Santa Monica is my happy place in Los Angeles. I’ve stayed in the area with a friend, we’ve made it our base as a family and on my recent trip to Los Angeles I stayed on my own. I booked a night at the end of the convention so I could reboot before heading home. And Santa Monica is a great spot to reboot. The relaxed beach vibe is just what I needed to refresh me before returning home to the family. As always, I was keen to review another hotel for Have Wheelchair Will Travel so I checked into the accessible room at Ocean View Hotel.
Located on Ocean Avenue opposite Santa Monica Beach, this hotel is in an ideal position to access all the nearby attractions. I loved the easy walk to the beach, pier and the Third Street Promenade shopping precinct.
Ramp access to the hotel’s reception is available to the left of the stairs pictured above.
Ocean View hotel is a small boutique hotel of 67 rooms. The hotel staff are friendly, welcoming and were helpful during my stay.
ACCESSIBLE ACCOMMODATION
Lift access is available and timber floors make it easy to wheel to the accessible room. I’m always happy not to be right next to the lift due to noise so I didn’t mind the fact my room was the furthest from the lift, but this does mean more wheeling or walking.
Looking at the room from a wheelchair user’s perspective I found it compact and felt it had some challenges. The bed is quite high at a height of 72cm and the base of the bed is solid though slightly recessed.
One side of the bed offers plenty of room to transfer from a wheelchair to the bed but on the other side there is only a clearance of 63cm to the cabinet.
The bed was extremely comfortable and the room was ideal for my needs but I do feel that the available space would be limiting for some guests with larger wheelchairs.
ACCESSIBLE BATHROOM
A sliding door with a clearance of 75cm provides access to the accessible bathroom.
My favourite feature of the accessible bathroom is the automatic lights which illuminate the room on entry. It was somewhat like a surprise party at night when I got up to the toilet and in my daze forgot about the auto lights!
The bathroom sink is wheelchair accessible and fitted with lever taps. Grab rails surround the toilet and are placed in various positions throughout the bathroom.
A flip-down shower bench is provided in the shower which also includes a height adjustable hand held shower head. There’s also an overhead large shower head. Clearance into the shower recess is 88 cm.
Please note the hanging rack in the wardrobe is at a regular height and not lowered.
ADDITIONAL ACCESSIBLE FACILITIES
Visual alarm for hearing impaired
Visual alarms for hearing impaired in hallways
Visual alarms for hearing impaired in public areas
Braille elevator
Braille room numbers
Service support animals welcome at no additional charge
Strobe alarms
Van-accessible parking
Alarms – Audible
Alarms – Visual Strobe
Closed captioning on televisions
Ocean View Hotel embraces its beach location with touches throughout the room including the bathroom amenities and the quirky do not disturb and cleaning signs on the door.
Ocean View was the ideal base for my stay with its fantastic location. I shopped till I dropped in Third Street Promenade, enjoyed the fun of Santa Monica Pier and walked from Santa Monica to Venice Beach. The hotel organised a car service to take me to the airport on my check out and this was at the same fixed rate as the local taxis but much more comfortable.
I was a paying guest at Ocean View Hotel and found it good value for money. You can read more about Ocean View Hotel on their website.
SANTA MONICA – VENICE BEACH
While I enjoyed walking Santa Monica to Venice Beach, our kids loved taking an Awesome Pedicab. You can read about our experience here.
If you’re visiting Santa Monica in summer, stop by Perry’s to borrow one of their beach wheelchairs. They are free to borrow, you just need to provide a driver’s licence for security.
We were thrilled to have the opportunity to meet one of our Facebook families for an afternoon of fun while we were in Santa Monica on our last family visit. There was a lot of chatting, comparing of healthcare services and of course a play at the all abilities park which is classified as Santa Monica but is pretty close to the Venice Beach border. We were walking for quite a while.
I think they could have done more with this park for children who need to remain in their wheelchairs but that is a common problem with playgrounds. Our little Facebook friends seemed to have lots of fun and it was great sharing the adventure with them.
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