Austin, TX - Hotel (Hilton Garden Inn Downtown)

These wheelchair access and travel notes refer to the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown, Austin TX. These notes reflect my observations during a recent visit and are intended as a guide for other disabled or handicapped travelers. This review is actually of a non-ADA approved room. Due to a mess-up in the booking they had given my reserved handicapped room away. I had no option but to take what they had as my kids were beyond exhaustion when we got there. They moved me to an ADA approved room the next day and I was also able to review that.

The hotel is situated on 5th St so it is very close to the heart of Austin. There is valet and self parking (half the hotel's 18 floors are reserved for parking). There is level access from the street level to reception. Bar and restaurant space is on the 18th floor and is accessible. Although I should mention that these were closed for private functions during the two nights I was there. I think it is outrageous that a hotel that claims to have on-site bar and restaurant does not provide access to these for regular paying guests. But that's another argument, off-topic for this blog, and more suited to the general travel reviews on a site like travelocity.

My room (two doubles, non ADA accessible, bath) was moderately sized. There was enough room to navigate around in the chair, and the beds could be accessed. There was a lot of furniture but circulation space was ok. The work desk was a comfortable size. There were two electric sockets in the desk lamp that were easy to reach. Wifi Ethernet (free) worked great. The TV controls wereeasy to reach. Fridge and coffeemaker were easy to reach, but the microwave was too high to use. The air-conditioning controls were reachable.

The bed was high making transfers in and out a little difficult. The bedside light could be reached from the bed, but the room lights could not be turned off from in bed (so, as always, remember to turn them off before getting out of your chair!). The closet hang space was too high to reach. 

The bathroom door was too narrow for the chair to get in so the bathroom was completely out of bounds for me.

Since this was not an adapted room, it is not surprising that it lacked most of the facilities that one would expect. If you are able to stand or walk short distances (enough to get into the bathroom) then this might work for you, but not for me.