Theatres are, on the whole, one of the good news stories. Most decent-sized venues now have wheelchair spaces, an access line, and staff who have done this before. But theatre tickets have a quirk the rest of travel does not: the accessible seats are often not on the website, and the general booking page will cheerfully sell you a seat you cannot get to.
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What good staff do differently
We have been helped by hundreds of people over the years — on platforms, at gates, in hotel lobbies, at the bottom of unexpected flights of stairs. Almost all of them meant well. A smaller number were genuinely good at it, and the difference between meaning well and being good at it is enormous.
Here is what the good ones do. It is a short list, and none of it is difficult.
They talk to Bev
Not to Steve, about Bev, while Bev is sitting right there. This is the one that comes up most and it is the easiest to fix. If the question is about the person in the chair, ask the person in the chair.
They ask before they touch the chair
A wheelchair is not a piece of furniture in a corridor. It is part of somebody’s personal space. Grabbing the handles and setting off is startling at best and frightening at worst. “Would you like a push?” takes two seconds.
They say what they do not know
“I’m not sure, let me find out” is a brilliant answer. “Yes, it’s fully accessible” from someone who has never looked is how you end up stuck. We would far rather wait three minutes for a real answer than act on a confident wrong one.
They know where the equipment is
The ramp, the key, the lift override, the person who is trained on the stairlift. Good venues make sure more than one person on each shift knows. Bad venues have one man called Dave, and Dave is on his break.
They do not make it a performance
Loud announcements, a small crowd, a lot of fuss about how marvellous everyone is being. We appreciate the help enormously. We would just like to receive it the way anyone else receives a service — quietly, competently, and without becoming the entertainment.
They follow through
The single best thing anybody ever does for us is the boring bit at the end: radioing ahead, ringing the next station, telling the restaurant we are coming, writing it in the book. The help that arrives is good. The help that is arranged for the next stage of the journey is what makes a trip work.
If you work somewhere the public visits and you have read this far — thank you. That list is genuinely all of it.
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Travel insurance, the GHIC, and insuring the chair
Travel insurance is the least interesting subject on this site and the one where getting it wrong costs the most. Two things make it different for us: pre-existing conditions, and the wheelchair itself. Standard policies handle both badly by default.
Declare everything. Genuinely everything.
The medical screening questions are tedious and the temptation to skim them is real. Resist it. A claim for a chest infection abroad can be refused because of an undeclared, completely unrelated condition — insurers can and do void policies for non-disclosure. Every condition, every medication, every “oh, and” goes in. If the screening makes the quote enormous, that is information too: it means you need a specialist insurer, not a smaller lie.
The specialist market is better than people expect. There are insurers and brokers who deal with disability and serious conditions all day, and a directory of them is maintained for exactly this purpose — the British Insurance Brokers’ Association helpline will point you to members who cover your situation. The premium is often less frightening than the mainstream comparison sites suggest, because a specialist is pricing your actual risk rather than panicking about a list of words.
Insure the chair like the vehicle it is
A powered wheelchair can cost as much as a small car, and a standard travel policy’s baggage limit will not come close — single-item limits of a few hundred pounds are typical. Check, specifically:
- The single-item limit, against what the chair would actually cost to replace. Not what you paid — what it costs now, with your seating and controls.
- Mobility equipment cover as a named section, or a standalone wheelchair policy alongside the travel one. Some home contents policies extend to the chair away from home; some don’t leave the country.
- Hire costs while yours is repaired — the bit that keeps the holiday going.
- Airline damage interplay: the airline is liable first when they break it, but their liability caps are low against a powered chair. Your insurer needs to pick up the rest, and the photographs-at-the-gate habit is what makes that claim smooth.
The GHIC, and what it is not
For Europe, carry a GHIC — free from the NHS website (never pay a middleman site for one). It gets you state healthcare on local terms in the EU. What it does not do is fly you home, cover a missed cruise, or repair a wheelchair. It is a supplement to insurance, not a substitute, and every year people find that out the hard way at altitude.
Your turn: if you have experiences of your own — the places that got it right, and the ones that got it badly wrong — tell us in the comments below. Every report helps the next traveller.
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How to complain so something actually changes
We complain badly, as a community. We either say nothing — too tired, too embarrassed, just want to get home — or we explode on social media, feel briefly better, and change nothing. After years of practice we have landed on a method that actually gets results, and it is boring, which is why it works.
At the time: collect, don’t argue
When the assistance doesn’t come or the “accessible” room has a bath in it, the person in front of you is almost never the person who caused it, and arguing with them costs energy you need for the actual journey. Instead, collect:
- Names. First names are fine. “Craig at the assistance desk” is worth a paragraph of description.
