Wheelchair Travel Adventures

Thursday, September 17, 2015

National Museum of American History: Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction, 1780-1910

Date of Visit: September 16, 2015

The "Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction, 1780-1910" exhibit features examples of science fiction literature and explores how developments in science influenced fiction. It was interesting how it was organized by chapters with each featuring some examples of different types of science fiction, such as Chapter 1: Terra Incognita about unknown lands and Chapter 5: Rise of Machines that included Tik Tok from the Oz books. Mik particularly enjoyed looking at the various illustrations that were on display.

Destination Info:
National Museum of American History
1400 Constitution Ave NW
Washington DC

Metro Accessibility Note: Closest metro station is Federal Triangle (Blue/Orange/Silver). Smithsonian (Blue/Orange/Silver) is often also recommended as nearby for this museum and if you take the escalator exit it probably is closer or same distance as Federal Triangle, but the elevator is several blocks further, so Federal Triangle is definitely closest if you are exiting Metro via elevator. Of course, we are always partial to Archives (Yellow/Green) since it's a shorter train ride for us to take Yellow instead of Blue into D.C. and it's only a little more walking.

National Archives: Spirited Republic Exhibit

Date of Visit: September 16, 2015

Now that summer is over and the crowds are slim to none again, we finally got to the National Archives to see the "Spirited Republic: Alcohol in American History" temporary exhibit. While the exhibit was a good brief timeline history of alcohol in American history with most of the focus on temperance and the Prohibition era, it was overall kind of disappointing.

I guess we mainly were disappointed because we tend to find the temporary exhibits here very interesting and this time it wasn't anything new to learn. However, it also seemed kind of limited in artifacts on display. Obviously as an Archives exhibit, the majority of items on display are always documents, but there is still usually more variety to types of documents along with artifacts either from the Archives collection or on loan from other places (often Smithsonian). This time it just seemed very heavy on letters and in particular it seems there could've been more of the patent and advertisement things. There were some items, but it was mainly just a drunkometer, which was actually very interesting.

Still worth a quick visit to the National Archives, especially since there was pretty much no other visitors making it easy to see everything at your own pace even if there really wasn't that much to see.

Destination Info:
National Archives
Constitution Ave NW (between 7th & 9th Avenue)
Washington, DC

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Hyatt Place Anaheim Resort/Convention Center: ADA King w/ Roll-In Shower

Date of Visit: August 10-17, 2015

The ADA King room with roll-in shower was mostly as we've come to expect a Hyatt Place room to be like. You have the king bed and then the fold out sofa bed in the sitting room like area. The one thing, though, is only has one television. Not really a big deal, but even a standard room at most Hyatt Places we've stayed at have the bed and the sofa area a little more separate and a TV in each area. Of course, the specialty room upgrade did sort of spoil us last time.

One major issue with the room was the bathroom. Sure, it has the accessible features one would expect, but it's very poorly laid out with the toilet behind the door. This means you have to roll the chair into the shower and then close the door to be able to put the chair next to the toilet and transfer. If I remember correctly, the specialty room we had last time actually had a pocket door for the bathroom, so really annoys us that this hotel does have some well designed accessible bathrooms and then also one of the worst we've ever encountered.

About the only part of the bathroom Mik actually liked was the sink area as it was very easy to roll up to and use.

The shower was to some extent one of the best we've encountered while also being one of the worst. The good thing was it was well designed in that the water stayed in the shower and drained well. It was bad in that it did not have anywhere to set the soap. Putting the shampoo and conditioner on the ground isn't a big deal, but a soap bar turns into a mushy mess at best or gets stuck to ground at worst. Also, it does not have a seat. Now that doesn't mean they don't have them, as when we stayed in the room with a tub they had left a tub seat. We didn't ask because Mik preferred to just be on the ground anyways.

The toilet and the door situation was what really made the bathroom an issue. That and the fact the toilet seats pop off very easily, but we had the same problem last time, although this time it happened way more often.

Overall the room was comfortable and the front desk staff are friendly and helpful. I definitely will not be choosing a roll-in shower at this particular Hyatt Place again, though, as the awkward layout got annoying. Also, next time I will be complaining if we get such poor cleaning service again (room wasn't cleaned when we returned after 4:30 p.m. and items weren't restocked multiple days even when they did get around to cleaning it).

Read our more detailed review of Hyatt Place Anaheim Resort/Convention Center here.

Destination Info:
Hyatt Place Anaheim Resort/Convention Center

2035 S. Harbor Blvd.

Anaheim, CA 92802

Monday, August 17, 2015

D23 Expo 2015: Disney Interactive Presentation

Date of Visit: August 16, 2015

The Disney Interactive presentation was the one Mik was most looking forward to because he knew they were going to talk about Star Wars: Battlefront. He was also interested in Kingdom Hearts 3 and Star Wars coming to Disney Infinity with the 3.0 Edition of the game. Plus, there was a giveaway at the end, which ended up being a Mickey figure and a D23 Expo exclusive King Mickey power disc for Disney Infinity 3.0.

Getting to the presentation ended up being a disaster. We kept asking to go to the Sorcerer queue and they sent us downstairs, which we hadn't had to do any of the other Hall 23 presentations. Downstairs they tried to convince us it was free for all and not only was there no Sorcerer line, but there never had been such a thing for the Hall 23 presentations. Thus, we headed back up the elevator to find someone who knew what was actually going on. Good thing we were very early, though, and even wasting 15 minutes with the runaround, we were second in line and got front row for the presentation that mattered most to Mik.

If only, that was the end of the disaster for this presentation. At the end of the presentation, they had the stars from the new Star Wars movie giveaway signed Disney Infinity figures of them. They came down the aisle where Mik was on the end to give them to some kids a few rows back and the cameraman followed them without paying attention to his cord and it got caught on Mik's chair (and was basically in his lap) and he got really freaked because it did start to tip back. Thankfully, that was the last presentation because he may have been hesitant to do another one after that experience.

Overall, though, he really loved the presentation and seeing the game concept art and footage on the big screens. However, it was kind of odd they only used the side screens and not the middle screen for a lot of the footage and it was a little hard for him to turn sideways enough to view those screens.

Kingdom Hearts 3