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Charlie... What a horrible, frustrating, and de-humanizing experience to have been forced to suffer thru. And as you noted, it might have been a physically dangerous one had your basic health (exclusive of the PD) been poor or had you been a senior with more brittle bones. To add insult to injury the Hyatt administration apparently IGNORES your message and doesn't even respond to you! UN-believable!!!! SHAME on that particular Hyatt! SHAME!! M'dear friend... have you thought of going to the national level of Hyatt administration with a statement? That certainly seems to be called for in this case! It might be the time to wave the banner of the Americans With Disabilities Act (that usually "toothless wonder" CAN have clout upon occasion, just by the mere mention of it's name - odd, but of benefit to know) Another thing you might mention to Hyatt, Charlie, EVEN if you don't ACTUALLY do this, is that you're Internet/Web-savvy and will make a POINT of posting a message on the Internet/Web specially concerning this one incidence with the Hyatt organization. Let them know that there are THOUSANDS of medical and disease-related Internet/Web sites reaching the WORLD-WIDE disabled community that will carry your message to those who need to be appraised of a place when they're not well treated. Hyatt MUST be made to know that it wasn't JUST you - ONE individual with a chronic disease - that they caused injury to, but thousands in the USA alone. AND they must be made to UNDERSTAND that while those of us having a chronic disease MAY be invisible to THEM, none the less, we are NOT invisible in real life, we DO have money to spend, and after you've posted about Hyatt's mal-treatment of you on the Internet, Hyatt WILL feel the FINANCIAL clout born of the thoughtless act of the Hyatt that didn't accommodate YOU as you needed to be due to your being a person with a debilitating chronic disease. As many here have done for Ivan S. in his battle with the Parkinson's Organization (I forget which org. it was), I'm sure many of your List brethren will be happy to send Hyatt a letter stating that letting them know that due to their thoughtless treatment and neglect of responding to your letter directed to them, WE will not be staying at Hyatt-owned facilities in the future! Let's see what they say when we put our money where out mouth is! BIG hug at ya.... Barb Mallut [log in to unmask] ---------- From: Parkinson's Information Exchange on behalf of Charles T. Meyer Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 1997 11:19 AM To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN Subject: Hotels not honoring reservation for handicapped room I had an experience several weeks ago which I would like to share with the list and find out whether it is unique to this particular Hyatt ( at University Village) or generalizes to other Hyatts or other chains. I was denied a room at this hotel which I was counting on in spite of the knowledge that I was handicapped and had confirmed the reservation the morning of the day I was to stay there. The reservation had been made and guaranteed a month prior to the scheduled stay. What follows are excerpts of a letter I wrote to the CEO of Hyatt explaining the facts as I see them: ...I am a 52 year old physician with Parkinson's disease. For the past five or six years I have been a patient at the Movement Disorders Clinic at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago. We (my wife and I) come in from Madison, Wisconsin the night before my scheduled appointments and until recently looked forward to our stay at the Inn at University Village... ...Because the Hyatt is the only hotel convenient to Rush and our need for handicapped accessible van service (and a positive relationship with the service staff), we continued to return for our visits every several months.,, ...On the morning of our scheduled stay at about 9 AM, I called the hotel from home to confirm my reservation I was assured that the reservation was confirmed. The handicapped accessible room was guaranteed on my credit card. (If I didn't show I wonder how much extra would have been made through the double booking and the collection of the guarantee). We arrived about 7:45 PM, only to be told that the hotel was sold out- no excuses about errors being made just the statement that they had no rooms. We were told that they would put us up at their expense at the Hyatt on Printers Row about a mile away. The manager's attitude appeared to be "What are you complaining about? You are getting a free room." I strongly protested since in addition to the inconvenience of the situation I would need to go to the doctor the next morning not having taken my medication and my mobility would be even more impaired than usual. It was a moot point since there were no rooms except two conference rooms with roll away beds. Desperately, I even went upstairs in my wheelchair to examine those rooms only to find a suite set up for a 9:00 AM conference with large boardroom-like tables occupying the vast majority of the space in the room. Also, there was no way I would be able to get my chair into the bathroom. Having no choice we agreed to be taken by van to the other Hyatt and the manager agreed to have a van with a wheelchair lift at Printers Row at 8:40 AM. Upon arrival that evening our first risky situation occurred. I was able to climb out of my wheelchair and into the front seat of the van. However since the Printers' Row Hyatt's entrance was on the left side of a one way street, I had to climb down from the van and get into my wheelchair in a lane of moving traffic at the usual slow pace that my illness limits me to. That was a risky situation but fortunately there was no problem which resulted. That unfortunately was not the case the next day. The next morning we were picked up by the (only remaining) Inn van, driven by ... who we knew well. As predicted because I had not taken medications I required the wheelchair lift. ... struggled with the seatbelt locking mechanism repeatedly asking whether it was OK and then closed the back of the van. He started moving and after a few seconds when he accelerated the seatbelt slipped and the wheelchair flipped over backward and I laid in the cage-like mechanism helpless in my chair on my back with my feet up in the air. Eugene stopped the van and got the chair upright. My wife was terrified and poor Eugene who has always been extremely helpful caring and competent was extremely upset and blurted out - that he had not been told that this was a wheelchair patient and he had reported earlier that the safety device was malfunctioning. He said that if he knew this was a wheelchair run he might have been able to fix the problem at least temporarily. Fortunately except for a slight bump to the head (more frightening because I had brain surgery last year) I was uninjured and left with only a slight residual headache which went away in a few hours. If my surgery was more recent or if I was elderly, had a bad heart or fragile bones the result would undoubtedly have been catastrophic... I share this information for several reasons. To find out whether there is a pattern here and to warn others to watch out for similar situations. One other piece of information- I faxed Hyatt 2 weeks ago and have not even received acknowledgment that it was received. -- CHARLES T. MEYER, M.D. Middleton, WI [log in to unmask]