You can’t do a series with music lines as titles about travelling in England and not have this one by Queen. This is the Peak District and Dublin part of the trip and inspiration for the title is from “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen. And, yes, it was a good time!

Trains in the United Kingdom

We took the Avanti West Coast train from London Euston Station to Chester where we rented a wheelchair accessible van (WAV) for our week in the Peak District. My mom bought our train tickets before we left along with a Two Together railcard for my parents and the Young Adult railcard for me to save some money on our tickets (UK Railcard information – Avanti West Coast). As mentioned earlier about transit, non-UK residents aren’t able to purchase the Disabled Persons Railcard but it wasn’t that much more for me to purchase the Young Adult card. When booking the tickets, she needed to contact Avanti’s Passenger Assist to change to the wheelchair accessible space along with two tickets for them close by. Passenger Assist also helped with boarding early and placing the portable ramp to get on and off the train.

It was a pretty cool experience for my first train travel. We arrived early and checked in at the Passenger Assistance area and then waited to board the train. A guy led us over to the train early before the rest of the passengers boarded. He got the ramp set up and led me to my seat and helped us out with our luggage. The train ride itself was relaxing and when we arrived in Chester, the passenger assist guy helped with the ramp to get off the train and helped us to the elevator and the way out of the rail station. He even took a picture of us (banner photo).  Our next train ride was from Chester to Holyhead to catch a ferry about a week later. Wish we had more train travel in the US Midwest!

WAV Rental

From the way, way back of the wheelchair accessible larger-than-expected van that we rented for our week in the Peak District, you could hear me laughingly screaming, “he’s going to kill us!” This was an adventure having my dad drive on the opposite side of the road in the largest van ever on the skinniest 1-1/2 car-width lane hilly roads in the Peak District. Something was a little lost in translation for the size of van we needed, but we made the best of it and held on tight! Wheeeeeeeeeee!

Ferry from Holyhead to Dublin

After our week in the Peak District, we made our way to Holyhead to catch the Ulysses Ferry to Dublin (Irish Ferries site) . We exited the train and walked right to the adjoining check in area for the ferry. We splurged a bit on the ferry and added a wheelchair accessible cabin and the Club Class lounge so we had a nice place to grab some snacks on the ferry ride.

The cabin was an interior cabin with no windows and had two single beds, one of which folded up to allow more space for my chair. We actually did a bit of a hack and put my chair in the spacious wet room bathroom (seriously, a shower and wheelchair accessible toilet) and then pulled the mattresses off the beds and laid them on the floor so I had a little more room to lie down. It was nice to be able to stretch out and get out of my chair. It was also nice to grab some snacks for our lunch.

Public Transport in Dublin

Dublin had trams, trains, and buses. We purchased our week long Leap visitor card (Dublin Public Transport site). We hopped on trams and buses occasionally and took a train to Howth but tended to just walk around the most. A lot of the things we did were pretty walkable and not too hilly or cobblestone-y for pushing my wheelchair. We did take a wheelchair accessible cab to the airport. Love the picture of me with my head in the bump up for the wheelchair space!

Flight from Dublin to Boston to Minneapolis

If we had to do it over again, we probably would have tried to have a direct flight home. These flights seemed to be more uncomfortable than the flight to London. Our original flight time was changed to a later flight so it was about 3:30 in the morning Ireland time by the time we got home.

It did work great to be able to go through Customs in Dublin before getting on the plane so we didn’t have to go through Customs when arriving in Boston. I was led to the faster line through Customs because I was using a wheelchair.

I’m hopeful for future flights that allow me to remain in my chair since it has the custom seating that works best for me. Check out this recent news about Delta’s prototype that could make air travel much easier and better for those of us using wheelchairs: Delta Flight Products to Feature New Seat Prototype for Passengers with Reduced Mobility – Delta Tech Ops news release  

Working on a post for next week about some of the things that didn’t work very well for me as far as accessibility on our trip.