18 December 2023 , 10:42
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A Paralympic swimmer was unable to access her first floor Premier Inn bedroom after the hotel's lift broke and they were told there was no where else for her to stay.
Ellie Challis and dad Paul said they waited two hours at the hotel in Romford, east London, but were told no other accommodation could be found so had no other option than to make the four hour, 200-mile journey home to Manchester in the middle of the night.
Premier Inn offered a refund and a complimentary stay, but the 19 year old and her dad felt their offer of a refund was not enough.
Ellie was Great Britain's youngest medallist at Tokyo 2020 when she reached the podium in the Women's S3 50m Backstroke on her Paralympic debut and is still holds the world record. Speaking to the BBC, Ellie said she and her dad became aware of the issue at the hotel late in the evening on Saturday, December 2.
She uses a wheelchair and had booked a standard room for her and her father to stay in, because she often finds the wet rooms in accessible rooms uncomfortable.
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Ellie and her dad had to drive 200 miles in the middle of the night (Daily Mirror)She said: "If I was on my own, I would have been left at 19 to find myself with somewhere to stay at 1am." The swimming star said she was often met with similar obstacles at train stations and while boarding planes. "It is just irritating," she said. "Most of the time I get a 'sorry' that is not really 'sorry', and it is the same next time."
Her father said: "There is no point in saying 'sorry' if you're not going to do something about it in the future. All my fight is to try and get these things cured for the future - not just for Ellie, for anybody, and at the moment these things are going to happen again."
Premier Inn said in a statement: "When a guest books an accessible room, this automatically triggers a pre-stay call to make sure the room booked is the most suitable for them. However, we understand some people with accessibility issues on occasion do prefer to book our standard rooms.
"Where this is the case we have an accessible email helpline, which again helps ensure the room allocated is the best fit for individual needs. In this instance for example, we would have prioritised this booking as a ground floor room so that in rare event an issue with the lift did arise, access would not have caused a problem."