We live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. If we want to go anywhere else in the world (besides another rock) it is a minimum 5 hour flight. I hate long flights and it's that much harder when you're trying to occupy the family. To get on a plane, I, the travel coordinator, need to (for only about another 2 months) remind the husband to request leave, book the airline reservations, call the airline to let them know we will need special assistance and request a lift team to help transfer J onto the plane, make arrangements ahead of time with TSA to help with getting through security and pack all possible medical supplies that we may need along with the needs a typical family of 6 would need to pack for a vacation.
Contrary to what I originally thought, I can book our air travel on one of the discount sites. My initial thinking is that I have to book directly with an airline because we need special seating and to request a lift team to help J transfer. But I guess that's not really necessary. I can book on Kayak.com and just call whatever airline we end up booking with and request the lift team and seating later on. That's kind of a big deal because we all know that booking directly with an airline is often more expensive.
Once travel is booked, I need to reserve a wheelchair accessible vehicle - these rentals typically cost 3x more than your average compact rental car and you need to pay extra to have them deliver it to the airport because they are not usually operating at an airport. In smaller towns there are very few options to rent from and that becomes an issue and more costly in and of itself.
Than there is making hotel reservations. For a large family in a room that is ADA accessible, you can expect to pay much more than the going deals. Most hotels only have a couple of ADA rooms available and they are typically expensive suites. We've stayed in a 2 bedroom suite that is plenty big, but cost us an arm and a leg. We've also stayed in cheapy hotels where I would never want my husband to use the equipment they have because he could catch something nasty! So, we've decided to go ahead and purchase a portable shower chair. It should fit over a regular toilet for bathrooming and it also has a slide feature that would slide over the rim of a bathtub so he can sit and shower. It costs around $2000.00 but comes with a suitcase to travel with and can completely be taken apart to travel easily with. He would need the chair for toileting purposes anyway but it has the added benefit of not requiring a roll in shower. Therefore, we can also book a hotel on a discount site like priceline.com and take advantage of a regular room! Win!!! Find some options here https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_8?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=nuprodx+multichair&sprefix=nuprodx+%2Caps%2C296.
Last, but not least, some quads require a nurse or other caregiver besides yourself to come in and help with some of the care. That's another factor that needs to be addressed. You would have to be willing to find an agency in the area you are traveling to and hire a nurse you have never met to come in and take care of those personal issues. That is an added cost along with any equipment you may need. These medical equipment rental companies can be hard to come by as well. Luckily J continues to do therapy and has practiced sliding transfers with a board which eliminated the need to rent say a hoyer lift and he is also able to do 90% of his bathrooming. We figured we could go about a week without nurse care in that case. I should also note that some big cities have hotels with everything you need. For example, I know that Vegas has ADA rooms complete with ceiling lifts. However, I do not know what they charger such rooms and that's definitely something to consider.
This summer, and most likely every summer for the rest of our lives, we will have to make an annual check up visit to California for Jason. And hopefully, we will get to make each trip a vacation possibly for the whole family. This year, it's Legoland and San Diego. And as we learn more ways of coping with travel, I'm thinking it can only get easier. And I have to remember to go ahead and pack everything in the suitcase. We did check a couple of items but everyone also carried at least one bag. Carrying carryons while herding kids and keeping track of every bag and helping with the hubby's transfers is not an ideal situation. Checking suitcases for the win! P.S. Medical supplies are not charged for checking in.
Sorry, can I also add that places like Legoland and Disneyland, other attractions in San Diego are ADA accessible. We were able to do bus tours and was able to skip lines in some cases. There's special seating in stadiums and theaters, etc. We've also heard that Disneyland has rides that allow you to just roll right on in your wheelchair, which is absolutely amazing. Legoland was accessible thoughout the park, but we only successfully got onto 1 ride. This was because all others required him to transfer out of his chair onto floor level landing. He's not efficient enough to get back into his chair from the floor even with help just yet, but we'll be working on it.
If you are reading this and have other tips or these helped in any way, please let me know in a comment. :) This is a continuous learning process for us.
~S
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| Riding the Lost Kingdom Adventure at Legoland |
