AK Travel w/ WC Information

[kyriecat]

I just returned from a cruise to Alaska with my mother who is in a wheelchair. I thought that I would pass along some of the information as a help/warning for others. My mom uses a standard size folding wheelchair designed for “street” use. She doesn’t have the “off-road” fat tires or a scooter. An off-road chair may be an asset for Alaska, but I think a scooter would make it more difficult for a person who does not walk at all to get inside some shops, locate transportation, etc.

 

We flew into Seatac and stayed at the Clarion Seatac hotel since we arrived late and were leaving early on the train the next morning. The hotel offers an airport pick-up shuttle that is not wheelchair accessible. We were told when we booked that the hotel used a standard passenger van for the transfers, which my mom can get into with some assistance. We ended up with a bus, requiring 3 steps to climb. It was difficult, but we were able to lift my mom inside. The hotel is a little rundown, but the room access is fine for wheelchair users.

 

We rode the train from Seattle to Vancouver. When we booked, they assigned us to business class because of the wheelchair. The business class car has more room in the aisle so that a wheelchair can barely get through. There is no way to get through the coach class car for a wheelchair user due to the narrow aisle between the seats.

 

We has made reservations online in March for our Sept stay for the Holiday Inn Express on Hastings in Vancouver for a wheelchair access room and also called the Holiday Inn reservations number to confirm that they had a wheelchair access room available. We picked the hotel since it was close to our pier and reasonably priced. However, when we arrived we were told that the room reservation had been cancelled. WARNING: The manager at the HI told me that it is their hotel policy to cancel reservations for handicapped access rooms booked online or through the HI reservations number because she said the majority of the people who book through those sources want the extra space of a handicapped room but are not handicapped. They will only guarantee a handicapped room if it is booked by calling the hotel directly. There is nothing on either the website describing this nor was the person that I spoke with at the HI reservations site aware of this policy. Since it was a busy cruise weekend in Vancouver, we were unable to locate a W/C access room (or a regular room) anywhere else in town. The HI manager was extremely rude and kept insisting that it was my fault that the reservation was cancelled since I called the reservations office to confirm the room type instead of calling the hotel directly. After a heated discussion with the manager and a call by me to complain to the customer service representative at the Holiday Inn main number, we ended up with a regular room at no charge for the “misunderstanding”. I still cannot believe that no one from HI contacted me to confirm whether we really needed the handicapped room before canceling our reservation. The regular room was too small for a wheelchair to maneuver so my mom had to use the bathroom in the lobby rather than the room, but we made do for one night.

 

We sailed on the Radiance of the Seas. The cabin (#4008) was roomy for a wheelchair user with wide spaces around the bed and larger than normal bathroom with roll-in shower. The only problems were when the hallways became blocked with cleaning carts and the elevators were slow and always packed.

 

In Juneau my mom took the Juneau’s Best city tour from Mighty Great Trips. They provided a bus with a wheelchair lift and made several stops around town, including Mendenhall Glacier. In Skagway my mom took the White Pass RR trip which has a wheelchair lift. Both of these tours are very accessible.

 

Sitka and Icy Strait did not have tours available that we found with wheelchair access. In Sitka my parents took a walk through the historical park, which has several trails that are smooth enough for a wheelchair. In Icy Strait they looked around for a couple of hours then returned to the ship.

 

After the cruise we stayed in Anchorage with relatives for a few days before moving inland.

 

We rented a van and drove to Denali NP where we stayed at the Denali Lakeview Inn. The DLI mentions that the Swan Cove room is handicapped accessible, but that isn’t really the case. The room has a wheelchair ramp to get inside through the back door (front door requires stairs). However, the room is not laid out appropriately. There are 2 queen sized beds, but one of them is too close to the bathroom door to allow a wheelchair to get through. There are no bars around the toilet or the bathtub. There is not a roll-in type shower. We were able to make the room work since it was only a couple of days. We complained about the room layout to the manager and recommended that she walk around the room with a stick at least 4 feet long and see if she can get around the room to simulate a wheelchair. She said that they would look at either replacing the queen beds with two doubles or moving a single king bed into the room for access. They supposedly have the bars for around the toilet and bathtub but haven’t found anyone to install them yet. The view from the back deck is stunning and wildlife is very abundant in the area. I highly recommend the location, but verify whether the problems are fixed before booking.

 

Denali Park has a great shuttle bus service with wheelchair access. The only problem is they can only get one wheelchair per bus. That was fine with us, but may be a problem for others. There were plenty of rest breaks (about every 1.5 hours with accessible toilets), and our bus driver was very helpful in operating the lift and securing the wheelchair. We took the shuttle to Fish Creek (8 hr roundtrip) and saw plenty of wildlife, including bears, moose, caribou, mountain goats, and wolves.

 

The Denali Visitor Center offers a few trails that a wheelchair can access – Spruce Forest and Morino Trails are both well packed gravel. Most of the other ones that we tried were too steep for a wheelchair.

 

After Denali, we went to Fairbanks. We stayed at the Pike Lodge, which has a good layout for their wheelchair access rooms except for the balcony. The balcony was too narrow for a wheelchair to go outside, plus there is a little step down.

 

In Fairbanks we took the Discovery Paddleboat. The ramp to get on the boat is VERY steep down and narrow. A regular wheelchair can barely make it down due to the width. An extra-wide chair probably cannot get onboard. We took the 8:45 AM tour and the ramp was wet from the dew/frost at that time. The boat requires that one of their crew members push the wheelchair down the ramp. However, more than one person is needed for this job. We saw them try to take one woman down the ramp forward with only the crew member holding the chair back. The person slipped and lost control of the chair. The woman ended up banging up her legs before the chair got wedged in the ramp. She ended up going to the hospital for a check-up. They took my mom down the ramp backwards with the crew member holding the handles and my dad and I pulling on the arms of the chair to keep it under control. We got on safely but my mom was nervous after seeing the other woman. The paddleboat makes a stop at a village along the river. The people that I spoke with before purchasing the tickets said the paths through the village were well-packed gravel and a wheelchair could get through. The paths were loose gravel and required two people pushing the chair to get through.

 

Aside from the above mentioned items, we drove around and made a few stops. Talkeetna was a little difficult to maneuver around since parts of the road are gravel with no sidewalks. Most of the other places we stopped to eat or for shopping was reasonably accessible. The biggest problems we ran into were shops that only had stairs to enter or the shops that were so crowded that a wheelchair couldn’t get through.

[KL&KR]

Whew, Kyriecat--thank you for the great information. We are thinking of going to AK again next year, and will hang on to your notes. I remember a very slick and steep gangway in Ketchikan, with several crew members pushing and pulling to get my partner and her scooter up to street level from the dock. I was petrified, thinking someone would lose their footing, and everyone would end up in the water. I do not understand, with all the tourist traffic up there, why they have not yet solved the wheelchair/scooter access problem.

[rfbdorf]

Thanks for the review, Kyriecat, especially the info about the hotel.

- Richard