Paralympics in Paris

We’re a camper van family. We love camping and the kids are pretty great at long road trips. So once the summer holidays are here, we can generally be found packing up the van and heading off for an adventure. This year we had planned to go to France. With the Paralympics starting just before the end of the summer break, we hoped to sneak in a couple of days watching some incredible sport in Paris.

Image shows Jo crouching in front of two children in camping chairs while Rob cooks on a camping stove. They are all outside their motorhome in a field with blue sky.
Our old, but lovely, motorhome.

Over the last year, Rob has begun training with a wheelchair rugby club, a sport he used to do back before we had the children. His team has a junior team, which also allows abled-bodied kids to play. So with great delight, our 11 year old has been heading off with dad for Friday night wheelchair rugby. They both love it! So we were absolutely determined to get tickets for a Team GB wheelchair rugby game.

Getting Paralympics Tickets

As it turns out, booking accessible tickets was a little tricky. The main issue seemed to be that where we could book an accessible seat, we could only get one other ticket next to it. The other two we needed were placed somewhere else in the arena. We also couldn’t book a ‘family ticket’, saving money, as there was no option to indicate that one family member needed accessible seating. A frustrating, and all too common experience, when booking tickets anywhere for our family. We tried emailing, we tried asking on Facebook forums, but we just couldn’t get anywhere. In the end, we decided to take a risk and booked four regular seats. Then we crossed our fingers that we could figure something out when we got there.

We headed over to France on the ferry in mid-August. We decided to wait until we were on our way across The Channel to tell the children about the Paralympics tickets. For our five year old, it was hard to understand the significance of the event. Though she picked up on our excitement, she quickly returned to her colouring-in! She lives very much ‘in the moment’ but we knew she would be excited once we were really there. But our 11 year old couldn’t believe his luck! Watching his favourite sport, live and in person, at the Paralympics – he was beyond thrilled!

Must-have Gadget

We had a great couple of weeks touring round the west of France, before arriving at our final campsite, just outside of Paris. The day we were due to watch rugby started early. We needed to travel a fair way into the centre of the city. We always like to leave plenty of time to account for any travel issues, as well as time to figure out our tickets and accessibility. Rob had spent the night before using the Paris travel app to plan our route. We would need a train, a bus and a fair bit of walking to get to the venue. So, he popped on his Flexi Phone Holder, so he could navigate the route, and led the way.

Rob is in his wheelchair with a freewheel attached. The Flexi Phone Holder is attached to his chair, holding in phone in place in front of him for navigating.
The Flexi Phone Holder made navigating our holiday so easy.

The Flexi Phone Holder is a new product to Active Hands, which also means it’s pretty new to our family. I feel like we gave it a very thorough road-test this holiday. I have to say, it was incredibly useful. We will definitely be packing it whenever we go on a trip. Having Rob’s phone secured and hands-free meant he could navigate us, without constantly having to stop moving to pick up his phone, and without worrying about dropping it. This meant my hands were free also, to hold on to our wandering five year old, so she didn’t get lost in the crowds. The Phone Holder also enabled Rob to easily pull up our tickets to the train and stadium, which eased the process at what were busy points in the day. We were really grateful for the device.

Travelling to the Paralympics

Travelling through Paris was fun – the children loved using public transport (especially trains with ‘upstairs’!) Accessibility was OK, but not perfect. The train had quite a step up into it, which Rob needed some help with. And where most people were able to jump on a connecting train, we needed to walk 15 minutes through the city to get a bus, as the final train station wasn’t wheelchair-friendly. However, everyone we met was super friendly and helpful, and made sure we understood where to go and what we needed. The French public also seemed really keen to welcome visitors to the Paralympics and to share bits of knowledge about the city, or apps we could download to help us. It was a lovely atmosphere.

Rob and his two children meet the paralympics mascot. Xanthe sits on rob's lap and Jacob stands the other side of the mascot.
Meeting the Paralympics Phryge

Stadium Experience

Once we arrived at the stadium, we began to worry a little about the tickets we had booked. Would Rob be able to access his seat? Would they say that he couldn’t enter as he didn’t have an accessible place? But we needn’t have worried at all. The staff were incredible and took us straight to the box office to sort out accessible seating. In addition, not only did they change Rob’s seat so he could sit in a wheelchair-space, they moved all four of us so we could still be together. It was so helpful and we were incredibly grateful.

Heading in to the venue, we quickly saw that we would be sitting right on the front row. The best possible view for the defending Paralympics champions’ game against world number 1s, Australia. The atmosphere during the game was amazing. The place was sold out and the crowd was in full voice, cheering and chanting throughout. Plenty of people there were watching the sport for the first time. Jacob and Rob enjoyed explaining some of the more technical rules and tactics to the guys sitting next to us, who were loving getting to know the game.

Rob, a wheelchair user, and his family sit in the stadium for the Paralympics wheelchair rugby.
Front row seats for the wheelchair rugby

Queueing Hack

At half-time I nipped out to get some snacks. I quickly realised that the organisers had obviously not expected sell-out crowds as there were very limited choices, leading to enormous queues. I stuck it out and after a 45 minute wait for a waffle, realised they had a priority queue for anyone with a disability, that meant there was no need to wait at all. From then on, Rob was in charge of getting the snacks!

I made it back just in time for the rest of the game. It was a very tense match, with both teams matching each other point for point, most of the way through. In the end, Team GB came through with a win – a perfect end to our experience! With both children in high spirits, we headed out of the venue for a quick bit of sight-seeing. We were all pretty tired by then, so we decided to forego the public transport on the way home. We grabbed an Uber back to the campsite (where our five year old got a second burst of energy and insisted we all went on a bike ride… do they ever rest?!!).

Rob in his wheelchair sits with his two children and wife at the base of the Eiffel Tour.
A quick sight-seeing stop with our new mascot teddy.

The Children’s Reactions

Overall, our experience at the Paralympics was fantastic. Jacob told us his expectations were really high, and the reality was even better than he hoped. We were so pleased to be able to watch it with the children. Interestingly since going, our youngest Xanthe, has been noticing others around us or on the TV with disabilities and talking much more about being proud of her daddy in a wheelchair. I think, with some prompting from our Paralympics visit, she is beginning to notice that not everyone’s dad uses a wheelchair and the different ways in which people are affected by disability. This has led to some lovely conversations in our family.

Accessibility around the games definitely wasn’t perfect in terms of getting in and out of the venues. One particularly difficult experience involved Rob needing to be strapped in to a machine for getting him down a flight of stairs, as no ramp or stair lift had been constructed, which felt pretty unnerving and frustrating. But the staff were all very helpful and it was great to see the games very well attended. We loved our experience and were really happy to share it with the children who both took a lot from it in their own different ways.

Jo Smith

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