Hogmany 25!

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Hogmanay Festival 2024: When Plans Change, Adventure Finds You

This blog is about my experience of the Edinburgh Hogmanay Festival 2024. I’ve also done a full YouTube video about the whole trip — but because of the weather, as you’ll discover, it all went a bit wrong! I hope you enjoy reading this and watching the video too.

I’ve always wanted to go to the Edinburgh Hogmanay Festival. I was really looking forward to being surrounded by 45,000 people singing Auld Lang Syne in the streets — the atmosphere would be amazing, and the excitement of being right in the middle of it all. My Mum & Dad had bought me tickets to go for my birthday, and I was soooooo looking forward to it.

As a disabled powerchair user, I know how important it is to plan ahead. We’d spent hours researching, making phone calls and googling the best accessible hotels, toilets, and parking. We’d sorted out the full 6-hour route, planned breaks, and had two accessible hotels booked as we were doing the festival first and then going to visit family. We’d phoned the festival organisers to discuss accessible access, disabled parking, toilets and the best place to watch the fireworks from

So… on the 30th of December, me, my Mum and Dad left Northampton and headed north bound for Edinburgh. We used the M6 toll road (you can download my free guide on how to travel toll-free in the UK if you're disabled — link in bio) and were making good time. Just south of Manchester, I needed a comfort break, so we pulled into Lancaster Moto Services Northbound and stopped for coffee.

Just as we were literally leaving the car park, we saw the news — the entire Hogmanay Festival Celebrations had been cancelled because of high winds and adverse weather conditions. I felt annoyed, stressed, anxious. All the planning… gone and straight away my dystonic spasms began to increase, and I was nearly in tears.

So, we parked up again and worked out our options, should we continue and make the best of it as we’d already paid for the hotels, or should we turn around and head home? 

Because of my anxiety I don’t like changing plans, I like to know exactly what’s going to happen, and now all the planning we’d done was out the window along with the weather!!!

After lots of talking, we decided to carry on and aim for our halfway stop in Ambleside. Except… Mum saw a sign that the A66 was also closed because of the bad weather, so yet again we changed plans (my head was exploding now) We made the decision to abort Ambleside and push on further north.  

To my relief we soon made it to Tebay Services — and it turned out to be one of the highlights of the whole trip.

Tebay is brilliant for disabled travellers. It's pet-friendly, has an excellent Changing Places toilet (tucked behind the petrol station), and wide, easy-to-navigate doorways and paths. It felt calm, clean, and really inclusive. You’ll see a full section on this in the video.

Some brilliant posters on the wall told us about how Tebay was started by John and Barbara Dunning in 1972 when the M6 was built right through the centre of their farm — Which shows that unexpected change can lead to something great. They even have a vegetable garden on site where local people with mental health issues can be part of the volunteer team that tends and grows all the vegetables they use to make the food. I had pie and mash, and it was amazing. If your anywhere in the area or passing through, even if you need to make a de-tour, I’d highly recommend a visit.

By now it was dark, but we decided to press on to the Premier Inn M8 J3 Livingston, and we checked into our hotel. We were in room 29 which was an accessible room where they put an extra single bed for me.

New Year’s Eve

On the 31st, we had breakfast, which was gorgeous, then drove into Edinburgh City Centre via the Hawes Inn in Queensferry. The views were amazing, and we were right under the Fourth Road and Rail Bridges. In Edinburgh we visited the Johnnie Walker Whisky Shop, I had already made prior arrangements to use their changing places WC and it was in a lovely clean condition. The lift to get in there is amazing, you'll see all of this in the video.

We grabbed lunch at Pizza Express and then went back to the Hawes Inn to see in the New Year quietly as a family, rather than in the street party crowd we’d imagined. It was lovely, we sang Auld Lang Syne and although it wasn’t with 45 thousand people it was lovely to be with Mum and Dad. After Midnight we had a shot of whiskey then the DJ played 3 of my favourite tracks which made me smile.

New Year’s Day

On New Years Day,1st January, we woke up to snow! We drove down to Stockton-on-Tees via the Tyne Tunnel (see this in my cheat sheet too) to visit Family – and we stayed in the Premier Inn, Stockton -on-Tees. It was a bit tricky in terms of access — lots of doors that open towards you and tight corridors that don’t work well with a powerchair, but that said, the staff were lovely and welcoming.

Conclusion:

So, while our original Hogmanay plans didn’t go quite the way I imagined — at all. But the trip became something else instead - a story about adapting, changing, making the most of a bad situation and making memories in unexpected places, and learning that access isn’t just about logistics… it’s about mindset too.

Whether it was discovering the brilliant facilities at Tebay Services, making it through hotel quirks, or still finding moments with family at the Hawes Inn, we made some lovely memories.

If you’re planning an accessible trip or just need a little reminder that it’s okay when plans go sideways — I hope this blog and video help. You’re not alone, and sometimes the changes are where the adventure begins.

Thanks for reading — don’t forget to watch the full video for all the unexpected wins, accessible highlights, and a very real look at life on the move.

Check out my YouTube video here.

💙 Ade