"What Happened in Vegas. . ."

There are some people in this world that will go above and beyond to help other people and there are others that are only thinking about themselves. I recently traveled to Las Vegas with two of my closest friends to celebrate my 25th birthday. I had the most amazing trip with my friends exploring Vegas. The best part about the trip was that we were able to spend so much quality time together.

Las Vegas is the only place I have traveled where I have to use a wheelchair because there is just too much walking for me to handle. I will let you in on what happened on our trip to Vegas even though they say, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!"

From the cab drivers to the people who worked at the shows, people could not have been more helpful. Our favorite person on the trip was the manager of the front desk at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. He upgraded us to this amazing suite that had better accessibility features than normal hotel rooms. He was just an all around nice guy who you could tell really cared about the customers. One cab driver helped us put the legs back on the wheelchair because we had to take them off to fit the wheelchair into his car.  Tourists graciously held open the doors for us when we were going in and out of the hotels. One final person that went above and beyond worked at the Britney Spears show, which  I would recommend to anybody who is planning a trip to Las Vegas.  When the show let out it was so crowded and he was able to get us through the crowd of people with my wheelchair.

One situation where the people were not so nice, helpful or apologetic happened on a motion ride at one of the hotels. Since the ride required you to stand up with motion, I had to stay in the wheelchair for the ride. There was a manual elevator where you had to hold the button to push the elevator up or down. My friend, Arielle, went in the elevator with me. When we were going back down, the elevator malfunctioned and one side of the elevator floor started going up while the other started going down. Since I was in a wheelchair, I could not feel this happening but my friend felt it and told me to walk off of the elevator. If I had been in there by myself I could have been seriously hurt because I could not tell that anything was wrong with the elevator. When we came off of the elevator, the man operating the ride did not even offer to help us carry the wheelchair down the stairs. We asked to speak to the manager because we wanted to make him aware of the issue in addition to making sure that nobody else got on the elevator in a wheelchair until it was fixed. It is scary to think about what would have happened if I could not walk off of the elevator and I would not want anyone else to be in that unsafe situation. The manager did not apologize or seem concerned and he simply said that they have had the ride for six months and nothing like this has ever happened before. When we returned to New Jersey we called the venue and spoke to a supervisor to insure that they were aware of the issue and could take the appropriate safety measures.

I wanted to share these stories from my trip to show that some people will go above and beyond what is expected while others may not be so kind. I have learned over the years that most of the time you cannot change the attitude of those who are not kind and you just have to accept them for who they are BUT the extreme kindness of others can truly make a difference.

By: Sydney Breslow 

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