Sunday, December 11, 2011

Norwegian Cruise Line, Norwegian Jewel

In general, cruising is a great choice for handicapped travelers.  Everything on the ship is uber-accessible, all the showers have grab bars and there are clean handicapped-accessible bathrooms everywhere.  On the first day, before you leave port, they have what they call a "fire drill" where all passengers have to report to a certain spot, and I'm pretty sure it's just so staff can keep track of who would need special assistance in an emergency if the elevators stopped working, which is reassuring.  If you are unable to transfer out of a wheelchair and walk a few steps you can get a handicapped-accessible stateroom, but I found the regular stateroom even better, because it was so small, there was always something to hold onto.

My trip on the Norwegian Jewel was my first cruise, and I was not brave enough to try the land excursions (although I did get off the ship and look around the ports), but they give you a list of which ones are possible for handicapped travelers.  Be careful about what they consider "possible," though.  At one port (Belize, I think), passengers had to take a tender (a much smaller passenger ship) between the cruise ship and land.  When we asked about accessibility, staff said there were stairs between the ship and the tender, but promised in a vague way that they would "help me" get down them.  Turns out what they meant was that two crew members lifted the wheelchair with me in it, a la a Jewish wedding but maybe not quite so high, and with much grunting and puffing, carried me down the stairs.  If I had known what they meant by "help," I think I would have just skipped it, because it was very scary, plus an ego buster to be loaded onto a ship like heavy cargo. But, I survived and lived to tell about it.  And, the main thing, I ate three gourmet meals a day and spent the winter solstice soaking up the Caribbean sun, which is the beautiful thing about a cruise vacation.

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