Health
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| Written by Margaret Hides, 2008 | |
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Going on holiday with a disability often requires making special arrangements. Margaret Hides, a veteran wheelchair traveller, looks at the 'all inclusive' opportunities and packages that are on offer. Anyone using a wheelchair, families with a disabled member, less mobile travellers, the holidaymaker who is profoundly deaf, blind or partially sighted: what opportunities are available for all of these people to share equally in many holiday places and pleasures, from African safaris to a Nile cruise? And who are the specialist tour operators that will source extras such as oxygen facilities on a Mediterranean villa holiday, or scooter hire at destination and airport transfers? At the forefront of travel for disabled people for over 40 years, Chalfont Line Holidays can cost-in a particularly high degree of personal assistance, over and above the tour price. These are optional choices for your requirements and can include transport to and from your home to join accessible holiday coach or aircraft. Prices start with B&B short breaks in Cornwall, a stay in Paris for £499, right up to Japan for 15 days, inclusive of flights and half-board, at a cost of £4,500. Accessible Travel & Leisure tells us its regular clients have arthritis, MS, use a wheelchair or a walking aid, or have suffered a stroke. Director Andy Wright, a wheelchair user himself, says, "They continue to travel with us because they know we will leave nothing to chance." Holidays range from Spain to South Africa, Egypt to the US, as well as cruises. Even Venice is not impossible, with a holiday in a road-accessible hotel in Venice situated on the Grand Canal. You also get a wheelchair access map of the city for those extreme challenges of the many bridges and canals. The growing popularity of cruising (taking a wheelchair or a small scooter aboard) indicates just how many adapted cabins are now an integral part of ships built within the last eight years. Increasing choices come with many lines including P&O, Royal Caribbean and Cunard's pride QM2. Firm favourites, like the smaller ships of Fred Olsen and Saga, also offer a few adapted cabins. Lifts and graded ramping to all public areas let you rendezvous in attractive bars, go shopping, dine on fine food, and enjoy the sophisticated cabaret, casinos and the health spa. This means time off, too, for carers who, for a change, are themselves being waited on as they have no household jobs to do. Check the number of tender (transfer boat) landings for shore excursions - safety regulations prevent ships' crews lifting people in wheelchairs. Some destinations, however, bring the spectacular scenery to you: Norway's majestic fjordland, Alaska, sparkling Caribbean cays, and the biblical settings of the Nile. What better holiday talking-point for environmentally conscious WI members, than the winner of a Northumberland Gold Award for Green Holiday Accommodation and wheelchair access with assistance? The Hytte at Bingfield, near Hexham, is a Norwegian-style wood chalet with insulating turf roof and geothermal heating system. Self-catering, it sleeps eight, plus a cot. There are electric beds, and a hoist is available, as well as an accessible hot tub. [5 pix showing specially fitted out bathroom, hot tub, sauna etc] Grooms Holidays - its motto is "affordable, accessible, memorable" - comes under the umbrella of the charity Grooms Shaftesbury. It has hotels in North Wales and Somerset and self-catering bungalows, houses and apartments from Devon to the Lake District; with a few sleeping 8-10 people. Although not a company specialising in holidays for people with disabilities, I like Helpful Holidays. Its brochure, with delightful West Country self-catering choices, is specific about any properties suitable for an ambulatory disabled or wheelchair-using holidaymaker. Sight-impaired travellersTraveleyes provides holidays with a difference, taking blind and visually impaired and sighted travellers, enabling them to journey together in a spirit of mutual independence. Sighted travellers - who pay approximately half-price of the tours - are not carers, it is emphasised. They are a wide cross-section, from students to retired people, enjoying the role of visual interpreters on worldwide journeys of interest and friendship. [5 pics to choose from]Blind and partially sighted holidaymakers will find the website of Access At Last providing Web Content Accessible Guidelines (WCAG) facilities, with opportunities to browse, via a preferred screen reader. Its company director, wheelchair user Stephen Pritchard, says that Spain (with its good medical equipment hire facilities) remains a favourite in its brochure. In the UK, he points to Edinburgh as "one of the best places in Britain" where even bus