Nightmare airport check-ins, ‘accessible’ accommodation with steps, inaccessible tourist attractions – if you or a family member are disabled, how can you avoid that holiday from hell?

WORDS: EMMA BOWLER

1: Plan ahead. Invest in a guidebook, use the internet and contact the places you want to go to in advance. Planning can greatly reduce the possibility of turning up somewhere inaccessible.

2: Flying? When you arrive at the check-in area, ask the airline representative who is managing the queues where you check in for disabled assistance. This often results in being guided to Business or First class desks where there are no queues! 

When booking always notify the airline that you’ll need assistance. The person on the check-in desk will often claim there has been no record of this request but keep calm and clearly state what you need. This is your passport to jumping all the airport queues!

Remember too that airline staff are trained to give you 101 excuses as to why you can’t sit where you want to. Be persistent!

3: A place to stay. If you have an impairment that means you would find being in a wheelchair-accessible room easier – because it’s on the ground floor, nearer the lift, has a wet room style shower, etc, then book it. You don’t need to be a wheelchair user to book these rooms.

4: Parking. Don’t forget your Blue Badge. Not only does it let you benefit from local parking concessions across the 27 members of the European Union (including Europe’s most congested cities) but it’s also recognised further afield – specifically in Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and United States.

For more information, see: www.theaa.com/public_affairs/reports/blue_badge_abroad.pdf

5: Cut costs. Some ferry companies offer discount to disabled people. For more information, call the disabled drivers organisation, Mobilise, on 01508 489 449 or head for their website, which has information on all sorts of holiday-related discounts: www.mobilise.info/Concessions.asp.

Also, don’t be afraid to ask if there are disabled or ‘carer goes free’ discounts at visitor attractions. Official or not, if you don’t ask, you don’t get! 

6: Don’t fall in line. If you can’t stand in a queue, then go to the front and explain your situation. Many theme parks let disabled people use the VIP ‘queue’; if you don’t qualify for this, go with someone who does!

7: Be imaginative. Being disabled doesn’t mean you have to strike that ‘holiday of a lifetime’ experiences off your list; you just need to come up with ways of doing them differently. For example, you can still take a breath-taking helicopter or light aircraft ride over New Zealand’s amazing glaciers and volcanoes; experience the exhilaration of skiing down Mont Blanc’s Vallee Blanche in a guide operated sit ski; or be carried like a king in a basket chair to see the gorillas in Uganda. The world really can be your oyster.

Bon voyage!