New York - Here We Come by David Tucker

My wife has always wanted to go to New York, we have been to Florida but never the Big Apple.

We discussed our holidays and thought lets go for it. I have never taken a wheelchair on a plane before, but I booked my power chair on and away we went. I booked business class, and was worried about getting out of the seats. My condition is a weakening of the thighs and arms so it is difficult to rise from a sitting position. I have an up easy seat assist which I put in my power chair and I used this on the aircraft seat. It was a bit uncomfortable but I managed the 7hr journey ok.
On arrival at JFK I was met with my chair and assisted through homeland security. We had booked an adapted transfer vehicle for me and my chair, and taken to our hotel in Times Square. We were amazed at Times Square, the lights, noise etc . The accessible room in the Hilton, where we were staying was nothing special, only 1 pull down grab rail at the side of the toilet, disappointing, but I managed with my wife’s help.

The following morning we went across to the local Diner, for breakfast, wow more like
breakfast, lunch and tea all on one plate.  We signed up for an open top bus tour 3 days for the price of 2. On checking this I found that most of the Buses had an automatic ramp that came out of the bus entrance for wheelchairs prams etc. This made life easy and we visited the Rockefeller Centre, Grand Central Station, and Central Park. We visited the John Lennon Memorial Strawberry Fields in Central Park, which was very moving. The tour also took us to the Empire State Building and we enjoyed the views from the top. I was advised to book the trip to the Statue Of Liberty and Ellis Island in the UK which I did and it was a good job i did as the queues for the Ferry went on for ever.

Another  visit was to the Ground Zero memorial and this is a must for anyone visiting New York. We also managed to take in 3 Broadway Shows courtesy of reduced ticket prices via the half price ticket booth on Times Square. We were told to go to the front of the queue which we did and so had first pick of the shows.

We both fully enjoyed the trip, the locals were very respectful of me in my power chair and always insisted I went to the front of the “Line” as they call the queue. The only disappointment for me was that they didn’t have separate disabled toilets. They had disabled toilets, sure but these were either in the men’s or ladies, and this was a problem when I needed assistance from my wife, we had to get a security guard to stand in front of the main door and not let anyone in until we had come out.

We thoroughly enjoyed the week, the October weather was kind to us and apart from the traffic chaos everything went well despite our previous concerns and we can recommend the trip.

Where next to you might add, well we have booked a 2 week cruise in the Baltic ending up in St Petersburg in July so watch this space.