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Ever go to a hotel room where they have a television with no closed captioning?
To make things even worse, the hotel has a special remote control with a menu that just gives you options to buy porn.
So you wander over to the front of the television and all it has is super simple buttons to change the volume and change the channels? All of us know that we need a MENU button to turn on the closed captioning.
So what is a deaf person to do? Just hold the two volume buttons together simultaneously and just like magic, instant access to the closed captioning menu!!!
It is kind of funny but at the Doubletree Hotel Magnificent Mile, they had to dispatch a couple of their finest engineers to a couple of the ALDA attendee's rooms to figure this out.
And for the record, I didn't need an engineer to figure that out :)
Friday, October 31, 2008
TV in a Hotel Room with No CC?!
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13 comments:
Weird. Yeah that happened to me at the Hilton in Albequerque a couple years ago. They sent several people up to my room over and over and NO ONE knew what to do. When I checked out I spoke to the mgr, told him he was violating federal law by not providing me with an accessible room. Guess what he said?
"Sorry ma'am, the laws only says I need to provide captioning, NOT that I must know how to work it." (!?!?!) I sent a letter to the Hilton, but the thing is the room wasn't registered to me and I didn't pay-- I was a guest. So no response. I never thought of pushing both buttons at once. Thanks for the hint. I will never, ever stay in a Hilton again after that snippy remark. I have stayed in Motel Six's with better service!
Some hotels are so bad with deaf people. Hotels are meant to be foe every possible person. sure they accomadate the blind and disabled with wheelchairs... why not deaf people?? I think they are just cheap that they dont want to put the effort into getting TVs with subtitles!! and thats in the uk lol
I've been in hotels where they had some kind of internal cable system that seemed to be actually *stripping off* the closed captions. And they didn't realize until I called it to their attention.
Then there are the television sets (whether in hotels or in people's private homes) that simply make it impossible to figure out how to toggle on the captions. Even if you finally manage to find the menu button, you have to go down three or four layers of options to even *find* the captions. And even then it's likely to be buried under some really obfuscating title that doesn't even make sense or signal clearly that "THIS is where you will find the toggle switch for the captions."
Fortunately, *most* TVs in most hotels seem to have no problems with the captions.
My bigger complaint is with those really aggravating integrated systems that are *supposed* to flash whenever the phone rings, or there's a knock at the door, or the fire alarm goes off. And it is also supposed to work as your alarm clock. All these things in one device. But I have never, ever, ever, ever in my entire life encountered one of those integrated systems that actually works the way it's supposed to. Usually, it doesn't actually flash the light when the door or phone goes off (there's never a good way to test whether it works for when the fire alarm or smoke alarm goes off). And when you set the clock, the vibrator either doesn't vibrate at all (even when it's supposed to), or it immediately starts vibrating and won't stop (ie, it doesn't wait until the alarm goes off at the designated time, it just starts vibrating as soon as you set a time, any time, on the clock).
The only thing those integrated systems ever seem to do properly is to flash the light when there is an environmental sound, like me coughing. I don't want or need the light to flash when I'm coughing, for cripes sakes! I already know I'm coughing!
I have run into so many problems with every single integrated system I've ever encountered over the past few years that I've simply given up on them. I now have my own small, portable vibrating alarm clock that I bring with me instead of using the hotel clock. And live without a way to know if someone is knocking at the door or calling on the phone. And pray that there is no fire, because if there is I'll never know.
Who invented those integrated system thingies, anyway? I think they should be taken out and shot. Hotel accessibility was better in the days when they had separate devices for each required function (door knocker with its own light; phone light alarm plugged directly into the phone line and TTY; separate alarm clock; separate fire alarm strobe light).
LOL...when I used to live out of a suitcase and drive an airplane, the first thing I would do is make sure the travel agent finds out what kind of tvs they have in the rooms. Then, they would have to find out if they could easily change the it to CC. Half of the reservations clerks were clueless; the other half were like "we'll call housekeepnig and get back to you". Housekeeping???? You're lucky you got "Engineering". And come to imagine...CCing porno...LOL!!!!
What fun you and Jen are having....I am sure you cducated the engineer that came to fix your captioning. As long as you two can sign STARBUCKS you will do fine. Enjoy!
Hugs,
Evelyn
You're at the ALDACon! Why in the world are you watching TV???
There's people to meet, and laughs to share. Stories to weave, and tales to tell. Get outta your room and into the conference.
Lucky
On the other hand, whenever I find a hotel TV that is *that* hard to find the menu to turn on the CC, I make it a point to leave the CC enabled ("on") when I leave.
David
I'm sure Jen told you about the time the TV didn't work PERIOD in our DoubleTree Hotel room in Nashville!
One time I stayed at a hotel in WV and the TV in our room was not closed-captioned. However, the one in the workout room was. I asked the person at the reception desk if they could trade the TV's out for me and they told me I was welcome to do it myself! The TV in the workout room was in the basement and we were on the 3rd floor!
They did send someone up to change out the TV a few hours later!
If we deaf and HOH persons don't make our needs known, no one will ever know or be aware of the services that we are entitled to. We need to be our own advocates!
Glad you are having fun!
Yep, that;s friggin' annoying.
Three words:
Portable.DVD.Player
:-)
-JJ
Abbie! Television? Seriously! A girl like you in Chicago with Jen at your side should be out and tearing up the town, doing the Mile with a credit card, and meeting, eating and greeting. TV is for old folks!
When I lived in hotels I spent nights driving around, dining, shopping and when I would get back to room, I would go to the gym. I would never stay at a hotel that at least didn't have a treadmill. In gyms they have TV's that always have CC on because of the noise. So I would watch the news while I worked on evenings meal.
You're at a convention and watching TV??? Go have some fun downstairs with all the cool convention folks - or better yet start practicing for the Karaoke!!!
Gotta go check out the awesome shopping in Chicago. Visit the basement stores - they ROCK in great bargains!!!
Kim B
I agree, no tv watching you need to be out dancing on the tables.
It seems the last two hotels I stayed at with Jenna for dance haven't had CC on the TV. Thank goodness Jenna watches Disney and I don't want to even CC that stuff.
valerie
Jen and I have a little thing. We need to fall asleep to the television and even though the actual television time was under ten minutes, it would have been annoying without the closed captioning. I am just not a moving picture person :)
Rest assured, we were tearing up the town but we had to rest our noggin for an hour or two sometime :)
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