Disabled Traveller in Leicester

In Leicester, we stayed at the IBIS as it’s near the train station.

I’ll start this review on the train down.

Liverpool to Leicester took two trains. The East Midlands Railway from Liverpool to Sheffield, we were put in the toilet carriage. It had an occasional voiceover in control of the driver, who called out her favourite stations only.

Luckily, Sheffield was one of them, so I knew where to get off.

Unfortunately, the ramp was not there. This turned out to be because the train had been sent to another platform at the last minute and the staff were unaware. We had to wait a while for the two women to find the ramp. One of them asked abruptly, 'have you not booked assistance'

About ten minutes later, we were squashed onto the next train. It felt like an old Virgin train, but the train announcer woman kept saying, 'welcome aboard this East Midlands Railway service to London St Pancreas ...' they had some carriage difficulties, so people were put in the one compartment together. The wheelchair space was quite small, but manageable.

The train journey felt long, boring and monotonous.

At last, we arrived in Leicester. I was impressed by the lack of kerbs. The pavements seemed to be blended. I’ve always been a bit wary of these areas, but the yellow bobbles were well highlighted.  But sadly, the traffic lights didn’t beep.

The Deep Ibis

If you can walk, it’s fine, you just go down the few steps and into the hotel, but wheelchair users are made to go right round the other side, through foliage, along the car park, until you finally reach the doors.

Image showing the control panel for Fayes
wheelchair in sight of the steps leading to the hotel entrance

The two automatic doors open into cool, dimly lit interior, where the lift was. The lift had no voice over, only braille buttons. An annoying thing about the lift was no matter what floor you pressed, it stopped on the first floor/reception, so I got out more than once at the wrong floor. You also had to use your room card to make the lift move (not fun to look for if you have a bag full of stuff!).

The room was easy to find, it being at the end of a corridor. The walls, doors and carpets of which were all brown. It was disorientating, like being in a toffee tube.

Image of corridor with brown tones striped carpet, brown walls and dimly lit.

The room was disappointingly small. Although it had enough turning room, I couldn't reach things like plugs or the wardrobe, as they were behind the other side of the bed, where my chair did not fit. The bed looked directly out of the window and onto the train station. The bed faced the window.

Image showing the small bedroom, bed with white linen, red and brown carpet,
red headboard, small wardrobe with red doors.

The bathroom door slid across. It didn’t shut properly, and the lock had broken. There were screws hanging out. This was dangerous, as someone could’ve stood on it or I, being visually impaired, might've driven over a screw and burst my wheelchair tyre.

Picture of wood with two nails sticking out.

The actual bathroom was a manageable size. Decorated in white, grey and silver, I could tell where basic things, like, the toilet, sink and shower curtain were. I could not see the low placed silver bar. Although, my mum directed me to it, it was not ideal or in any way good for independence. Disabled bathrooms tend to have a waterproof shower chair and a balance bar to lever yourself off and on the loo. The Ibis Leicester had no such independent giving luxuries for its disabled guests. I do have balance issues and fell into the wall.

My chair actually fitted under the wide sink quite well and the taps were easy to push up and down, however the soap dispenser was out of reach and my mum had to pass it to me every time I went to the toilet.  Even at 3.30 in the morning.

Bathroom showing white suite, shower curtain between
the toilet and the shower, handrails near toilet and shower.

White toilet shown with a grey picture above with all different beauty/bathroom items on. White sink which shows where the hand dispenser was located on the wall out of reach. Silver handrail near the toilet.

The bed was surprisingly comfortable, however the pillow, unless you find rocks and bricks being the key to a brilliant night sleep (I don't), was awful. I woke up stiff and aching after a bad night sleep.

The food was very tasty, probably the best part of the hotel. Portions were generous and flavoursome. The staff were great and checked my dietary requirements. The restaurant/breakfast area overlooked a trampoline centre. The windows let in lots of natural light. The tables were both round and square, but all had a stump in the middle, holding it up. To fit in, I had to lift up the footplates on my wheelchair.

A factor we found rather concerning was how unhygienic it was. The toilet didn’t fully flush, and we had to keep putting bowls of water down to get rid of the waste.

After we returned from a day out, we chatted to the cleaner and asked him to move the wires on his cleaning crate.

When we went into the room, it was as if the job had only been half done, like they'd been called away and forgotten to return. Only one of the two bins had been emptied and the coffee cups hadn’t been replaced or even rinsed out. Although my mum did not mind doing this, surely hygiene should be of upmost importance, especially in a hotel?

