The Welcome Inn at ART B&B in Blackpool, England shows what hotel rooms look like for people with disabilities

With fantasy and wit, this hotel room shows the difficulties of traveling with a disability.

Whether it’s quickly jumping off a train or slaloming through busy streets in a bustling neighborhood, I’ve always taken my mobility for granted. I rarely think about what my travel experiences would be like if my mobility were compromised. How would my ability to climb an ancient hill or climb the steps of a medieval castle suddenly be limited? For all the filibuster spirit that fills us as we rush out of an airport and into a thrilling new city, we don’t often stop to consider that the act of traveling isn’t for everyone. At least not in the same way.

Located in the British coastal town of Blackpool and designed by Leicester-based artist Christopher Samuel, the Welcome Inn room (ironically titled) at ART B&B offers a humorous yet stimulating window into the world of travel with a disability. Opened in 2020 and eschewing what you might expect from a typical hotel, each room at ART B&B is designed by a different artist. The bedrooms are unique, exploring everything from wild abstract ceiling panels to colorful art deco murals that celebrate the faded glamor of Blackpool’s former life as the country’s premier entertainment hub. Samuel’s room, however, offers a very different experience.

While the website reassuringly proclaims that everything is working properly in the Welcome Inn room, some of its features seemed so diabolically boring that my curiosity was piqued enough to visit and see the notorious room for myself, in all its glory. infuriating. As I walked up the old Victorian stairs from ART B&B to the Welcome Inn room, I was ominously reminded that Samuel, who uses an electric wheelchair, cannot see the room he designed.

“As someone who normally avoids hotels due to my high access needs, I was forced to experience what it’s like to face access barriers in a place where a lot of people go to relax and enjoy,” Samuel explained, just before the hotel opened. “That, in turn, got me interested in what the hotel experiences of other people with disabilities might be, something I want to tell through this installation.”

The first thing you notice upon entering the Welcome Inn room is the three-foot-tall lip encircling the bed like a moat, making it difficult to cross. In fact, as I discovered the next morning, “getting out of bed” is so far impossible, and some degree of physical strength is required to clumsily slip in and out of his comfortable chest. It’s also a pretty little room, which only magnifies its myriad downsides.

I couldn’t help laughing when I saw the flat screen TV facing away from the bed and facing the mirror on the side wall. If you want to watch anything on the TV, you can either squint at the less-than-ideal part of the available screen, or look at it through the mirror, which, while perfectly fine, becomes quickly weird.

Equally fun are the bedside lamps that hang from the ceiling to a point well below the bed, rendering them virtually useless for reading. The light switches are also at an extremely low level. With the usual switches covered, I had to bend over and almost reach the ground to use the working ones.

” Surface, [the room is] quite playful and theatrical,” says Samuel. “But it’s real.”

It doesn’t get any more real than the bathroom and its atrocious layout, where the privacy you usually take for granted just isn’t an option. The design of the small bathroom is such that any attempt to close the door is met with a thud as it collides with the toilet bowl, leaving the bathroom wide open for all to see. Luckily I was on my own but suffice it to say that any couple wishing to spend a night in this room will need to be very comfortable with each other.

Unlike the switches installed at the foot of the door, the bathroom sink is placed a little too high for comfort. This height dynamic is something Samuels liked to play with in his design.

“Anyone in a wheelchair will know that when we go to places that have tables and chairs, most of the time you can’t get under them, or they’ll be too high, or there’s a bar in the middle of the table, so you have to position yourself on the side,” says Samuel. “It’s little things like that.”

Although Samuel knows these kinds of daily struggles all too well, it made me reconsider what I would usually consider an irritation during a hotel stay and how frivolous they were.

Perhaps one of the most telling parts of the Welcome Inn bedroom experience was the relentless effort of energy climbing in and out of bed through that three-foot lip. More than anything, it was the physical effort to do something that seems so rudimentary in life. Having a glass of water before going to bed has turned into a very frustrating activity. It made me want to be more sedentary – a feeling I rarely have – making me belatedly feel grateful for the mobility I have.

The Welcome Inn is not a house designed to garner 5 star reviews, but it makes its point with wit and warmth. As boring as it may be, it changed my perspective on the physical nature of travel and the barriers to accessibility that many people face. And for that, I am grateful.