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Clare Byrne
My husband Stephen and I decided some time ago that we would save up for our dream trip to the USA to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. Three nights in San Francisco followed by four more in Las Vegas.
T’internet proved a most useful tool in booking suitable accommodation. After a fair bit of website trawling we decided on the SF Hilton near Union Square in the heart of the city. This hotel has more than sixty wheelchair accessible rooms so I reckoned that if there was a mix-up with our room there would be plenty more to choose from (A prophecy Nostradamus himself would have been proud of as it turned out, but I digress…). When it came to booking a hotel in Vegas we were determined to go for full-on tackiness – as outrageous as possible – and settled on the Venetian (complete with two canals, gondolas and all). In the case of both hotel bookings I was very clear about my requirements – we’ve learned the hard way over the years that the word "accessible" has many, many different interpretations. In my case I wanted to ensure there was a roll-in shower in each room. So I received written confirmation from both hotels that this requirement would be met. As far as flights were concerned – we wanted direct flights to minimise wasted time hanging around airports. We ended up flying London to SF, and returning Vegas to London. (I would strongly recommend the site www.justtheflight.co.uk which allowed us to book a "return" flight despite the use of two different airports in the US. Had we booked on Virgin’s own website, the same flights would have cost us almost double!)
Our flight to SF was fairly straightforward – just very long! (10 hours). The Virgin Airlines staff were courteous and helpful, although I felt our crew were a little inexperienced in dealing with a wheelchair user. But the procedures for checking in, boarding etc were explained clearly from the outset and we were boarded first. My wheelchair was brought to the door of the plane on arrival in SF.
SF airport gave us our first experience of life with a wheelchair Stateside. What a breath of fresh air! It just seems that everything is accessible, and this is almost taken for granted. We had pre-booked a hire car and this involved a 10 minute journey by monorail to the car hire centre – but this was no bother at all. Stephen has a fair bit of experience driving in different countries, thankfully, and he enjoys driving – useful on a holiday like this! (As I wouldn’t be driving we did not make any enquiries about cars with hand controls). Everything at the car hire went smoothly, so armed with our maps and directions we made our way to the Hilton. It was a huge hotel, and after the trek to our room we discovered there was no roll-in shower! However, this was dealt with quickly and we were settling into our new room within 15 minutes. On venturing outside we quickly discovered that wheelchair users are well provided for in the States – for example we wangled a table in the first restaurant we tried – despite it being heaving and 8 o’clock on a Saturday night!
My brother lives in Minneapolis and luckily he and his wife were able to join us for our stay in SF. So we met up with them next day. Stephen and I set off for Alcatraz (pre-booked – my brother hadn’t booked so was unable to join us). Again, this was made easy for us both – it would appear that a wheelchair is a passport to jump queues in the US! The short boat ride across the bay was followed by a five minute train ride up the steep hill to the prison itself. The train is strictly for the use of those who cannot make it up the hill on foot. Almost all of the prison was accessible and it was an interesting visit, I would definitely recommend it.
As well as our trip to Alcatraz, while in SF we drove down the famous Lombard street (the one you see in films and on TV that snakes from side to side because the hill is so steep). We headed over the Golden Gate Bridge out to the Napa Valley for an afternoon of wine tasting. As designated driver, Stephen was unable to share in much of this but the three of us made up for his abstinence. Again, everything we did was easy with the wheelchair – there are lifts and ramps in most places. SF is notoriously hilly but we coped with some ferocious pushing by both me and Stephen!!
After three nights we bade farewell to family and city and set off on the nine-hour drive to Las Vegas. We enjoyed the drive, although the steadily rising temperature recorded on the dashboard was a bit scary! 98 degrees as we drove through the Mojave desert. Great scenery with cacti in abundance! It was a shock to the system to come upon the glitz of Las Vegas after the miles of barren land. We found our hotel after a small unplanned tour of The Strip (where all the main hotels and casinos are located). Check-in was straightforward once again. And once again there was no roll-in shower in the room! We cursed our bad luck but again the problem was dealt with quickly and we were allocated another room straight away.
We spent a lot of our four days in Vegas open-mouthed at the outrageous nature of the city – nothing is done by halves and everything is very glamorous and sensational! There is so much to do that it would be impossible in less than a week but we really enjoyed wandering through the various themed hotels. Mystifyingly, a lot of people seemed keen to spend £200 a ticket to see a certain Celine Dion in concert, but we wisely gave that one a miss! Even the shopping malls are an experience, with ceilings made to look like clouds moving in the sky so you would swear you were outdoors. There are plenty of free shows to catch, mainly outside the big hotels – our favourite was the fountains outside the Bellagio which we knew from seeing Ocean’s Eleven! The fountains "perform" to a background of lights and music. There were of course casinos everywhere and there seemed to be no lower or upper limit on how much to gamble. We played blackjack on a few occasions and some of the money being won and lost (usually lost) at the tables was frightening!
Las Vegas is without doubt the most wheelchair friendly city I have ever visited. The Strip itself is fairly flat. It is also very long – but there is a monorail system in place which covers a lot of the main attractions, and we used this quite a few times. There is also a raised walkway linking some of the attractions. Although we had the car hired for the duration of our trip, we could definitely have managed without it in Vegas. There are accessible taxis (admittedly you will wait a little longer for one but one of the drivers gave us his card to ring him direct if necessary). But even public transport was good – we used the local bus service for a lengthy trip to "old" Vegas and yet again we were ushered to the front of the queue. All the buses seemed to have ramps electronically operated by the driver. One day we went to the top of the Stratosphere tower (1,149 feet high). I admired the view while Stephen chose to ride on one of the three thrill rides at the top - this involved sitting in a car and being shot out of the top of the tower and dangling over the side. Lovely.
And yes, we did renew our wedding vows with "Elvis". This was the ultimate in Las Vegas cheesy behaviour, and Elvis did say he’d like to bring Priscilla to visit Scotland some day so look out for them down the chip shop.
I couldn’t recommend this trip highly enough for a special holiday – and both cities we visited could definitely be "done" on a budget. As ever, planning was all-important. But to be honest, towards the end of our trip we forgot to take wheelchair access into account when planning an outing because we found that access seemed to be taken for granted just about everywhere!
If anyone has any questions about the trip do feel free to contact me – cbyrne67@hotmail.com.