The Reef View Hotel, Hamilton Island, QLD (Ngaro Country)- Accessibility Review

Leanne’s view from the balcony of the accessible room of the reef view hotel

As I wrote about in my Hamilton Island Achievement I had the opportunity to accompany Gaz on a work conference to tropical far North Queensland. I jumped at the chance and The Reef View Hotel was the accommodation of choice.

I hadn’t stayed in many accessible hotel rooms since I have been wheeling and I recall this hotel being reviewed by one of my favourite accessible travel bloggers  - Have Wheelchair Will Travel.  I was very impressed by what I saw as a truly accessible room yet disappointingly, as I found out later, this is the only one they offer in their 359 room establishment. That’s less than .3% accessible accommodation available which is a long way under the percentage of disabled travellers of around 10%-15%.

I called to ensure that this accessible room was available and booked us in via phone, as like so many hotels there is no mention at all of the accessible rooms or features of the hotel on their website. I knew I was to be on my own for the most part of our stay and would have much preferred to take my power chair but as we were flying on a smaller aircraft we weren’t able to fit it in the hold - even with a full-tilt which lowers the height space required.

Hamilton Island’s geography is quite hilly and not naturally accessible to all. The Reef View Hotel has had to work with its geographic limitations to make its hotel as easy as possible for all to traverse.

The foyer is accessed by a handy ramp cut out at the side of the staired front entrance amongst the beautiful vegetation.

Once inside there is a sloped floor to the open reception area and off to the right are the lifts. The ground level breakfast area is also ramped. The glass-walled lifts have a button panel on which many of the buttons cannot be reached by a seated person. At least the view is nice once you are on your way!

From the foyer and past the lifts is the popular and large bar room that is unfortunately only accessible by stairs at both public entry points and the one staff door. I was happy to be able to overcome this shocking development as I write about it here.

 All the rooms are accessed by outside undercover walkways with the accessible room being closest to the lifts. This proximity to the lifts is handy for that mobility impaired of us but also means that the sound of their operations is like a constant rumbling of trams from a not too far distance. As this occurs mostly during the day it didn’t worry us too much.

The external door to the accessible room is brilliantly opened electronically from the outside and also activated from inside by a low height press button – such a great step towards independent room use. I would LOVE to see this in every accommodation place.

The main room and the bathroom are both amazingly spacious and well equipped. The large cupboard sports not only the standard inclusions such as an iron and ironing board but a lift hoist and sling too. The hotel also provides 5 rollators now for guests incidentally.

As I can only stand supported I required a standing hoist (not the lift hoist provided) and was able to hire that from the mainland along with a wheeled shower/commode. The hotel’s concierge team were happy to liaise with the barge company and offered complimentary transport of my hire equipment to the Island which was terrific as the hire cost was significant.

The main room and bathroom are very spacious with room for extra equipment and power points available for recharging power chairs. There is room under the bed for hoist transfers and a flush transfer from the room to the balcony with a sliding door that wasn’t as heavy as some to manually open. The table provided is easy to roll under as is part of the bench in the bedroom area.

The bathroom was easy to use with the option of a pull-down shower seat and handrails, a large space for a shower/commode and the accessible “must-have” – a handheld hose. The toilet had great fold-away handles for support but also had enough space around it to wheel a commode chair over the bowl. The roll-under basin was ideal with swing-away extra shelving for your toiletries. A bit of bench space for make-up application would have been a handy inclusion the table in the main room suited very well.

Overall this room was happily the most accessible room I had seen and has the option of a connecting room for carers or other family members.

Happy accessible travelling,