Guest User
May 29, 2024
I'm a retired engineer with disabilities and my wife is a retired M.D. who also has a disability. We stayed here with my wife's two cousins, one a retired M.D. and the other a retired attorney and we're all over 70 years old. My disabilities prevent me from standing, walking or laying down for an extended time without experiencing extreme pain. We came primarily to see the total solar eclipse and didn't know where to go to see it since downtown is full of tall buildings. We finally decided that the hotel's property was ideal so as soon as I checked in on Saturday the 6th I put in a request to borrow a few of the pool chairs. I was told the general manager wasn't in and that she would have to make the decision but the front desk staff didn't foresee any problems with what I asked for. I was told the general manager would be in the next morning, so I came to the front desk in the morning and was told she had already left without leaving an answer but that she would be in all the next day. The next day, the day of the eclipse, I again went to the front desk and was told "Didn't you get the message?" but there was never any message left for me. I asked to speak with her and she came out wearing a scowl on her face and told me I couldn't use them because she "didn't want to take the liability of me sitting in the parking lot" because "it was going to get dark during the eclipse" and she didn't want me to get hurt by "traffic speeding through the parking lot". I told her I would make sure we wouldn't be in the way of any traffic and that I had been through a total ecplise before and it doesn't get anywhere near as dark as night, but she refused to listen to me. She had stubbornly made up her mind. I then informed her about my disabilities and was reporting this to the ADA. She became agitated, aggressive, combative and raised her voice, scolding me very loudly within earshot of the front desk staff and everyone in the lobby that I "should have brought my own chairs" on my flight from South Carolina to Cleveland. I was totally shocked by her demeaning behavior towards me, feeling like she viewed me as a second class citizen due to my disabilities. Because I was reporting this, she immediately claimed I "threatened" her and that she was calling the corporate legal department on me. I asked for her supervisor's contact information but she refused, telling me that "their cell numbers and email addresses were personal". She then abruptly ended the conversation, turned her back on me and returned to her office. I again went outside to the parking lot to find a safe place to be and saw grassy islands on raised concrete curbs where vehicles couldn't travel and these met all her criteria for her so-called concern for my safety. I went back in and asked to speak with her again to promise that I would stay within these completely safe areas but she refused to come back out to reason with me. Instead, a sales manager came out who had a smile and was very pleasant