My Accessible Stay at Chelsea Hotel Toronto

warm welcome from Tracy Ford (Public Relations)

Visiting Toronto June 27 to July 4 2016 to attend Digital Dreams Music Festival, I needed to find a hotel that is downtown and close to major tourist attractions.  It also has to be wheelchair accessible and has to have a bathroom with a roll-in shower.  This hotel exceeded my expectations.  It is Canada’s biggest hotel with 26 floors and 1,590 rooms.  It was really beautiful, classy and all the employees were really helpful and very friendly.  The hotel itself was really wheelchair accessible.  There are 3 main entrances to the hotel at Gerrard, Yonge and Bay Street.  The Yonge entrance is not accessible since it has stairs and no ramp despite having an automatic door with a wheelchair button.  The other 2 were really accessible so I used them both depending on where I needed to go.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the bathroom next to the check in desk have a wheelchair box where you wave your hand in front of the box to automatically open the bathroom door.  This was very helpful and made it easier to get in and use the wheelchair stall inside.  The main floor also had a touch-screen directory where you can find information about the hotel and what’s nearby and things to do in Toronto.  It was easy to use despite having a wheelchair to maneuver around the screen.  The row of computers next to it was a great idea and free to use but I have my own tablet and didn’t need to use the computers.  After checking in, there were lots of people waiting for the elevators but we saw a sign saying people were encouraged to use the service elevators to get to their floors.  I thought that was really nice since it reduced wait times.

easy to use touch screen directory

was great to use the service elevator

We then looked at our room and saw that it was really accessible and had a big bathroom with a roll-in shower.  The room only had 1 bed but we were given a free cot to use since we asked nicely.  It was a nice size room and I have no complaints.  The top floor was home to the spa, gym, pool, hot tub, sauna and outdoor terrace.  I never used the spa but the gym was accessible to get to.  There was even a ramp to get outside to the terrace.  The hot tub and pool had no wheelchair ramp or pool lift so I did not bother trying to use them.  There was also a sauna that was located in each locker room but the door to it was quite tight and I had a tough time getting into the locker room using my powerchair.  Once inside I couldn’t even get in the dry sauna room anyways since the door was too narrow.  It didn’t bother me since the whole pool/gym area was already really warm and I enjoyed hanging out there.

nice roll-in shower

After checking out the hotel, we wanted to check out the surrounding area.  I was shocked to see how close everything was.  Just around the corner was Yonge and Gerrard street.  There were so many shops and restaurants including Mc Donald’s, Swiss Chalet and the Eaton Center.  Since we were downtown, the sidewalks had curb ramps and I was comfortable travelling in my powerchair.  Chinatown, CN Tower, The Village were all within a 30 minute walk radius and that made the Chelsea Hotel such a great choice.  We were definitely impressed with the accessibility and the hotel itself and it made our vacation a great one.  We would definitely stay here again and highly recommend it to everyone either disabled or not.  Check out their website to book your hotel stay now

wave your hand in front of box to open door