Travel Tips: Wheelchair Accessibility Inwards Ensenada, Mexico

 

Mexico is non the most wheelchair-friendly identify on earth. It tin sack endure daunting together with I receive got to state that my trepidation over what sort of wheelchair access we'd find far outpaced whatever concerns we’d receive got over Baja’s vehement reputation inwards our recent visit.

Ensenada has made strides together with even together with hence needs a long means to instruct earlier nosotros tin sack telephone phone it a genuinely accessible destination. However, if you’d similar to view this fun destination together with piece of work a wheelchair, here’s what nosotros establish when nosotros late went, ability chair together with all…

GETTING THERE

A wheelchair user has iii feasible options for getting to Ensenada.

a.       Driving your personal vehicle. This was what nosotros did. Since nosotros alive inside a 4-hour drive, it was the easiest together with most practical option. There is a modern, four-lane, high-speed highway from the edge betwixt San Ysidro/Tijuana together with Ensenada. There are iii damage stations together with the toll, equally of December, 2014, was $2.25 USA at each damage station. You tin sack pay amongst either USA or Mexican currency but yous cannot mix the 2 to pay your toll.

There are occasional balance areas amongst real construct clean together with gratis accessible bathrooms along the road. Make piece of work of the final i on your means dorsum earlier crossing the border. Crossings tin sack accept hours.

b.      Cruise send – most tourists these days come upwardly to Ensenada on cruise ships where the metropolis is a port halt on many W coast together with Hawaiian cruises. The 2 most pop divergence ports are Los Angeles together with San Diego. 3 or 4 twenty-four hr menstruum cruises initiatory off at nether $300.  

It’s almost a ½ mile, accessible walk from the send dock to downtown Ensenada where 90% of the tourists caput to.

c.       Van rental – Wheelchair Getaways of San Diego rents wheelchair accessible vans starting at $100 per day, addition gas together with mileage, that yous tin sack drive downwardly to Ensenada

Note that at this time, at that topographic point are no wheelchair accessible buses or commercial flights to the metropolis from the U.S., though yous may endure able to adapt an (expensive) pick amongst Baja Tours (see below).

GETTING AROUND

Most of the places inwards town that tourists desire to encounter are inwards a half-mile stretch along the waterfront together with a dyad of blocks inwards from there. It is real slow to navigate on human foot together with simply almost every corner has a curb cut.

You’ll desire to access the fish marketplace position from the waterfront (the malecon) if you’re a chair user because you’d receive got stretches where you’d receive got to instruct inwards the busy, narrow street amongst your chair if yous come upwardly inwards from the town side. The malecon tin sack endure accessed easily via wheelchair at either goal together with inwards the middle through Plaza Marina Mall together with the common where the giant Mexican flag is.

About one-half the shops downtown receive got steps that block access for chairs but most vendors are too happy to produce work organisation on the sidewalk inwards front end of their store.  A few corners receive got steep curb cuts that tin sack endure tricky if wet.  You volition uncovering to a greater extent than or less utility hatch covers on the sidewalk missing, leaving gaping holes that tin sack swallow a wheelchair tire. Be on high awareness for those.

Some buses inwards the local transit organisation receive got wheelchair lifts but nosotros could non uncovering whatever reliable route or access data on them. We could uncovering no taxis equipped amongst lifts…better to receive got your ain accessible vehicle.

HOTELS

We stayed at the Estero Beach Resort, half-dozen miles southward of town, which has large rooms amongst step-free access but footling else equally far equally accessible features inwards the room (i.e., catch bars, roll-in shower). Most places hither don’t fifty-fifty receive got that much. Estero too has ramped access into the puddle together with measuring gratis access to all of the resort, except for their museum. Note that the ramp to the bar is steep.

Casa Del Sol, inwards the pump of downtown, too has step-free access to rooms.

RESTROOMS

Most populace restrooms hither tin sack endure described equally serviceable at best together with most accuse a small-scale fee to piece of work them. The balance expanse bathrooms on the damage route are top-notch, accessible, together with free. In town, nosotros establish the restrooms at the bar of the San Nicolas Hotel (two blocks southward of the river that marks the goal of the tourist zone) to endure real nice, accessible, clean, together with free.

WINERY TOUR

Five Star Tours offers wheelchair accessible van tours to Ensenada’s up-and-coming vino province from San Diego (http://sdsuntours.com/home) together with shuttles betwixt San Diege together with Ensenada. You tin sack too adapt a custom tour amongst them of the area.

Darryl
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