Interested to know if I made a bad choice and need to consider more carefully where I visit in future?
I'm a wheelchair user, using a smallish, lightweight carbon-fibre power chair in the scenario described here. I visited the Science Museum in London yesterday with my DH. He had to be in London fairly early in the morning and then again later in the evening, with around 9 hours to spare in between. As it was a bank holiday, we arranged for me to go with him so we could spend the day together, while we had the rare chance of a few hours off at the same time.
Despite having lived in London for many, many years (we no longer do), neither of us had ever been to the Science Museum, so we decided to visit yesterday.
My, what a mistake! First of all, I realise it was a bank holiday, and I know the museum's target audience is likely to be families with children, so maybe going yesterday wasn't the smartest idea, but I wasn't prepared for just how difficult it was to navigate.
In the space of 3 hours:
- I clipped the heels of at least 5 people with the front of my chair (adults and kids), because, despite my best efforts to maintain a generous distance between me and anyone in front of me, I can't stop as quickly as someone on foot, and if you stop abruptly, I can't always stop in time
- As a result of the above, I was glared at, tutted at, stared at and on one occasion, I was pretty sure I was sworn at - it wasn't in English, but I felt the wrath in whatever the language was!
- On 3 separate occasions, I was careered into at considerable speed by over-exuberant, out-of-control children. One ran straight into me with such force that he literally landed face down on my lap. One hit his shin on my footplate, and the third one hurtled round a blind bend and ricocheted off the side of my chair. To give them credit, the accompanying adults of two of them were apologetic, but the parent/guardian of the one who hit his leg actually wanted me to go with them to find a member of staff so they could officially report it as an incident and have it recorded in the accident book, 'just in case'. Just in case of what, I'm not sure, as there was no visible mark or bleeding. The same adult also suggested that it wasn't the most ideal place to be in a wheelchair with so many children around.
- If you've visited, you'll know the museum is laid out over 4 floors. There are many sets of stairs scattered around and plenty of lifts, all of which have signs indicating that priority should be given to the elderly, pushchairs, and the less able. I was really surprised by the queues for the lifts whenever we needed to use them, and I'd guess that around 90% of those waiting were families with older children or tweens, with no obvious impediments. Not once did anyone offer to let waiting pushchair owners go in front of them, and the force with which some of the children were pushed towards the lift doors by their adults, as the doors opened, was not pretty to watch. I actually don't give a rat's bum how long I wait for a lift, after all, I'm sitting down. But to encourage your older children to push in front of parents with toddlers and pushchairs is really shitty imo.
It made for a not-very-pleasant few hours, and I felt a bit sad and crap afterwards. What do you think, wise MN'ers? Do I need to pick my venue with more care next time, or should these places be available for all to enjoy without barriers? Granted, it's been a fair few years since I owned children who required parental supervision, but I honestly don't recall ever letting our DC run rampant the way some of them were yesterday.