Thank you, United Airlines. In four trips on and off planes on an aisle chair, I was not slammed into anything once. I was permitted to transfer to and from the aisle chair the way I wanted to. I found that outragous flirting with the aisle chair guys helped with this.
United also did not damage my chair or lose anything. Very nice.
Normally I drive a four door sedan. Everyone keeps telling me that a two door car is better for loading the wheelchair, so I rented a two door Monte Carlo.
It’s true that the door is bigger so there’s a bigger inlet to get the chair into the car. But there’s a large (tall) console between the driver and passenger seats, and some sort of storage space on the roof that hangs down into the passenger space. Between these two things, it was really hard to get the chair from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat. It was big relief to get back to my own car.
I stayed at Homestead Suites. They originally gave me the semi-accessible room, the one with grab bars around the toilet but a regular tub. After I complained, they moved me to the mostly accessible room; toilet grab bars and a nice roll-in shower. The closet had a lowered rod. On the non-accessible side, the light switches and curtain opening-thingie were not accessible, and in order to get to the bar counter they provided as a desk space, you’d have to climb up onto a bar stool. All in all quite usable, though.
