THE WASHINGTON POST: Why disabled people struggle to book hotels
Staying in hotels can be a harrowing experience for people with disabilities. When Julie Reiskin, tried to book an accessible room in Chicago, she got one with no roll-in shower. In D.C., the bed was too high. Throughout her travels, she has often had to go days without bathing and has had to sleep in her power wheelchair. This is a common experience for disabled people like her, many of whom say they regularly experience problems staying in hotels and using their amenities. “Every time we face discrimination, we have to calculate whether we’ll deal with it,” said Reiskin, a disability advocate in Denver. “You can’t deal with every problem, otherwise you’d be doing it all the time.” So some people with disabilities have taken on the job of being “testers.”