Category: Travel
Doubletree Hotel Chicago O'Hare Airport-Rosemont
Recently for work I stayed at the Doubletree Hotel Chicago O'Hare Airport-Rosemont. Thankfully my co-worker requested an accessible room for me so I was looking forward to staying and writing a quick review.
Here's my quick-n-dirty.
- The room was very spacious and I was able to roll around to pretty much anywhere I needed too.
- The thermostat was in a small corner with a chair and armoire, blocking me. Picture
- The clothes hangers in the armoire were a little hard to reach. Picture
- There was a second "privacy look" on the door so I could check out who's at my door. Picture
- While sitting in my TiLite wheelchair, with only 26' tires, my legs did not fit under the desk. Picture (Yes folks, they're real.)
- The "accessible" shower head fell victim to limp syndrome as most I encounter do. Picture
One thing I do want to spend a little more time on is #6. I've lost count on how many showers have failed the all important gimp test. The first room I was in at the Doubletree Hotel Chicago O'Hare Airport-Rosemont was different then the one pictured above. The removable shower head was in fact non-removable. It was positioned on a vertical bar and shockingly was not suffering from limp syndrome. However, the water pressure was and thus it barely made it past the drain. So the nice bench that was on the back wall went unused. I spent the week showering on the floor. I made a call down to the front-desk but after an hour I had to leave my room so I'm not sure if they ever showed up.
Doubletree Hotel Chicago O'Hare Airport-Rosemont mikeagimp rating: 3 out of 5
Austin City Limits 07 Accessibility Review
It's that time of the year for another great music festival and damn, Austin City Limits is a good one. It's big enough but not Bonnaroo big. The festival is hosted by Zilker Park and the two "main" stages are on opposite ends. The park grounds are much more wheelchair friendly compared to the farmland at Bonnaroo. At Bonnaroo, I ran into a lot of tire tracks and other uneven ground from the weeks of setup. For the most part, Zilker Park was pretty grassy and easy to roll over. I wasn't rocking out the big Kenda treads I was at Bonnaroo which I think definitely helped me out. My every day treads were good enough. I imagine they made it a lot easier to go uphill when switching between the two main stages throughout the day. At Bonnaroo, traveling between the two stages was a good workout. For us gimps at ACL, that damn hill is really the only pain in the ass. It's just steep enough that you don't want to tackle it head on. I found it best to go as far right as possible when heading towards the AMD stage. The hill felt smaller over there.
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Accessible Chicago Trains
My best friend Kyle gave me the idea for this post because he was annoyed about something and I for once, didn't even notice. While I was in Chicago for the weekend, we of course used the train quite a bit to get around. Because I don't live in the city it was harder for me to understand his frustration about having to walk even further to the right "accessible" station because their are so few where he lives. He lives sort of close to the Addison stop but not too close. If click to view the map below, you'll quickly see the lack of accessible stations in between a large number of stops (Addison to Granville). Now maybe this is offset by a set of bus routes but for a weary visitor, that doesn't help much.
Since I love to complain I have to point out that when you do reach the accessible station and before you get into the elevator, HOLD YOUR DAMN BREATH! Cover your nose and mouth up because fuck it stinks in there. It smells like someone had a baby and diarrhea all at the same time. Unbelievable! As we were leaving one elevator, a CTA employee saw us with our covered faces and laughed out "It's that bad?!"