holidaying in france with disabled child

[markim]

Can anyone out there give me any advice/tips on holidaying in france with a disabled 9 year old in wheelchair. We are thinking about overnight ferry from Portsmouth.

All the ferries I've been on have wheel chair access via lifts from the car deck (inc Portsmouth one). Not sure how you would manage this though as on some ferries (difficult to explain) but the door into the lift area is slighly raised above the deck level so you have to step through.

When I've been a coach passenger disabled travellers have been taken off prior to teh coach emabrking and have been taken onto the ship by other means.

We stayed at a fab campsite which had several people on it with children in wheel chairs. It is Etang de La Breche and is the Loire - just outside Samure. very doable in a day from either Caen or Calais. It is a flat site with some reasonable facilities. The pool complex is a bit small but OK. Also another campsite which I know has a disabled hoist into the pool is Chateaux Les Eaux at Pair Sur Mer which is on the coast where the Cherbourg peninsula meets Brittany - just in Normandy. They have a good covered pool although I would imagine it would be busy in high season. Both of these campsites are Castels campsites and you can either rent their own mobiles some of which will have disabled access or go via Keycamp or Euro camp or take your own tent.

p and v have accessible accommodation at some of their complexes.

If you say you have a wheelchair user when you check in at the port,they will give you a sticker and put you in a different boarding lane,then when you board the ferry you will be told to put your hazard lights on.
This will make sure that you are parked by a lift.
If you book on line some companys ask if you have a disabled passanger.

Just got back from a quick trip to France, although we went Ryanair, not ferries. Something useful to have is some kind of disability proof (I know, the wheelchair should be enough, shouldn't it?) - French people have a "carte d'invalidite" - disability card which gets free or reduced price admission into places - for example, Chateau de chenonceau in the Loire valley, was free for dd and reduced price for 1 carer. I don't know what you could take from the UK - I got a photo id bus pass from the San Diego transit authority (I live in the US) which has dd's photo and 'Handicapped" in large letters. Waved it at the Eiffel Tower last year, and got the whole family (dd, me, 2 siblings and grandparents) right to the front of the hour long queue.
We have stayed in gites in Normandy, Limousin and Loire valley, and just looked for one with a downstairs bathroom & bedroom. If one or two steps within the house are not a problem I can highly recommend a place in Limousin, owned by a british lady.
If you are planning to visit beaches, many coastal touristy places are part of a scheme with vipamat beach wheelchairs - it's a chair that you can roll across the sand and into the water. As I understand it, you leave your chair as a security deposit, and can have the chair for a couple of hours, half a day, depending on how busy they are. the Vipamat website has a map with the towns with chairs.
Other places where it worked out fine to visit with chair - Bayeux tapestry museum - lift available for wheelchairs; Monet's gardens at Giverney - they open a special gate to access the garden which regular people have a tunnel with steps to negotiate. Paris - didn't bother with metro - used "bateaubus" which stops at all major sites along Seine - just a couple of stops have steps, but you can get from Notre Dame to Eiffel Tower on the river, and boat runs into evening.
By the way, Ryanair was great with chair, helpfulness etc - what a pleasant surprise!