London Stansted Airport

I use a wheelchair as I cannot walk more than 5 steps without an aid, and cannot stand for more than 5 seconds unaided - On my way to Valencia: We went to the assisted travel desk where we were immediately taken to bag check (the guy wasn't really sure where he was going as he was new but he was lovely and we had loads of spare time so didnt mind - everyone has to learn their job at some point!). After bag check it was security which was fine (except, if you can stand for only short periods, do not get up out of your chair. I thought it would be seconds I needed to be stood up for but they took a few minutes. I asked if I could sit down but they said no). This was our first time using assisted travel so we weren't really sure what to do after that as we said we were fine to be left on our own through duty free. We found our gate and sat by that for the rest of the time and when our gate was being boarded, workers helped us and another couple in wheelchairs down to the airplane. That's when my experience got bad. I can't go up stairs, and baring in mind these stairs are STEEP too. I was told to walk up the stairs and when I said I can't, I was offered a workers hand which actually didnt help at all. I was crying in pain by the time I got to my seat. On the way home: I was not offered the ambulift, I asked for it as I was put down as a "runner" (that wording isn't even slightly funny, but it's apparently the terminology they use), and it would be a 30 - 45 minute wait for the ambulift. I don't like to hold people up so my husband ended up carrying me down the stairs. We were wheeled round to a disabled entrance and told to skip the line of people who had been waiting for an hour so of course they were grumpy with us (I felt so bad, but we were just ushered through. Great for us, but I just felt bad those people had to wait and I didn't. I still dont know what it was all about). We followed all signs for disabled people and then met our relatives at bag check. Overall a great service provided, but it has hiccups and isnt as plain sailing as you would expect.

I dropped my sister at Stansted airport and saw what the departures area looked like up to security. I also used one of the short stay car parks while I was there. The road signs were very clear and I found it easy to locate the area with the short stay car parks. There are five different car parks within the short stay parking area, each has a different colour assigned to it. The road signs have a wheelchair symbol for the ones that have accessible parking, which seemed to be all of them except Red. However, according to the Stansted airport website, only Orange and Green have accessible parking bays. You can prebook parking on the Stansted Airport website and this may make the trip cheaper than just turning up on the day. Another thing I noticed was that on the website the Red, Orange and Yellow car parks are marked as "Premium" as they are closer to the terminal. However, this isn't made clear when you arrive at the car parks. As a result, I ended up parking in the Orange car park and paying £18 for just over 30 minutes. I was also disappointed with the amount of accessible bays within the car park. As the car park closest to the terminal I would have expected a lot more in this car park especially. However, there was only half a row that had been made into accessible bays and there were a total of 28 rows of parking bays in the car park. I was lucky that I got the last bay available when I arrived but by the time I was leaving there were people waiting for accessible bays to become available. As I didn't see any of the other car parks, I'm not sure if there are more spaces in the others or not. The short stay car park are in the middle of three levels. Below is the train station where the Stansted Express departs and arrives and above is the main terminal. There are escalators and lifts available to travel between each of the floors. I saw at least three lifts which were all spacious and would have been able to accommodate a decent amount of people at one time. The main terminal is not too large and most of the signage is very clear. As it's a small terminal there isn't signage to direct you to each airlines check-in area. However, they are all branded either with the screens behind the desks or some even have large banners and other branding that makes it easy to spot and identify. I didn't see any lowered check-in desks, they all seemed fairly high and would have required me to move to the side to be able to speak to the agent. The signage in the terminal was very clear. The signs were overhead with large font and symbols alongside the writing. The assistance area was very noticeable as it was branded with lots of purple colouring. It was a large area with seating, wheelchairs and a lowered desk where the staff were available. I noticed that some of the other counters in the terminal also had lowered counters, such as the main money exchange counter. Heading towards security, the terminal did get a lot busier as this was where most people were heading towards. I found it slightly harder to navigate this area due to the amount of people, especially as many of them were looking at overhead signage so often didn't notice me due to being lower down. The area for assisted check-in was clearly marked and was next to the main security barriers so it was very easy to locate. It seemed like it was quieter and calmer than the main security barriers. Overall, I found the main terminal easy to navigate although very busy in certain areas. I was disappointed with the accessible parking though.