There is a moment before every big trip where the holiday has technically begun, but your body hasn’t quite caught up with the idea yet.
The cases are packed. The passports have been checked more times than necessary. Someone has said, “Have you got the chargers?” at least twice. And if you’re anything like me, you’ve already had a quiet internal debate with yourself about whether you really needed that many outfits for two weeks in Santorini.
Obviously, the answer was yes.
But for disabled travellers, the beginning of a journey carries an extra layer.
It isn’t only about getting excited. It’s about getting there with enough energy left to enjoy what you came for.
That matters on any trip. It matters even more when the journey is attached to something emotional. A wedding or honeymoon. An anniversary. A return to a place that now holds a piece of your story. For us, Santorini was all those things.
A year earlier, we flew to the island to get married. This time, we were returning for our first wedding anniversary, to revisit the places that meant so much to us, and to explore new ones, beginning to document Santorini through The Inclusive Edit as a milestone travel destination.
Not as a generic accessible guide. Not as a claim that the island works effortlessly for everyone. But as a more honest look at what becomes possible when the right hotels, venues, suppliers, and local knowledge understand the guest journey from the beginning.
And for this trip, the journey didn’t begin at Manchester Airport.
It began at home.
A chauffeur journey that felt like part of the trip
Legend Executive Chauffeurs first became part of our Santorini story when we used them for our airport transfer before flying out to get married. They decorated the vehicle with ribbons, had champagne on ice, and treated the journey as part of the wedding day.
That stayed with me.
Because when you travel as a wheelchair user, especially for a trip that matters, the practical details have a habit of shaping the emotional ones. If the beginning of the journey is stressful, rushed, awkward or exhausting, you don’t simply leave that feeling at the airport door.
You carry it with you.
So when we were planning our anniversary return to Santorini, booking Legend again made complete sense.
This time, we travelled in the Mercedes-Benz V Class, a luxury MPV that works particularly well for airport travel because it has the space without losing the comfort. There was room for the luggage, the hand luggage, the wheelchair, and us, without it feeling as though the accessible or practical parts of the journey had taken over the experience.
That might sound like a small thing.
It isn’t.
When you travel with a wheelchair, the question is rarely just, “Will it fit?” It’s, “Will it fit without everything feeling like a logistical compromise?”
The V Class made that part easy. It felt less like a transfer and more like a little lounge on wheels. Spacious, private, calm, and comfortable enough to properly relax from the moment we left the house.
There’s something quietly luxurious about not having to think too hard.
No luggage stress or train changes. Nor was I working out whether there will be space. No arriving at the airport already tired from the journey before the journey.
Just the door opening, everything being handled, and the trip beginning properly.
Dimitris, Santorini, and a lesson in Philoxenia
This time, our chauffeur was Dimitris, who was Greek.
Tell them you’re going to a Greek island and apparently they send you a Greek driver!
I’m joking, obviously. Mostly.
But it did make the journey feel even more connected to where we were heading. We spoke about Greece, Santorini, the culture, the language, and the warmth I’ve always felt when travelling there.
During the drive, Dimitris taught us a few useful Greek words, but the one that stayed with me was philoxenia.
It translates roughly as “love of strangers” or “friendship to strangers,” but in practice it means something deeper. It’s the Greek tradition of hospitality, of welcoming people with generosity, warmth, and care.
I realised, as he explained it, that this was one of the things I’d always loved about Greece without knowing there was a word for it.
That instinctive sense of being welcomed.
Not managed. Nor accommodated with a visible sigh. Not made to feel like the practicalities of your access needs are an interruption.
Welcomed.
And, really, Dimitris was a perfect example of it. The conversation was easy, but never too much. The service was attentive but never overbearing. That balance matters. The best chauffeurs understand the difference between warmth and performance.
Legend get it exactly right.
Arriving at Kimpton Clocktower
By the time we arrived at Kimpton Clocktower Hotel in Manchester, the trip already felt as though it had softened around the edges.
Dimitris pulled up at the drop-off point adjacent to the hotel, which immediately made arrival easier. No awkward working out where to stop, no hauling luggage from halfway down the street, no dramatic unloading situation before you’ve even checked in.
From there, access into the hotel was step-free through the main entrance. Not a side door. Nor a separate route that makes you feel like you’ve arrived slightly differently to everyone else. The main entrance.
That matters more than people sometimes realise.
He brought in our bags and handed us over to the reception team, who were ready to welcome us in and settle us for the evening. It was one of those small transitions that can make a substantial difference: the chauffeur to the hotel, the bags taken care of, the welcome waiting, the feeling that nobody needs you to explain the obvious.
Kimpton Clocktower is one of those Manchester hotels that has real presence before you’ve even made it through the door. Set inside a historic red-brick building on Oxford Street, it has all the character you’d hope for from a landmark city hotel, but without feeling formal or unapproachable.
It’s grand, yes, but still warm.
The kind of place that makes a pre-flight night feel less like a practical stopover and more like the first part of the trip.
It is also a large historic building, with multiple floors, corridors, and spaces, so access could easily have felt like something you had to keep asking about. It didn’t. There was lift access to the areas we used, and at no point did the building feel like it was quietly telling us, “Not this bit.”
