Turned up after a long drive and they'd given my accessible room to somebody else, what are you actually entitled to here?

Still sat in the lobby writing this so forgive the tone.

Booked six months ago, adapted room, confirmed twice by email, drove five hours today. Arrive and the girl on reception says with a genuinely apologetic face that the adapted room is occupied and they've put us in a standard double on the second floor instead. Occupied by whom, I asked. A couple who'd asked for a bigger bathroom, apparently. Not a disabled guest. Just a bigger bathroom.

The standard room has a bath with a shower over it. I cannot use a bath. So the room they have given me is not a downgrade, it is unusable, and they keep saying they'll "see what they can do in the morning" as though I can hover until then.

What do you actually do in this moment? I've never had it happen and I'm too tired to be clever about it.

Oh Sue that is horrible and I'm so sorry. First thing, tonight, do not sign anything and do not accept the room formally. Once you've slept in it the conversation changes completely and they know it.

Ask for the duty manager, not reception, and ask them to find you an adapted room in another hotel tonight at their cost. Chains do this more often than people realise, they just don't offer it.

What Brenda said, plus write it down NOW while you're sat there. Time you arrived, name of who you spoke to, exactly what was said, photo of the bathroom they offered you. Costs you nothing and it's the difference between a refund and an argument in three weeks' time.

The bit that gets my back up is the reason. Giving an adapted room to someone who fancied a roomier bathroom is not a mix up, it's a system that treats those rooms as spares.

Sue (POC user) said:

the room they have given me is not a downgrade, it is unusable

Sue, that sentence is the one to use with them, more or less word for word, because it is the whole argument. This is not a room change, it is a failure to provide the thing you booked and paid for, and the difference between those two framings is what decides how the conversation goes.

What to do in the moment, in order. Ask for the duty manager by that title. State plainly that the room provided is unusable for you, not merely different, and say why in one specific sentence: the bathroom has a bath and no level access shower. Ask for one of two outcomes, an adapted room here tonight, or an adapted room at another hotel with the transfer paid, and say you are content for them to choose which. Do not accept the standard room even for one night, because occupying it is treated as accepting it. If they cannot house you tonight, ask them to cancel and refund in full so you are free to book elsewhere, and get that in writing before you leave the desk. Keep it calm and factual. The staff member in front of you almost certainly did not cause this and will help you more if she is not being shouted at.

On what you are entitled to, the honest answer is that it depends on where you are and how you booked. Consumer and equality law differs by country, and a booking made through a third party site often means the site, not the hotel, holds the contract, which slows everything down at exactly the wrong moment. What is consistent everywhere is that a documented complaint made at the time is worth a great deal and a remembered one made later is worth almost nothing, so Derek is exactly right about writing it down tonight.

Then the prevention, because this is the bit I have changed in my own booking habits after it happened to me in Lisbon. I now ask for the room to be flagged as an access requirement rather than a preference, in writing, and I reconfirm 48 hours before arrival, which is late enough that they cannot have quietly resold it and early enough that they can still fix it. I also ask one blunt question at the time of booking: is the adapted room ever released to other guests, and under what circumstances. The answers vary and the hesitation tells you plenty. That question and the rest of the list are in the questions to ask before booking, and what a genuinely adapted room should contain, so you can describe precisely what is missing, is in accessible accommodation.

What I cannot tell you is what you can manage for one night, because a bath with a shower over it is impossible for some people and awkward but survivable for others, and only you and your own therapist know which you are. Please do not let tiredness push you into a transfer you would not attempt at home.

Adding one thing nobody mentions until it happens. If you do end up moving hotels at 11pm, keep every receipt including the taxi and the parking, and photograph them, because reimbursement conversations happen weeks later with someone who was not there.

Hope you got somewhere decent in the end.

Update and it's a partly good one. Duty manager came down, was genuinely mortified, and they put us in a sister hotel twenty minutes away that had an adapted room free, paid the taxi, and refunded the first night here.

Second hotel's "adapted" room was fine but the shower had a small lip, which after everything I just laughed at.

Still chasing the original booking site about the rest of it, and I have written down everything as Derek said, with photos. What has annoyed me most in hindsight is not the mistake, it's that at no point did anyone at the first hotel offer any of this until I asked for it in the exact words. If I'd been on my own and less stubborn I'd have taken the bath room and cried about it.