To gauge what respondents mean by accessible, we asked you to tell us about what’s most important, and gave the following six options:

• Accessible toilets with plenty of space for easy transfers, 165

• Proper bed height, 143

• Roll-in showers, 138

• Accessible parking spaces close to the entrance, 124

• Accessible room close to the elevator or on first floor, 93

• Proper counter height, 60

• Accessible exercise areas, including the pool, 41

We left a space for “other,” and many of you wrote in that you need room to maneuver as well as space under the bed for Hoyer lifts. Our favorite answer under ‘other’ was a person with post-polio who wants to see “staff that can solve problems.”

But then, in order to get at what is absolutely the most crucial accessible feature, we asked you to choose just one. From this we learned that being able to comfortably use the bathroom in a hotel room (75) is more important than using a roll-in shower (61), but proper bed height is a big deal (39). All other features garnered less than 10 responses each.