How disabled friendly are cruise ships?

[Shinobi]

Just wondering if anyone has any experience, looking to go on a typical northern lights / whale watching cruise next year and will be travelling with a wheelchair bound person.

Any help or first hand experiences are useful, mainly looking to know how easy or difficult it would be to navigate the boat, if companies hire hoists out on the boat or if you have to bring your own. Hoping the will be quite disabled friendly due to the usual age of the passangers.

Thanks

[Deva Link]

Shinobi said:

Hoping the will be quite disabled friendly due to the usual age of the passangers.

My FIL goes cruising a lot and every trip he remarks about all the people in wheelchairs and how ill many of them look - so I'm sure you're right and they'll be well geared up for it.
Obviously you should check with the operator though for you specific cruise - he goes on medium sise boats with typically a few hundred passengers.

[Shinobi]

Deva Link said:

Shinobi said:

Hoping the will be quite disabled friendly due to the usual age of the passangers.

My FIL goes cruising a lot and every trip he remarks about all the people in wheelchairs and how ill many of them look - so I'm sure you're right and they'll be well geared up for it.
Obviously you should check with the operator though for you specific cruise - he goes on medium sise boats with typically a few hundred passengers.

Thanks for that, I've not been on a Cruise myself so that is very useful information.

[Deva Link]

Shinobi said:

Deva Link said:

Shinobi said:

Hoping the will be quite disabled friendly due to the usual age of the passangers.

My FIL goes cruising a lot and every trip he remarks about all the people in wheelchairs and how ill many of them look - so I'm sure you're right and they'll be well geared up for it.
Obviously you should check with the operator though for you specific cruise - he goes on medium sise boats with typically a few hundred passengers.

Thanks for that, I've not been on a Cruise myself so that is very useful information.

FIL is 83 (although, to be fair, he would pass for late 60's) and he moans about all the "old" people! Generally he goes on SAGA cruises, so I suppose their starting age is going to be 50 which may affect the average age a bit. He's used other operators but speaks very highly of SAGA.

[DavesFlaps]

Judging by the amount of morbidly obese americans on mobility scooters on a recent cruise I was on, the cruise lines seem to be fairly geared up for this sort of thing.
I felt sorry for the scooters.

[Original Poster]

DavesFlaps said:

Judging by the amount of morbidly obese americans on mobility scooters on a recent cruise I was on, the cruise lines seem to be fairly geared up for this sort of thing.
I felt sorry for the scooters.

And the chef...

[Pothole]

I was on Fred. Olsen's biggest, The Balmoral, a few weeks ago and it was pretty poor, especially considering they aim specifically at the over 55 market. Check with the operator carefully before you book.

[cjs]

Most cruise lines only have a few specific disabled cabins, if you want one you will need to book early and request. If not the rooms will be narrow and doorways small.

Getting on and off the ship can be difficult, if you're in port there will be a ramp or often a stairway/gangway, this can be steep, only way up/down for a fully disabled person is to carry them. If you're tendering (using the ships tender boats) to get ashore then again you will need to be lifted on and off. There are staff on hand to help but if they consider it too dangerous they will refuse to let you off the ship, usually they are very good!

Getting around the ship is not too bad as all decks tend to be on a level, lifts operate to most decks. There are often raised kerbs and thresholds at doorways which need careful navigation in wheelchairs. Corridors are wide, they have to be for safety reasons.

Hope that helps. There are many disabled people on cruises but very few who cannot walk a bit and who can get out of a wheel chair. If your friend is a wheelchair bound then you need to speak to the cruise line to ask if they can accommodate.

[Legmaster]

Not quite a cruise liner, but how about a trip on this:



Full info here www.jst.org.uk

Cheaper and more of an achievement than a cruise liner. We'll even take your wheelchair using mate up the rigging (that's not prison slang )

Anything you need to know just ask.

[Shinobi]

Thanks for the advice guys it's all very useful.

[Shaolin]

The ship will probably be ok as long as you research it as others have said. Check about excursions though, you may be confined to ship if there are not facilities to get off easily or if the excursions require you to be reasonably able - climbing in and out of tenders for e.g.

[Dave_ITR]

Hurtigruten are a company I used to work with that will be able to help.

[thatone1967]

Did a transatlantic on P & O's Artemis in 2009, Atremis being their smallest at the time, from memory, do not recall seeing any wheel chairs, but there were plenty of lifts between decks and no narrow corridoors...

Have a look on here and post the question

http://www.cruises.co.uk/