A Guide to Hotels with Disabled, Wheelchair and Limited Mobility Accessibility in Barcelona

We need intros that follow our site formula as discussed previously.
We need to give information on what this research project was about. What was the point? What criteria you used to access the hotels? What factors did you take into consideration? What measurements did you make? All of this is very important information that should be presented first. How many hotels you accessed?

In this article I will provide an overview to nine of Barcelona’s hotels that I visited to review specifically from the point of view of a disabled or limited mobility traveller. I visited the hotels listed below and assessed how they are adapted at the entrance, the lifts, the bedrooms, the ensuite bathrooms and in their public areas. See below (under ‘Links to Hotel Reviews’) for a list of the hotels that I visited.

At the entrance I checked for ramps if there were steps and their width. I also check what sort of doors there were.

At the lift I measured its dimensions, checked for raised numbers on the buttons and verbal announcements at the stops.

In regards to the hotel’s public area (e.g. dining areas and swimming pools) I checked for wheelchair accessibility.

In the guestrooms I checked for measurements of space around and underneath the beds, height of wardrobe rails and width of entrance doors.

In the bathrooms I checked for access level showers, handrails, mirror and sink heights, bath grab bars and emergency telephones.

Barcelona is beginning to gain a reputation as being a city with impressive accessibility for wheelchair and scooter users. It is, therefore, a viable option for a holiday if you are on the look out for somewhere convenient if you are disabled or have limited mobility. I interviewed the owners of Cosmoscooter who gave me an overview to accessibility in Barcelona. They put me in contact with Accessible Travel regarding tourism for disabled travellers to Barcelona. My research led me to discover that there is alack of trust regarding information provided on the internet as to accessible hotels.

I visited ten hotels to find out exactly what their facilities for disabled people were like. The results were mixed – some provided only the bare minimum required for disabled travellers, whilst others provided that little bit extra. However, hopefully the detailed information that we have discovered will help you in making a decision when choosing a hotel.

Finding Adapted Accommodation on the Internet

When searching for a hotel on the internet you will find that most claim to be wheelchair accessible in their list of ‘services’. It is very important to look more closely into this. If you cannot find further information online, call the hotel and ask them the questions that we asked when reviewing hotels (see below).

Star ratings for Hotels with Adapted Facilities

As mentioned by Victor from Cosmoscooter in his interview, being disabled or limited mobility can often be expensive. On doing some initial research into affordable hotels it was virtually impossible to find any hostals or one and two star hotels with adapted facilities in Barcelona.

Strangely, there can also be problems with the most luxurious hotels - many of the five star hotels, including the newer ones, do not provide the requisite facilities. Hotels in the three star – four star superior categories are most likely to offer disabled facilities.

Links to Hotel Reviews:

Here you will find links to the reviews that we have completed of hotels, looking in particular at their disabled facilities. I have covered issues including the entrance, ramps, lifts, bedroom space and bathrooms. It is worth checking the details provided to see if anything meets your needs:

Hotel AB Viladomat
Gran Torre Catalunya
Hilton Diagonal Mar
Hilton Maria Cristina
Hotel Paral.lel
Hotel Husa Mar
Hotel Husa L’Illa
Hotel Rafael

We are very interested to expand on this area of the site and would be grateful to hear from anybody who has suggestions or comments about hotels that they found particularly good (or particularly terrible!).

All in all, Barcelona is a changing city, facilities for wheelchair users are constantly improving. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Hopefully in the coming years we will see an increasing number of hotels improve their disabled facilities.

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