- Times, to the minute. Your phone’s photo timestamps do this for you.
- Photographs — the steps, the blocked bay, the room as you found it.
- What was promised, in writing, from the booking confirmation.
Then, and this matters, ask one calm question: “What can you do for us right now?” Sometimes the answer fixes the day. Either way, their answer goes in the complaint too.
Afterwards: one page, three parts
Written complaints get read when they are short. Ours are one page: what was promised (with the booking reference), what happened (times, names, facts, no adjectives), and what we want. That last part is the one people skip, and it is the whole point. “A refund of the assistance-failed leg, and confirmation of what has changed so it doesn’t happen to the next person” gives them something to say yes to. “This was disgraceful” gives them something to apologise for, and apologies are free.
Where to escalate
If the company’s answer is inadequate, there is usually a next rung, and companies respond differently once you are on it. For trains it is the Rail Ombudsman; for flights, the airline’s ADR scheme or the Civil Aviation Authority; for hotels and restaurants, the credit card chargeback route can concentrate minds; and failures of a promised reasonable adjustment can be an Equality Act matter, which is worth naming, calmly, in exactly one sentence. You will rarely need the rung after that. Mostly, naming the rung is enough.
And say it here
The complaint fixes it for you. The write-up fixes it for the next family. It is half of why this site exists — the other half being the places that got it right, who deserve the custom the bad ones lose.
Your turn: if you have experiences of your own — the places that got it right, and the ones that got it badly wrong — tell us in the comments below. Every report helps the next traveller.
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Taxis and WAVs: booking the ride that actually turns up
The taxi is the connective tissue of every trip. The train can be perfect and the hotel can be perfect, and the whole day still hinges on an eight-minute ride between the two. It is also the least regulated, least bookable, most variable part of the chain.
Know the two kinds of accessible taxi
A WAV — wheelchair accessible vehicle — takes you travelling in the wheelchair, up a rear or side ramp, with the chair strapped down. The other kind is an ordinary car with a driver who is happy to stow a folded chair in the boot while you transfer to the seat. Which one you need is the first thing to say when you ring, because firms constantly send the wrong one. “Wheelchair user” means both things and neither.
Booking one outside a big city
In London, every black cab is legally required to be wheelchair accessible, and mostly this works. Outside the big cities, WAVs are scarce, often owned by one or two local firms, and often booked out doing school runs at exactly the times you want to travel — early morning and mid-afternoon. So:
- Book days ahead, not hours. For a morning train, we book the taxi before we book the train.
- Avoid 8–9.30am and 2.30–4pm in small towns if you possibly can. That is school contract time and the WAVs vanish.
- Get the booking confirmed by text or email, with “wheelchair accessible vehicle” written down. A verbal booking for a WAV has a way of becoming a saloon car on the night.
- Ask the hotel for the local firm they actually use. Receptions know which firm turns up and which one doesn’t.
- Take the driver’s card when you find a good one. A driver who did it well once will do it well again, and most will take a direct booking.
In the vehicle
The driver should strap the chair down at four points and offer the seatbelt. A driver who waves you up the ramp and sets off with the chair loose is not doing you a favour, however friendly he is. It is fine to ask for the straps. It is your neck.
One more thing worth knowing: a licensed driver cannot legally charge a wheelchair user more than anyone else for the same journey, and refusing the fare because of the wheelchair is, for most drivers, an offence. You will almost never need to say this out loud. It is still worth knowing on the night you do.
Your turn: if you have experiences of your own — the places that got it right, and the ones that got it badly wrong — tell us in the comments below. Every report helps the next traveller.
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Cottage or hotel? The self-catering trade-off
Self-catering looks like the answer to everything. No breakfast times, no reception, no explaining yourselves twice a day. And it can be — some of our best weeks have been in a cottage. But a cottage is also the accommodation with the least backup, and that changes how you book it.
The trade-off in one sentence
In a hotel, when something is wrong, there is a person downstairs whose job it is to fix it. In a cottage, when something is wrong, there is a laminated sheet with a phone number for a woman called Margaret who is at her daughter’s this week.
What “accessible cottage” usually means
It usually means a ground-floor bedroom and a walk-in shower, which is a fine start and nowhere near the whole story. The listings are written by owners, not access auditors, so the photographs matter more than the words. Things the listing will not tell you:
- Whether the “level entrance” includes the path from the parking space, which is often gravel, grass, or a picturesque line of stepping stones.
- Whether the walk-in shower has a seat, rails, or a two-inch lip that made it into no photograph.
- Internal door widths. Cottages are old. Old doors are narrow.
- Whether “ground floor bedroom” means the living room with a sofa bed in it.
- How far the nearest shop, pub and hospital are — the last one matters more than anyone likes to say.
