Excellent new hostel with accessible family rooms
4.5
4.5
Date of visit: August 2018
I have experience of challenges around: moving around
Overall Rating
Excellent
Don't bother staying anywhere else if you want to visit Hadrian's Wall as a wheelchair user. This top-end modern hostel is just up the road from the Vindolanda museum and has: en suite private rooms (NB beds are made for you at YHA hostels these days), accessible bathrooms, cafe for breakfast and evening meals, and an accessible landscape discovery centre next door.
Disabled Access In and Around
Good
It's such a relief when a place has been built to high standards with wheelchair access in mind. This recently-opened hostel has step-free access to all areas, with good-quality bathrooms for its accessible rooms and clean, spacious accessible loo in the dining room area. The real winner for me is always when I manage to find a family room with accessible bathroom. During the day, you can visit the landscape discovery centre side of the building, which has a shop selling souvenirs, outdoor clothes and local maps, activity rooms, a lunchtime cafe and a green roof with a rooftop nature walk. There are a couple of reasons I haven't given this five stars, though. The first is that we couldn't get a room with accessible bathroom on the first night of our stay, as it turns out that the accessible rooms aren't necessarily reserved for disabled people - they're also popular with families because they have five beds and an en suite bathroom. I went ahead with an ordinary room for just the one night, but the loo was hard work without rails. The other thing is that when we did move into our accessible room for the rest of our stay, we loved it but I did wonder how it would work in there for someone using a larger wheelchair, because there was a point in the bed layout which was quite tight to get through even with my small three-wheeled rollator walker.
Parking & Transport
Excellent
There's a car park with blue badge spaces outside the hostel and landscape discovery centre (which share the same eco-friendly building). We also saw modern local buses stopping there several times a day.
Accessible Toilets
Excellent
Good clean spacious loos with rails in the en suite bathroom and in the communal dining room.
Staff
Excellent
All friendly and helpful, on the phone and in person.
Additional Information
Here's a tip: YHA hostels have online booking but don't show which of the rooms available are the accessible ones, so call the hostel. Also, book well in advance!
