Sheraton Baltimore Washington Airport - BWI

1100 Old Elkridge Landing Road

Linthicum Heights

MD 21090

USA

http://www.sheratonbwiairport.com/

This review focuses on the wheelchair accessible aspects of this hotel. Refer to tripadvisor for information about other aspects of the hotel. In summary, the room I had was unwelcoming for a wheelchair user. Not recommended.  

There is ample free handicapped parking spots, and access to the lobby is completely level through automatic sliding doors. The restaurant and bar are all on the lobby area and easily accessible. 

My room was on the 3rd floor and had two queen beds and a roll-in shower.  It was some distance from the elevator, and a tough push over deep pile carpet.  There was adequate space to get around the room to the window and, just barely, between the two beds.  The TV remote was left in easy reach and the wall mounted A/C controls were easy to operate comfortably from a chair. 

The closet was easy to access but the hang rails were too high to reach from a wheelchair making it impossible to hang shirts.  The work desk was pretty small but usable. The window shades were difficult to close from a wheelchair because the line was behind the work desk and out of reach.  The bed was not as high as some - about  two inches above my wheelchair cushion level - but still made transferring difficult. The room lights were not controllable from the bed, so remember to turn them off before you get in. 

The bathroom was  large. The toilet was easy to access for anything from a 0 to 180 degree transfers but the grab rails were mounted too high to be of any use and the toilet itself had a cheap and wobbly toilet seat that offered little purchase for transferring.  Dangerous. There was plenty of room under the sink for knees. The shower had no wall mounted seat but guest services can provide you with a free standing shower seat on request. There was a hand held shower hose mounted on a rail and a fixed wall mounted shower hose.  The towels were left on a few shelves mounted high on the wall behind the toilet. Had I not been travelling with a walkie it would have been impossible to get them after my shower. The hand towels were reachable from a wheelchair but not the bath towels.  

The room was in need of a face lift and with the various small frustrations such as the useless closet and the badly designed bathroom it did not come up to the standards of modern handicapped accessible rooms. I will not be staying there again - not recommended. 

The Auto-Train - Washington D.C. to Orlando with Amtrak

Amtrak (www.amtrak.com) run a train they call the Auto Train from Virginia to Florida. It departs Lorton VA (about 45mins south of Washington D.C.) every day at 16:00 (4pm) and arrives at Sanford FL (about 40 minutes North of Orlando) at 08:30 the next morning. The reverse journey is the same – departs Sanford at 16:00 and arrives Lorton at 08:30. On the face of it it looks like a good way of covering a lot of ground. And that was how it turned out.

They offer seats or sleepers (for an extra charge) and handicapped accessible units are available. However, if you want handicapped accessible they must be booked by telephone (1-800-skip i95) – they cannot be booked on-line.

They request that you turn up about 2 hours before departure, so we did. We showed our tickets to the lady in the booth and she gave us a handicapped sign to hang on the rear-view mirror. We then left the car in the hands of the Amtrak staff and went into the station. In the station you get your boarding pass at the desk. Note that the dining car and lounge car on the train are not wheelchair accessible so you will need to request that you get meal service at your seat or in your cabin. It is also a good idea to request pre-boarding.

There’s not much in the station – a small and very expensive café and accessible toilets. About an hour before departure we were invited to pre-board. Getting on the train was easy, with a smooth and strong ramp provided by the staff.

We had reserved a sleeper. It was a very compact design consisting of a small room (6’9” x 9’5” or 2m x 2.9m) with a WC, a hand-basin and two seats facing each other across a small fold-away table. For sleeping, the two seats converted into a narrow berth (2’4” x 6’6” or 72cm x 2m) while an upper berth (2’0” x 6’2” or 61cm x 1.9m) could be folded down. We made the mistake of bringing four briefcase sized bags on board. There was barely room for them. It is advisable to stick to just one night bag for the journey. With the four bags squashed against one wall I was still unable to turn completely in the room. It is possible to pull a curtain across to separate the toilet from the seating/sleeping area, but nevertheless you need to be good friends with the person you are sharing with – it is a bit intimate!

Each car has an assigned staff member and in our case a very friendly lady called Priscilla looked after our every need. She brought us dinner, turned down the beds, and woke us with breakfast in the morning.

If you want to stay in your chair, there is a simple wheel lock that can lock the chair down. However, I found the rocking motion somewhat nauseating when in my chair and preferred to sit on one of the seats. The bed was comfortable and we slept well. It was pleasant to half-wake up during the night and hear the song of the wheels on the track and know that we were heading South and cutting hours off our driving time!

We reached Sanford about 15 minutes late/ Disembarking was as easy as getting on. The Sanford station has no more to offer than Lorton had, but it has accessible toilets. There is a wait while the Amtrak staff get your car and we did not get on the road until about 10:20.

All in all, the Auto Train was a very satisfactory experience and I would do it again without hesitation. But with just one bag the next time…