This is brilliant! Caregiver tickets for free!

• Personal Care Assistants or caregiver tickets to everything we went to from concerts to AFC Wimbledon to museums were free. This was also the case when we went to Toronto about 5 years ago. So, England, Ireland, and Canada have this figured out! We do NOT have it figured out here in the United States.
• This is an accessibility and inclusion issue and I think it would be great for live music venues, theater, and sports teams in the US to provide free or reduced cost caregiver tickets for those of us who need them. Oftentimes, having to buy 2 tickets instead of just 1 is a barrier to attending events especially as events can be expensive.

My favorite events

• Seeing Birdy at the Eventim Apollo in London was a great experience. My mom was able to purchase tickets through emails back and forth to the box office ahead of time. It was pouring down rain (London!) and the queue to enter looked impossibly long but as soon as the attendants saw me rolling up with my parents, I was directed to a different door with ramp to enter through. The wheelchair accessible space for me and one carer (no cost for the carer) was midway back. It was a beautiful venue and Birdy was awesome! I loved the comprehensive info about accessibility on the Eventim Apollo website. It was very helpful in having a really good experience!
• AFC Wimbledon is what inspired this dream trip. I have followed this team for about 5 years now. And I finally got to be there in person! I love them even though they lost the day I was there. We ended up taking the underground from Central London for part of the way and then needed to take the bus. The route took over an hour to get there instead of what would have been a 25-minute train route to Tooting Station but that station wasn’t wheelchair accessible. The new stadium itself was fantastic except my dad wasn’t thrilled that all of the wheelchair seating was in non-alcohol family sections. Apparently, people using wheelchairs don’t drink pints of beer???? A caregiver ticket was free for AFC Wimbledon, too. Here is more info about AFC Wimbledon accessibility.

Lodging

As you may remember from my apartment search, what I really need in hotels, is a roll-in shower and space to move my chair around and a suite with a separate bedroom so my parents and I can spread out. I don’t need things like hoists, lifts, or profiling beds as my parents transfer me from wheelchair to shower/toilet chair to bed. Finding hotels or lodging that work well for my accessibility needs requires a LOT of searching on my mom’s part. There aren’t always a lot of options. The places below on our trip worked amazingly well for us.

• The Cove Cannon Street Aparthotel worked great for me. We had to rearrange the living room quick and move the couch against the wall instead of in the middle of the room since it made it easier to get around the apartment with my wheelchair and shower/toilet chair. The bathroom was a wet room with shower in one corner, plenty of room around the toilet, with a small little sink by the toilet, and another larger sink (see photos above). I would love to have this bathroom in my current apartment! The location was pretty good. Unfortunately, the underground station right outside of the Cove Cannon Street is not wheelchair accessible so we had to walk several blocks to other stations.
• We stayed at the Peveril House – Coach House in Castleton, UK, and that worked really well for me, too. We had a little more space to spread out in the Coach House and the bathroom again had the roll-in shower which worked great for me (see photos below). It was interesting being in a smaller village in England although walking around Castleton was more challenging since sidewalks and roads were pretty narrow.

Next post will focus on what didn’t work the best for me as far as wheelchair accessibility (e.g. Tower of London!).

The sound track for this post is Birdy – Voyager (YouTube)