The Darling Hotel, Sydney, Australia

80 Pyrmont Street (at The Star), Sydney, New South Wales 2009, Australia

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These notes are intended to provide guidance for wheelchair users considering this hotel. If you are looking for comments on the hotel experience see tripadvisor. The conclusion: a lovely hotel with interesting and elegant features, but the high bed in the accessible room means I would not recommend it for wheelies.

The hotel is located close to Darling Harbour. We arrived without a car, walking up Union St.  Access to the hotel was a little hard to find. You can go through the Star Centre but you can also access the hotel from Union St. directly. Looking from the street you see a rotating door, with steps behind so it does not look accessible. In fact, there is a button operated automatic door and a lift to the lobby hidden from view. It’s easier if you arrive by car at the front door!

The lobby area is fully accessible with hard floors. There is level access to the star complex with its shops, restaurants and casino. Sokyo restaurant and bar are directly accessible from the lobby.

The wheelchair accessible room I booked was a King bed. I was told that the hotel does not offer any other configuration in an accessible room. The room was close to the elevator with carpet flooring in the corridor. The room is large with sufficient space to get around. The work desk is at the end of the bed, and a circular utility table was also placed at the end of the bed. The table had to be moved in order to make room for the chair between bed and desk. One that was sorted there was plenty of access around the bed. All light switches are easy to get to, as is the control for the blinds and the air conditioning.  The TV remote control was left in a leather pouch by the bed. 

The minibar and its accoutrements is easy to get to. The clothes closet has two sliding doors. The hang rails are not lowered but I could still reach them.  The iron was out of reach from a wheelchair.  While there are light switches placed close to the bed to control all lights in the room, it is quite a challenge to reach them from the bed without falling out! However the TV remote had a "room off" button which turns off every light in the room. Unfortunately there is no equivalent "room on" button!

The bed was about 28" (700mm) high and  was nearly impossible to get into from my chair.  It is disappointing to see The Darling following the current trend for very high beds. This one was way too high for a comfortable transfer and the act of getting into bed was exhausting and risky.

The bathroom is large with plenty of circulation space.  The toilet has plenty of space around it and would support anything from a 0 degree (parallel) to a 180 degree transfer. It is very far from the wall with no back support which makes sitting on it and balancing very tiring and ultimately dangerous. However, this seems it be an Australian access regulation requirement more than a specific design of the hotel as I have seen it in many public toilets. The grab rails were well placed which helps. The sink was easy to access with ample under sink knee room. The shower was large with a good solid large fold down shower seat. All controls were easy to reach from the seat. There was a hand held shower rose and a centre ceiling mounted "rain shower". The rain shower kind of misses you when you are on the seat though. The hand held rose was clipped to a rail on the wall that had a clever lever coming down which meant you could adjust the rose right up to even its highest level. Towels were placed in easy reach and there were plenty of them.

The Darling is a high end hotel with great design, great finishes and lots of attention to detail. The electrics in the room suffer a bit from design over function.  Ultimately, a well designed and functional accessible room was completely negated by an inaccessible bed. Not recommended...unfortunately as I loved so many things about this hotel.