access is ramped. A £1 fare takes you from the city to Leith's accessible waterside attractions, with the Royal Yacht Britannia, and a growing leisure complex of shops, restaurants and hotels. European city breaks - Barcelona, Prague and Brussels among them - are popular with Enable Holidays. It features Egypt with historic sightseeing excursions, including a five-star wheelchair accessible Nile cruise and a promise of lots of assistance at riverside landings. Denmark's West Jutland is a truly positive face of all-inclusive tourism. Especially for families, this is a colourful world of good food, firm golden beaches, great interactive museums that children love, and colourful harbour-side towns - a discovery perhaps for travellers with health problems that preclude flying. DFDS Seaways overnight ferries from Harwich have one or two adapted cabins. What The Disabled Visitor Needs to Know comes free from the Cyprus Tourism Organisation. It is a good starting point for holidays on this delightful island that has many adapted villas and ideal resorts. If you enjoy making independent travel plans, Oberon Explorations is one of the local companies able to arrange accessible accommodation, excursions, airport transfers and medical aids, as well as care assistance. Mediterranean Cyprus, Spain, Majorca and Florida remain first choices, and understandably so, because of their facilities for hiring medical equipment, scooters, wheelchairs, airport transfers and adapted cars. The strong clout of the Americans with Disabilities Act makes the US one of the best countries for any traveller with a wheelchair. There is accessible accommodation, transport and parking (our blue badge is sometimes acceptable, otherwise tourist offices will advise how to get the complimentary local equivalent). Planning days out or short breaks?DisabledGo is a well-researched website giving access information for over 50 towns and cities, with Scotland the fastest-growing region. Supported by Marks & Spencer, www.disabledgo.info also has a listening facility.Useful contacts
Getting travel insuranceNot all companies associated with less mobile or elderly people offer the most competitive travel insurance. Shop around and look at one or two that may be less familiar:
Epic safariFor a South African safari, making my own arrangement was flawless from the moment I emailed Epic Enabled in Cape Town. No degree of disability seems to daunt knowledgeable proprietor Alfie Smith who runs tours of wonderful game viewing days in the vast Kruger National Park.Nights are spent snug in bungalows, traditional African roundawels or bush tents raised off the ground with wooden floors (all with ramped access and adapted toilet facilities). It becomes hands-on adventure with campfire barbecues and everyone prepared to help peeling vegetables, washing-up and taking charge of the impromptu bar on starlit evenings. The cost for eight days sharing is Rand 8,999 (around £640) full board and game drives. You make your own flight arrangements and at Johannesburg, accessible transport meet and greet arrangements are possible. What's new?A recent European law makes it illegal for travel agents, tour operators and airlines to refuse a booking on grounds of disability or refuse to embark a disabled person holding a valid ticket and reservation.Eurostar services moved to London St Pancras recently with Ebbsfleet its en-route station. Ashford will have reduced services. Booking ahead is always advisable for wheelchair travellers and a companion who are automatically upgraded to first class (it has the only allocated/limited places). Dash Travel specialises in disabled and seniors holidays. Based in South Wales it is establishing a new service: "Arranging holidays to your requirements including insurance, even with pre-existing conditions, as long as you are under 90" - tel: 01443-879557, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , www.dashtravel.co.uk Guides to go forThe charity Tourism for All has a series of free guides, including accessible visitor attractions; holidays for children with disabilities; and sources of holiday funding for people on low incomes.Britain's Accessible Places to Stay is available from bookshops for £9.99 (add £1 postage if ordering direct from Tourism for All c/o Vitalise, Shap Road Industrial Estate, Shap Road, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 6NZ, www.tourismforall.org.uk A Guide for Disabled People - Holidays in Britain and Ireland has more than 500 pages packed with information. It costs £13.50 from the disability network RADAR, 12 City Forum, 250 City Road, London EC1V 8AF, www.radar.org.uk Please note: This article was originally published in Women's Health 2008. All travel prices and packages correct at time of going to press, but are subject to change. Individual tour and holiday operators should be contacted for up-to-date details. |