The questions we put to the owner
Same principle as hotels: nothing that can be answered with a cheerful yes.
- Can you measure the bedroom and bathroom doors for me, in centimetres, while I hold?
- What is the surface between the car and the front door, and is it lit at night?
- Is there a step into the shower? Any step at all?
- How high is the bed, and can it be raised on blocks if we need it?
- If the heating, the hot water or the key safe fails at eight on a Friday evening, who do we ring, and how far away do they live?
A good owner enjoys these questions. They know their house, they are proud of it, and they will often volunteer things you did not ask. An owner who gets vague or slightly irritated is telling you what the week will be like.
Our rule of thumb
Hotel for short trips and cities, cottage for long stays and countryside — but only a cottage whose owner answered the phone, answered the questions, and sent the photo of the shower without being chased. The booking conversation is the audition.
Your turn: if you have experiences of your own — the places that got it right, and the ones that got it badly wrong — tell us in the comments below. Every report helps the next traveller.
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Eating out without a scene
Eating out should be the easy bit of a trip. It is often the most quietly stressful, because restaurants are full of small obstacles that nobody thinks about until they are in the way, and because it all happens in front of an audience.
Ring ahead. Always.
Not to check “if you’re accessible” — we have covered why that question is useless — but to ask for three specific things:
- A table you can actually get to. Say plainly: a wheelchair user is coming, please put us somewhere we can reach without moving four other tables.
- A table with legs at the corners, not a central pedestal. A pedestal base is the number one reason a wheelchair cannot get near a table. Nobody ever mentions it.
- Confirmation there is an accessible toilet on the same floor. An accessible loo down a spiral staircase in the cellar is not an accessible loo.
The other things worth asking
- Is there a step at the door? A single 15cm step is enough to end the evening, and it is invisible on every photograph on their website.
- Fixed booth seating? Lovely for everyone else. Useless if you cannot transfer out of the chair.
- How loud is it? Not an access question for us, but it is for a lot of people, and hard surfaces plus music makes a room where nobody can hear anybody.
- Is the accessible entrance the same as the main one? We have been sent round the back through a kitchen more than once. It is not the end of the world and it is also not a nice way to arrive somewhere for your anniversary.
What good places do without being asked
They have already moved a chair away from the table before you arrive, so there is a space rather than an obstacle. They bring the card machine to the table. They do not remove the wheelchair to “store it somewhere safe”. They ask where you would like to sit rather than deciding for you.
It costs them nothing and it is the difference between being a customer and being a problem to be solved.
Your turn: if you have experiences of your own — the places that got it right, and the ones that got it badly wrong — tell us in the comments below. Every report helps the next traveller.
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Blue badge parking: what to check before you set off
A blue badge does not get you a parking space. It gets you the right to a parking space, which is a different thing entirely on a wet Saturday in a seaside town.
What the badge actually does
The badge belongs to the person, not the car, so it travels with you into a taxi or a friend’s vehicle. Since 2019 the scheme in England has also covered hidden disabilities, which was a long overdue change. Councils charge different amounts — up to £10 in England, free in Wales, up to £20 in Scotland — and it runs for three years.
The rules on where you can park vary by council, and they vary a lot in central London, where several boroughs run their own schemes and the standard badge concessions do not apply. Check the specific borough before you drive in. We have learned that one the expensive way.
What to check before you set off
- How many accessible bays are there? “We have disabled parking” can mean twelve bays or one.
- Are they bookable? Some attractions will reserve one. Always worth the phone call.
- What is the surface? A gravel or cobbled car park is effectively inaccessible however wide the bay is.
- Is the bay wide enough for a side transfer or a rear ramp? If you use a rear-loading vehicle you need space behind, which a standard hatched bay does not always give you.
- Height barriers. The great enemy of the adapted van. Multi-storeys and supermarket car parks are full of them, usually at 2.0 or 2.1 metres.
- How far is the bay from the entrance, and what is between them? A bay two hundred metres away across a slope is not really an accessible bay.
Two things worth carrying
A parking clock, the blue plastic dial that some councils require alongside the badge on single yellow lines. And the badge itself displayed clock-face up, expiry visible — a badge that has slid face-down on the dashboard is a ticket, and appealing it is a tedious afternoon.
If the bays are all taken by people without badges
In a private car park — supermarket, retail park, hospital — it is worth telling the staff, because enforcement there is entirely down to the operator and they often do not realise how bad it has got. On a public road it is a council matter. Neither will help you today, which is why we always have a plan B car park before we leave the house.
Your turn: if you have experiences of your own — the places that got it right, and the ones that got it badly wrong — tell us in the comments below. Every report helps the next traveller.