For people with disabilities, one of the most common challenges is not knowing what to expect when arriving at a hotel. Take a look at some of the features that make a room most accessible for people with disabilities.

Captioned Video

Video transcript

ANDREW HOUGHTON: Hi. It’s Andy from Disability Inclusion Solutions. As part of my series on accessibility of hotels I visit, I wanted to share with you the next video in the series. First we saw the hotel in San Francisco and highlighted some of the accessibility features of that hotel room. Now, we’re moving on to the Residence Inn in San Juan Capistrano. This is part one of the Residence Inn comparison.

So, now we’re at the third hotel on my southern California journey and I wanted to share with you some of the accessibility features of this hotel.

You can see that this one is very accessible. You can reach the microwave, dishwasher. You know, they haven’t been able to figure out how to lower the cabinets, I suppose, because up here and up there are the mugs and the plates. So, those are out of reach and not to mention the plugs back there against the wall are out of reach. That said, overall, it’s pretty accessible.

You can wheel right up to the sink here and just pull this and slide that back on both sides and you’re able to pull right in.

There is also the table right here that is easily accessible. You could wheel right underneath there. I have my computer but it’s actually like a little place to eat.

And then you’ll see the desk is very accessible. You can wheel right underneath the desk and have a lot of room there. The TV is very accessible. The bed for me is very low to the ground. Well, not very low but it is low enough so that is easily accessible.

You can see the nightstand is a little taller than normal which makes it easy to reach and the light switch is right up there against the wall.

Now as we move into the sink area, you can see this sink, in comparison to one of the ones I showed you that had the bar underneath, is clearly barrier free, easy to reach, everything is right there. So, that’s not a problem.

You go into the closet here and this closet again, unlike some of the others that we have looked at, has a low shelving and low area to hang your clothes and importantly, shouldn’t we ever need it, the iron and ironing board are quite accessible.

Now, you all see that we’ve got a full-length mirror here. So, it’s nice and low. As we enter the bathroom, we’re going to see again, that it has got plenty of bars. This is another roll-in shower. You see plenty of access to the controls and this particular shower has a bench that you can fold up and down.

So, overall, quite accessible. Very impressive.

So, overall, I rate this the highest room so far of this trip, given the accessibility features. So, that’s it for now. Thanks a lot.

If you have any questions, please reach out to me, Andrew at Disability Inclusion dot com.