That might sound small, but in a hotel with this much character, it matters. Too often, historic buildings are spoken about as though accessibility and atmosphere are in competition with each other. At Kimpton Clocktower, the access didn’t strip away the building’s personality, and the building’s personality wasn’t used as an excuse for making parts of the experience feel out of reach.
From reception, concierge showed us up to our room. Kimpton Clocktower has 13 accessible bedrooms, and ours was an accessible double that immediately felt like part of the hotel, not a separate version of it.
Making pre-flight night feel like date night
We had booked dinner at The Refuge with our room reservation, so once we’d settled in, we headed down for mocktails and an impromptu game of table football.
This, as it turned out, was the beginning of a fortnight-long games battle!
Potentially dangerous territory when you’re both highly competitive and heading off to celebrate your first wedding anniversary together.
After a 3-2 loss, which I’ve obviously accepted with complete grace and no lingering resentment whatsoever, we moved into the restaurant.
The Refuge is exactly the kind of space that makes a pre-flight night feel like a date night. The building itself does a lot of the work: lofty ceilings, tiled pillars, warm lighting, contemporary décor, and that slightly theatrical Manchester energy that makes you feel like you’re somewhere with a bit of life in it.
The bar had a lovely social buzz, but the restaurant offered something quieter. A shift in pace. Somewhere to sit properly, eat well, and let the trip begin without rushing.
Dinner was à la carte. Martin started with the wild mushroom parfait with pickled shimeji and mushroom ketchup, while I had the pressed ham hock terrine with boudin noir and piccalilli.
For mains, I chose the roasted organic salmon with corn bisque and braised fennel, while Martin had the corn-fed chicken supreme with borlotti beans. We shared cauliflower bravas with aioli and tenderstem broccoli, because apparently, we are people who pretend to be sensible with side dishes.
For dessert, Martin ordered Tomlinson’s Yorkshire rhubarb and custard cheesecake with rhubarb sorbet.
I did my usual thing of saying, “I’m too full for pudding,” and then eating half of his.
There was also a good range of 0% alcohol wine, which we always appreciate. Not everyone wants the evening to revolve around alcohol, especially the night before an early flight, but you still want the drink in your hand to feel part of the occasion.
That evening gave us the chance to sit, talk, and properly land in the moment.
We reminisced about that same time the year before, when we were preparing to fly to Santorini for our wedding. The excitement. The nerves. The surreal feeling of heading to an island we’d never been to before, carrying a wedding dress, a wheelchair, far too much luggage and the quiet hope that we’d chosen the right place for one of the biggest moments of our lives.
Thankfully, we had.
But we also realised something.
If we could go back and do one thing differently, we would have booked a pre-flight night at Kimpton Clocktower then too, rather than travelling through the night ahead of an early flight.
Because this was different.
It didn’t feel like waiting for the holiday to start.
It felt like it already had.
The luxury of being able to settle
After dinner, knowing we had an early start, we headed back to the room for the night.
And this is where the value of a carefully considered accessible room really comes into its own.
It wasn’t simply about being able to get around the space. It was about being able to settle into it.
I had a bath with the complimentary toiletries, from bath salts to body care essentials, and didn’t have to start rummaging through my packing to find the things I needed. That might sound small, but small things have a way of becoming big things when you’re tired, in pain, or trying to preserve your energy for the next day.
The room gave us space to rest, talk, laugh about table football, and properly enjoy the night before the journey.
There was no feeling of compromise. No sense that the atmosphere had been sacrificed for access. No clinical afterthought.
Just a beautiful room, in a beautiful hotel, that worked.
That is the standard.
Not because every hotel must look the same, or every accessible room should be designed in the same way, but because access shouldn’t ask guests to trade ease for atmosphere.
The finest things in life are for everyone.
That includes a big bath before an early flight. A lovely room with character. A quiet moment with your husband the night before returning to the island where you got married.
The morning journey
Waking up early at Kimpton Clocktower felt much kinder than waking up at home would have done.
We had already removed the biggest layer of stress. No long drive from South Yorkshire before sunrise. Or loading everything into the car half asleep. No motorway maths about whether we’d left enough time. No arriving at the airport already drained.
Instead, we woke up in a big, comfortable bed, refreshed, excited and only a short journey from Manchester Airport.
After a quick checkout, our bags were brought down for us.
And there was Dimitris again.
Before we knew it, we were back in the V Class and on our way to the airport.
This is where door-to-door travel becomes more than convenience. It protects the beginning of the trip, and helps you arrive with energy left. It gives the journey a sense of continuity, from home to hotel to airport, without the friction that so often chips away at disabled travellers before the holiday has even begun.
By the time we arrived at Manchester Airport, Santorini no longer felt like something we were trying to reach.
It felt like something we were already inside.
Why the night before matters
For many travellers, a pre-flight hotel stay might feel like a treat.
For travellers who move through the world differently, it can be the difference between beginning a trip with energy or beginning it in recovery mode.
That doesn’t make it less luxurious. If anything, it makes it more so.
Luxury is not only the view, the suite, the table, or the private boat. It’s whether the whole experience has been thought through well enough for you to actually enjoy the moment you came for.
For this anniversary trip, Legend Executive Chauffeurs, Kimpton Clocktower and The Refuge became the first chapter of Santorini.
Not the practical bit before the story.
The beginning of it.
And I think that is the point.
Milestone travel doesn’t begin when you land.
It begins at the front door.
