We have a 1 bedroom booked at OKW for the 1st week of December. I was told by member services when booking that the only way to guarantee a ground floor or elevator building was to book a HA room. I use a scooter but in the room I get around with a walker.
They have never guaranteed a ground floor room, but since most buildings at OKW are only 2 floors, even without making a request at all, you have pretty much a 50:50 chance of getting first floor. If you find at check n that you were assigned 2nd floor, it shouldn't be difficult to change to first ( I know, at least on the DIS site, many people prefer higher floors for the views and for no one above them.
All the non-roll in shower first floor rooms we have been in have at least one grab bars.
In many of the units that have 3 floors, the third floor is the top of Grand Villas, which begin on 2nd floor.
The grab bars are helpful but I don't need a roll-in shower. The way they let the water all over the floor is actually more of a hazard to someone who could easily fall on the wet floor. Climbing in & out of a tub is not possible but a regular shower with a shower seat is all I need.
It may be difficult to use an OKW regular shower with a shower seat because the shower is in a corner and kind of diamond shaped. It does have a bit of a step over, as you can see om this picture from allearsnet.
You can request a shower chair from Housekeeping when you get there (I highly recommend checking all the screws for tightness before using it - experience speaking).
We have not used a shower chair in that type of shower, but did try to take a plastic porch chair in there to give DD a shower in the days before we used the roll in shower. Let's just say it was not easy to get in and left no room for us to get DD in and me to shower her. Not a pretty procedure.
Do the roll-in showers at OKW allow water to flood the floor? Is it possible to get a HA room with a regular shower?
There are actually 2 types of handicapped rooms, one with roll in showers and one with grab bars. I know that the studios have tubs with grab bars, but believe the OKW 1 bedroom units without roll in showers have the same showers as the non handicapped units.
It IS possible to shower without getting water all over. We are roll in shower veterans and just stayed for 2 weeks in an OKW room with a roll in shower and got almost no water on the floor during showers.
1) Point the shower head partly toward the wall. If you point it directly to the middle or the shower curtain, the water is going to go all over.
2) You need a long shower curtain. If it doesn't reach the ground, you need to contact Housekeeping to get one that does. A too-short shower curtain lets the water splash under it to the floor outside the shower. The current shower curtains have a thick vinyl layer, plus a fairly heavy cloth layer that feels like cotton. This combination is pretty effective at keeping the water inside the shower.
This is a good example of a too short shower curtain. It is an OKW studio and they used the regular studio bathtub shower curtain.
3) Resist the urge to make towel dams. We used to do that before we knew any better. We built dams of towels inside the shower in hopes of keeping the water inside. Usually, all they do is provide a way to wick the water from inside the shower to outside. We currently only use one or, at the most 2 bath mats. The showers have a dividing line between the inside of the shower floor and the bathroom floor. Keep your bathmats outside of the shower dividing line. That will keep them dry and they will actually pick up the splashes that to beyond the shower curtain. The other water should hit the shower curtain and fall back inside the shower.
You maybe can't see it very well, but there is a tiny raised area at the end of the shower. You want to keep your bathmats outside of that divide.
There is also another arrangement with the sink not impinging into the shower space. I don't know if I have a pictured that.
4) If you are afraid of falling, use the fold down shower seat for showering. Request a free standing shower chair/bench and use it to hold your towels for drying off where you will be able to reach them with the shower curtain open without moving off the fold down shower seat.
5) if you have family members who are likely to splash water all over, shower before them :smile:
Also, can anyone tell me if the HA rooms at OKW are the ones with the door to the bathroom that doesn't require going through the master bedroom? Our daughter & 2 small kids will be with us & it would be nice to have that access. I know the elevator buildings have it but I assume the HA rooms could be in any building on the ground floor. Or are all the HA rooms in the newer buildings?
Handicapped accessible rooms are scattered all over the resort, although not every building has handicapped accessible rooms with roll in showers.
The first 29 buildings that were built had only one door into the bathroom and required going thru the Master bedroom to get into the bathroom. A design change was made, starting with building 30, to put 2 doors into the bathroom. One is still from the master bedroom. The other is thru the back wall of the laundry room.
So, any one or 2 bedroom unit in building 30 or above will have the 2 doors.
Thanks for any help that anyone can give me, I know I have too many questions here. I really wish it was possible to guarantee no stairs without the HA room. Even though the grab bars are helpful, we just returned from a stay at the BWV & I managed OK with a regular room. As long as we stay in 1 bedrooms with showers it seems I'm using the HA room unnecessarily just because I can't climb stairs.
As I already mentioned, even without a guarantee, it should not be difficult to get a first floor room. I would suggest making your first request to be first floor and specify for medical reasons.
