodes that are now used.  Commodes that are a minimum of 17 inches from the floor are typically called Comfort Height commodes.  19 inches is the current maximum height available for these commodes.  Anything less than 17 inches is considered a traditional commode.  Most traditional models are less than 17, usually 14 or 15 inches.  Now you may be saying that a couple of inches can’t make that much difference but that simply isn’t true when you are dealing with a handicapped person who doesn’t use a commode the way an able bodied person does.  I can speak from experience and say that a person who can not stand benefits greatly from a commode that is as high as possible.