Carton House, Maynooth, Co. Kildare Ireland.  

tel. +353 (0) 1 5052000

 

http://www.cartonhouse.com/

These notes refer mainly to the wheelchair accessible aspects of this hotel. For comments on the hotel service and facilities see tripadvisor.

Carton House is a hotel, golf course and spa located in a fine example of a typical home of the old Irish landlord class. It is located about 30minutes from Dublin Airport and maybe 45 minutes from Dublin city center. Despite being built long before anyone thought of wheelchair access, the modernization of the hotel has produced a fine hotel with excellent access throughout. Wandering the grounds might present some challenges, but since I did not have time to explore I cannot really comment on that.

Entrance to the hotel lobby is through a modern entrance at the side of the original old house. Access is level through automatic doors. The lobby level, bar and restaurant are all on one level and easily accessible although the distances between them are great. The flooring is mostly hard cover with occasional sections of carpet – easy to traverse in any case. There is a dedicated large accessible toilet near reception.

My room was on the first floor of a modern extension to the old house and had a king bed. The lifts (elevators) are quite a way from the reception, but are large, and my room was very close to the lift.

The room itself was large (very large by Irish hotel standards) and easy to navigate. There is a large, comfortable workdesk and enough room between the desk and bed for my chair (680mm) to pass through with plenty to spare. Power sockets were easy to reach at desk height, as was the desk lamp. The bed was slightly below wheelchair cushion height so transferring was very easy. The bedside lights and room lights had switches by the bed. The air conditioning controls were easy to reach. The TV controls were left by the TV within easy reach. 

The closet had no door and was easy to reach and hang clothes on. All storage was accessible.

The bathroom was spacious with easy access to the toilet for a 90 degree or a parallel transfer. A folding handrail from the wall was well positioned. Sink was easy to use with plenty of knee room underneath. There was a roll in shower, with a small sturdy foldable shower seat on the wall. I found balancing on the shower seat a little precarious, but the handrails helped. The shower rose is fixed and protrudes from the wall above the seat giving plenty of coverage although it means there is no way of avoiding the couple of seconds of cold water that runs when you start the shower! The controls were easy to reach. Even at the hottest setting the water temperature was not dangerous although I did not notice any marking to suggest that it was temperature limited. All towels were left within easy reach.

 

I was attending a business event which utilized meeting rooms in the old house. All the rooms we used were on the ground floor, but I did notice on elevator running up the center of the old stairwell. All rooms we sued were fully accessible and there was an accessible (albeit poorly signposted) toilet nearby. The floors are the original floors and can present occasional hazards to a wheeler with broken stone slabs and so on. But I would not have them any other way – the character of the old house is great and the meeting rooms had a lovely old world, sophisticated feel to them.

The room really had nothing to fault it. Given that, and the excellent service and ambience of the hotel I would strongly recommend it for any wheelie seeking a country “feel” in a location not far from Dublin and Dublin airport. .