In hotels, dogs fare better than disabled humans

Holiday planning is stressful when your very dignity is at risk, writes Melanie Reid

- Melanie Reid

It was on a ferry to Bilbao from Southampton, teetering on the edge of a low bunk and sobbing with exhaustion, that I learned the first rule of accessible accommodation.

Which is that it probably isn’t. Not for me, anyway.

The bottom bunk of the Brittany ferry’s accessible cabin was barely 40cm off the floor. Great for small elderly people with bad hips. Great to slide into - gravity being the friend of the spinally injured - but impossible to get out of.

In the end, driven by impending humiliation at the hands of burly French crewmen, I resorted to physics. I rolled to and fro, building up enough pillows under my bottom to be able to haul myself up on to the 60cm-high wheelchair. Think constructing Stonehenge, only harder.

The experience scarred me.

Nowhere I have stayed over the years since - a few dozen rooms billed as disabled-friendly - has altered my conviction that dogs are better catered for than disabled humans.