Handheld Showers in Regular Non-Accessible Rooms?

[Groot]

Years ago, we booked a regular room in Saratoga. Getting the scooter inside the room was a challenge, but doable. This room, instead of having a roll-in shower with handheld shower wand and a bench had a regular stand-up shower with no handheld, just a normal showerhead. Upon discovering this, we wanted to change to a handicap room that had the roll-in, but the front desk at Saratoga said that all the handicap rooms with roll-in showers were booked for the week.

We then asked if the plumber could come in and switch out the regular showerhead with a handheld one and my mom was going to go to CVS and get me a shower seat. They again said no to the showerhead but broght up a shower seat for us. We then made plans for the shower and decided that I would take a measuring cup from the kitchen and use that to shower myself.

Well, the first day, the shower seat gave out. I didn’t notice it until I was on the floor. My legs were twisted in odd ways and getting up with my mom and aunt helping was a challenge because of my one bad leg. We called room service and told them what happened. They still had no availability for the walk-in shower, but offered us to move to Old Key where there was a room available. We thought about it, but decided that packing up all our stuff was too much of a pain and so we stayed at Saratoga. (I just had to approach the shower in a different way.

Now, last year, Disney called us to tell us that the section where the handicap rooms were in Copper Creek were flooded out and they had to move us to a regular room until they were fixed. Well, when we got to the room, we discovered that they didn’t switch us back to the handicap room and that was an issue because of the shower.

But in the shower, instead of having a regular shower head, they had a handheld one. They didn’t have any shower seats available, but luckily I had my walker, which is the type that has a seat on it. (The one pictured below is the exact make and model of my walker. Minus the basket because that would get in the way so we took it off.) and we used that as a makeshift shower seat. (It was a little tight though and required some acrobatics, but it worked.)



The next day, we approached a manager and told her of the situation and she said to go to the front desk. We did and they moved us to a fully accessible room. love:It had an automatic door opener for the scooter!)

My question is, are they slowly putting in handheld showers in the regular rooms or is that only at select resorts?

 

[mamabunny]

As far as I know, most of the Resort rooms that have showers (and it's still not many outside of the roll-in shower rooms) all have shower heads. The exception to that may be POP after the recent reno there; I seem to recall seeing some pictures of a new shower that has a handheld wand, but no ADA grab bars and no built in seat.

Another example that comes to mind is the DVC studios at Poly; I think most of those (or at least a fair portion of them) have a separate shower, however there are no grab rails, and if I remember right, no handheld wand.

To be assured of a shower seat plus a handheld shower, always book a HARIS room - Handicapped Accessible Roll In Shower room. Call Disney Reservations directly if you have trouble finding one on the website; the Res Center CMs can search all of the Resorts at once for HARIS rooms for you.

Many hotels are now building rooms with showers , but most of them don't have grab bars or seats, and because many hotels are franchise operations, there is no consistency from property to property. Universal has begun putting showers into many of their newer Resort hotels (again, not ADA compliant) as well.

Regarding the shower chair, if you request another shower chair from Disney in the future, always examine it carefully prior to use; others here on this forum have found some of them to need a bit of work before they could be used safely.

 

[PatMcDuck]

Copper Creek (regular room) had the handheld thing in the shower, in one of the bathrooms. We had a 1BR and a 2BR that trip, I cannot remember if we had it in one of those or both. I was so happy to see it, made showering my son much easier.

 

[Groot]

Copper Creek (regular room) had the handheld thing in the shower, in one of the bathrooms. We had a 1BR and a 2BR that trip, I cannot remember if we had it in one of those or both. I was so happy to see it, made showering my son much easier.

Were you able to get a shower seat in there, or not?

 

[PatMcDuck]

Sorry for delay, I did not request a shower seat. And I cannot even remember if one of the showers had a bench. Sigh.

 

[I Love Pluto]

I always bring my own shower bench. I feel secure with my own so I can avoid a shared shower bench.
I have no clue who sat on the community bench before me!!!
I also have no fear of the bench collapsing when I am on it. I check my bath bench at home every day before I use it.
It is general routine before putting it in the shower.

I fly with the bath bench in a large travel bag. They do not charge for the bag - but you can only have the bath bench in it. I take it to my seat and put it under the seat in front of me. The legs are removed, stored in the bag.