Hi all, and welcome to another blog post! I know I haven’t been around in a while. But due to the current way the world is right now theatre in genreal has all stop so reviews have also stopped as a result. Hopefully I will be able to get back to writing some more reviews for you all very soon.

It’s All In The Planning!

Once you have given them all the information they need and it is all confirmed then they will send you an email with everything on to refer to should you need to. From my experience it is best to keep this in your inbox on your phone and to hand, as sometimes the indivdal person assisting you might not have been given your seat number or carriage info. In a ideal world they should but it does happen. It is worth noting here, that this DOES NOT London Underground Assistance, if you are going to, travelling through London you will need to seek out Underground staff, sometimes the assistance person who met you off the train will take to someone, but sometimes you might need to do this yourself. Underground staff for me have always been amazing and I can’t fault them in anyway and I have used them for years!

The Actual Travelling

To be honest, for the most part. Travelling normally goes quite well, and everything you booked goes well including train times (although this nation rail we are talking about here) but the odd thing can go wrong. Sometimes, there can be a lack of communication between staff at a certain station, communication between station to station or what type of assistance can be difficult. For example, even though you book the assistance part of your journey weeks in advance, it can be that once you are off the train, no member of staff is there to greet you, or it can be you can be seating there on the train after everyone has gone off and no one has come to help you. I have known people who have been waiting on the platform or on the train for twenty minutes, because nobody has turned up to help them. Believe it or not, this is something that happens a lot. So it could well mean asking for a member of the public to help you. But I am sure many of you are familiar with this, so use your personal judgement when doing this.

If you have seat reservations, then trying to find a seat should be too much of a problem, but trying to find a seat on your own can be challenging. There are ways you can combat this. Depending how confident you are about asking for help, there absolutely nothing wrong in asking someone on the train for help, or asking someone if they will give up their seat. Asking someone to give up there seat is in my experience is the least affective way of finding a seat. Whereas, if you have ask someone for help in finding a seat they will either help you in finding a seat, ask people to give up their seat, or they might even give up thier own depending on if they have gone their good deed for the day or not!

I have personally had to literally sit on the floor in between seating compartments as I haven’t been able to find anywhere to seat. Also a pro tip there, sometimes if you ask a member of staff on the train and say there is no seats available in standard class, and would it be okay to go and sit in first time, sometimes they will let you. Or sometimes if your really lucky Assistance Staff will put in first class themselevs as sometimes believe it or not it is easier for them! I never say no to that, but don’t get too excited as you won’t get any of the first class luxuries (unless you have a really nice mmeber of staff).

Some Other Pro Tips:

Take Lunch With You – I strongly suggest this for two reasons: One, because to be blunt and honest it is a heck of a lot cheaper! But secondly, where you might be seating on the train could be two or maybe three carriges away from the food carrige and you don’t really want to walk all the way down there for just a sandwich and a chocolate bar!

Have your ticket and your Disabled Railcard (if you have one) in the same place- It is a good idea to have your current travelling ticket and your railcard in the same place in your wallet or purse. But if you have one of those travelcard holders then they are great for this. So this is so when someone comes asking for your ticket, you don’t need to fumble and check every pocket. But please don’t leave it on the table once they’ve checked it. I did that once and left it on that train, so when a member of staff asked for it on my next train I didn’t have it! Luckily they were really nice about it and told me not to worry about it.

Make Sure Your Phone Is Charged – Come on! We have all been there, you go to check your seat reversation and you go to your phone and it’s flat! What’s worse is that now you have nothing to listen to, as all of your audiobooks and music are on that phone too! If you have one, bring a portable charge with you. They are no that exsepsive and you can get them pretty much anywhere. If you travel with more than one device say an iPad then you can even get portable charges that will charge both at the same time, but they can be a liitle more pricly but are so worth the money, because as visually Impaired people. We probably use our devices more than the average person.

So there you have it, some advice and what it is like travelling if you are disabled. Please don’t forget to go and check out Emma’s post on her blog which I will link again here. Please do comment below and share your stories. Tweet them to me also using my twitter handle: @MrAlexRamzan and don’t forget to follow me whilst your there and also follow Emma at: @InvincibleWheel! Check her out!!

Until Next Time!
The VI Crtitic