Alex from Quad Life blog is guest posting today sharing his recent stay at Seastar accessible holiday cottage. This wheelchair accessible cottage provides fantastic accessibility and the location looks beautiful.
Seastar accessible holiday cottage
I spent this past Christmas away for the first time in an accessible holiday cottage. The cottage is located in the Kent seaside town of Deal, and its name is Seastar.
Seastar is a five-bedroom house with two floors. The accessible bedroom and two other bedrooms are on the ground floor, and a master bedroom is upstairs.
As it was Christmas the owners put up some festive decorations around the house, which made it look nice.
I used the accessible bedroom on the ground floor, which contained a ceiling hoist, profile bed, a spacious ensuite wet room, and plenty of room to manoeuvre. There was also a lift in this room providing access to upstairs. A commode shower chair was available to use, and luckily it was the same as the one I use at home.
The living room is on the first floor with an open plan kitchen/dining room. The living room has wide windows providing a spectacular view of the sea. They have a widescreen TV, DVD player, as well as Netflix and catch up services. So there is a good number of options for entertainment.
Outside the kitchen patio doors, there is a decked area overlooking the beach. It will be nice to sit there in the summer watching the waves crashing on the shore. The house is quite literally a stone’s throw from the beach. It is a shingle beach and unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be very accessible. It has a few undulating slopes on it which would probably make it difficult to traverse even in a beach wheelchair.
At the front of the house, there is a small driveway that is big enough for one car. However, there is enough space to park other cars on the side of the street.
Local Area and Attractions
As it was cold and the Christmas period I didn’t go out many times. For a few days, I stayed at home and socialised with my family. We also had Christmas dinner in a hotel nearby which was very nice. It makes a nice change, as there was no washing up to do.
I visited a couple of local castles which were built by Henry VIII. The first one was Deal Castle but the wheelchair access here was very bad. I could get into the outer ring of the castle which is between the walls and the keep.
This area was covered in cobblestones so it was bumpy to drive over. I drove around this area about three times looking for anywhere else I could get in but there was not.
All the doors that led into the keep had steps. I left after about ten minutes, but thankfully they let me in for free anyway. I wouldn’t recommend this attraction for wheelchair users.
Disappointed, I then headed on to the nearby Walmer Castle, which has much better access and is a more interesting place. All sorts of famous people from history have enjoyed staying at Walmer Castle including Winston Churchill, the Duke of Wellington, William Pitt the Younger, the Queen Mother, and numerous others.
The rooms in this castle were renovated to make them more homely by its many residents over the years. Unfortunately, I can only access the rooms on the ground floor as they didn’t have a lift.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed listening to the audio guide which gave lots of interesting information about all the rooms. I could still get information about the rooms upstairs from the audio guide even though I couldn’t physically visit them. So I didn’t feel too left out.
Interesting fact: William Pitt the Younger became Britain’s youngest ever Prime Minister at the tender age of 24.
Usually, my hearing loss makes it difficult to understand audio guides. But happily, I managed to understand most of what the audio guide was saying, which is a rarity.
Final Thoughts
Seastar is a fantastic place to go on holiday for wheelchair users. The house has everything I need and is also in a fantastic location. It’s perfect for the summer holidays as it’s literally right next to the beach. In fact, I will be going back there in August so I am really looking forward to that.
If you are a wheelchair user I fully recommend going to Seastar. There is room for eight people so you can bring friends and family too. But just a word of warning: you have to book early. For the summer we had to book 18 months in advance due to high demand. It shows you how popular the place is!
To read more about Alex’s adventures, head over to his Quad Life Blog and follow him on the following links:
Website – quadlifeblog.com
Facebook – @AlexSquireBlog
Twitter – @AlexSquire22
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Feature image courtesy Kings Holiday Cottages
4 Responses
Wow, thank you so much. What a fabulous and unexpected write up on our lovely holiday cottage; Seastar.
I’m so pleased you enjoyed this review. It has been a pleasure to feature Alex’s review of your lovely holiday cottage. It really is beautiful 🙂
Seastar certainly is beautiful, and the accessible features are great. And do I understand correctly that the master was actually accessible by lift?! I am constantly frustrated that virtually all ‘accessible’ vacation properties I find–on the East Coast of the U.S., anyway–are only accessible to one floor. The master bedroom always seems to be inaccessible to me, which drives me nuts because I AM the Master/Mistress! Why should somebody else get to stay in the (presumably) largest and nicest bedroom, particularly if I’m paying for the place? I will definitely keep Seastar in mind if I find myself looking to book holiday accommodations in Kent!
PS–GORGEOUS sunset shot, Alex! 🙂
Hi Heather. Thank you for your comment and I’m so glad you enjoyed this review from Alex of his stay at Seastar. Yes that is correct, the master room is accessible by the lift. Fantastic isn’t it? I hope you manage to make it over for a stay sometime soon 🙂 Thanks again and have a lovely weekend.