We did ask to change rooms, to an actually accessible one, but were told they were all the same. I'd never recommend the Ibis Leicester, particularly not for disabled guests, as it was quite thoughtlessly designed. As my mum said when we arrived, ‘we were spoilt at the Brooklyn.'

We wrote to the Ibis explaining the downfalls we experienced.  We received a positive reply where they said they would look into things we had mentioned, and they were looking at the entrance.  They also gave us a part refund.  So, this was a positive outcome.

Exploring Leicester

The day after visiting the Leicester Space Centre (see my individual review), we explored Leicester. A good thing about the hotel, was that it was within walking distance of the art gallery and Museum, so we met up with a friend.

Finding the place, we followed my mums phone map, which, of course took us the long way round. In the end, we asked someone.

The entrance had a ramp to the side of the stairs and opened up into a bright foyer. The ground floor was a museum dedicated to natural history. It had dinosaur fossils stood up, which were quite impressive.

We then went into a 'Forests of the World' area. This had imitation trees, animal noises and a push button thing that spoke. Although small, I liked the sensory aspect.

We then looked around an exhibition of furniture. They were very skilfully made. I don't remember any sort of audio commentary, similar to the dinosaur one. We then went up to the art gallery. The lift spoke. There was an exhibition on by Eileen Cooper. Her work was expressive and full of bold colours. Her theme seemed to be taking uncomfortable or awkward scenes from life, such as, a naked, red headed woman, who featured throughout the pieces, sat on the toilet. Perhaps it was self-reflective in some way?

In the next room were displays of local people who’d arrived in the UK as refugees and their experiences of Leicester and how they had built their life there.

It was then time for a cup of tea and cake.

We headed downstairs to the cafe. Here, the tables were tiny and round. Two wheelchair users and three able bodied people could not comfortably fit in. The cake was lovely though.

I didn't use the toilet, but my friend did. Here's what they said:

"Neither disabled toilet was very big! Certainly, couldn't turn a wheelchair round especially with 3 of us in there! There were grab rails! One of the disabled toilets was also a baby change and had a large (think it was wooden) baby change table so really couldn't get the wheelchair through the door (we didn't try!) They were clean though!"

After saying our goodbyes, my mum and I headed into the town centre. My mum's phone did send us the wrong way, and, in the end, a passer-by had to help us. When we found the large Boots shop, we discovered the chemist, (which we needed), was down a few steps! My mum found a lift, but as it needed staff assistant and they were all busy, I waited at the top of the steps. I noticed there was nothing to differentiate between the levels. A different floor colour/texture, or even tape, would've helped visually impaired customers. They didn't have what we wanted and recommended we try the other Boots further up the road. We went in search of food first.

The shopping centre was big and stretched three floors. Along with the usual high street shops, there were some independent ones.

We got the lift to the bottom floor. I don't think it had a voiceover but can't fully remember. However, it was a decent size.

Restaurants were outside on the bottom floor. There were a lot of chain places. The first place we tried had a long wait for a table. We were hungry, so tried somewhere else.

We decided on Frankie and Benny’s. As it was dry, we sat outside. The table was good, especially for an outdoor one. The food was nice, but I couldn't eat much due to toothache.

Our next stop, before heading back to the hotel, was the toilet.

I forget what floor it was on, but do remember that for a disabled toilet, it was tiny! Barely enough room to get the wheelchair in there, never mind turn! But it was better than the bathroom at the hotel- it had two bars!

We went home the next day. The first cross country train, my mum had no seat and had to stand. The wheelchair compartment was near the toilet but was quite spacious. A tiny 'table' stuck out that didn't fold. If it had, parking my chair would've been easier.

At Birmingham New Street station, the assistant met us and escorted us through the busy train station to the next train.

London Northwestern railway train was, again, by the toilet for wheelchair user passengers, but it had a voiceover, although no food cart.

At Liverpool Lime Street train station, on the Merseyrail underground, staff didn’t acknowledge me, and only spoke to my mum.

The general street access of Leicester, the art gallery, museum and shopping centre, was all very good. The paving was textured and had different colours, so good for visually impaired people. Also, it was very flat with few kerbs, so good for wheelchair users. The only issue I had, was that the traffic lights were silent. I don't know if they had a twirly cone, as I don't like touching things. I found the toilets too small too. The people we met, from the hotel staff, the (albeit expensive) taxi driver, the road sweeper and passers-by that we asked for directions off were all lovely 😀👍