Make the Most of Your Accessible Cruise Experience


A Q&A With the Experts

To give you the inside scoop on how best to book and enjoy your accessible cruise, we’ve enlisted two of the most knowledgeable wheelchair travel experts we know: Cory Lee, of Curb Free with Cory Lee, and Ashley Lyn Olson, of wheelchairtraveling.com. Between them, Lee and Olson have dealt with every kind of access obstacle and opportunity.

We had a wide-ranging conversation covering everything the prospective cruiser would want to know. You can find much more on cruising and accessible travel on their respective websites, www.curbfreewithcorylee.com and www.wheelchairtraveling.com.

—Ian Ruder

NM: Let’s start with an easy one: Give me your best quick sales pitch for why I should go on a cruise.

Cory Lee
Cory Lee

CORY: I think cruising is the most successful way to travel. Everything you could possibly want to do is on the cruise ship, and you don’t have to try to find an accessible taxi to go to dinner or go see a show. Other than a little planning for the ports, everything else is already taken care of, and you can usually get cruises for a pretty cheap price. It’s also a great way to see a bunch of different places in a short time. You can check places out and decide where you want to go back.

ASHLEY: Everybody is friendly with one another and having a great day, no matter what they’re doing. Everybody’ s smiling and happy and wanting to have a little chit-chat for the most part. It’s great.

NM: OK. You guys sold me. I booked my cruise. The ship says it’s accessible but I’m going to call ahead anyway because I always do that when I travel. What should I ask them about?

CORY: I always ask about the width of the doorway, because one time I asked for a wheelchair accessible room when I was cruising to the Bahamas, and they said that the room was completely accessible with a roll-in shower, but when I actually got there, my wheelchair would not even fit through the doorway. We ultimately worked that out, but really just try to ask for anything that would make your stay as comfortable as possible.

Related Articles:

Discovering the (Mostly) Accessible
Atlantis Resort

Realizing My Dream of Traveling to the Caribbean

ASHLEY: Ask if you can get pictures of a room so you can understand what the space is going to be like. Ask about the bathroom access, ask about the bed height, ask if you need a Hoyer. When you’re on board the ship, the maintenance staff is usually good about trying to come up with creative solutions to your needs. Also, make sure every deck is accessible. When you’re there and you’ve paid all this money and you just want to lie out by the pool and have that whole cruise boat experience, that “I’m hanging off the rails” experience, and you can’t go to the top level — that would be very disappointing to me.

NM: As far as the planning goes, between different destinations, different excursion offerings, which season you go, and what kind of ship you choose, there’s a ton of things to consider when you’re booking an accessible cruise. Of all the things to think about, what’s the biggest consideration when it comes to planning a really good accessible cruise?

ASHLEY: It’s really what kind of experience you want. Do you want to have something where you’re getting off at a port every single day and going on a little adventure, or just getting off at a port and hanging out at a beach and not really doing much? Are you looking for a tropical warm getaway? Do you care about sightseeing? It just depends on you as a traveler, what do you want? What do you want to see? What are your interests?

CORY: Make sure you consider the weather. Cruising in hurricane season may sound like a terrible idea, but I have done it and it’s actually been pretty great — and no rain!

NM: You mentioned the hurricane season. Are there any things like that as far as booking or planning that can save you additional money? Is it cheaper to go during the hurricane season?

CORY: Oh, yeah. It’s definitely a lot cheaper to go in September or October, during the hurricane season. You can get Bahamas cruises out of Florida for as low as $180 per person for a four-day cruise. Which is insanely cheap because all of your meals, entertainment, and everything is included. It is a risk that you have to take, but I’ve done it a couple times and always had a great time. So if you’re looking for a bargain, I would definitely consider it.

NM: What about destinations? Is there a region or a specific type of cruise that you’ve been on or have heard is just awesome? Or one that maybe is not the best for wheelchair users?

CORY: Anywhere in the Caribbean is generally pretty good. It does vary. So with western Caribbean, I’ve had a lot of luck. I mean, all of those were docked. But in the eastern Caribbean there are a couple that I think are tendered with some cruise lines. The Bahamas are really great, and it’s easy because it’s quick to get there and cheap. But the Mediterranean can be a bit challenging, as far as ports.

ASHLEY: I’m going on an Alaska cruise, and I’ve heard good things about them. The Mediterranean is a fantastic cruise route, but a number of the ports are challenging, especially for power wheelchairs. The same goes for Mexico.

NM: What would you say to the first time cruise goer who is worried about being hundreds of miles out at sea for an extended period of time?

CORY: I’ve never actually used them, but there are medical professionals on cruise lines that can help you out if you get sick or injured on the cruise. And they’re on pretty much every cruise line, I think. I really don’t know a lot about it, but it’s worth checking out.

Ashley Lyn Olson
Ashley Lyn Olson

ASHLEY: Pack extra, no matter where you travel to, so you are prepared for a longer stay if anything happens. The reality is you never know, but cruises are pretty safe. You could be going for a stroll outside your house and something could happen. So you can’t be scared to leave your home forever.

NM: So coming back to excursions, have either of you guys had a bad excursion or off-ship experience where it wasn’t accessible or didn’t go how you’d planned?

CORY: Usually excursions that are offered by the cruise lines are not fully accessible. It does take some good research skills to find one in any destination or port of call. So I usually just get on Google and start researching to find one or plan my own. I’ve actually gotten really lucky, and every excursion that I’ve been on has been fantastic. They do usually cost more, though, so if you get an excursion from a cruise line, it may be only $50 per person. But to book a private accessible short excursion with a company away from the cruise line, it might be $200-300 for the day. So it is a lot more expensive.

ASHLEY: Generally overall, I feel like what cruises offer is just so limited.  And what they do offer is pretty center of the road – super safe activities. When I book something, I want it to be executed as it’s promoted. If it’s advertised that I get to go into a historical building or see a waterfall then it better be so. And I want a pic.

CORY: One really important thing that I always ask is whether the ports are docked or tendered. Because if it’s docked, then you can just kind of roll off the ship with the ramp once you get to the port. And if it’s tendered, then you’ve got to get on a little dinghy boat, which sometimes is accessible and sometimes isn’t.

NM: Have either of you guys done the tendered ports and gone through that experience?

CORY: I did one a few years ago to CocoCay, a private island in the Bahamas, where you only get to visit it if you’re with that cruise line. The ship parked way far away from the island, and we got on this little bitty boat. It was actually a ramp, just a really long ramp that went onto the small tender boat. And it took us to the island. But it was completely accessible, the sand was really packed well, so my wheelchair did not have a problem at all, even rolling on the beach and all around the island. So it really worked out and was a great day.

NM: It sounds like what you two are both kind of saying is, the more preparation you put into planning the excursions, the better, but still be prepared for the unexpected.

ASHLEY: Part of the cruise appeal is the: “Oh joy, I don’t really have to plan anything!”  But if you’re going on a seven to 10 day cruise that has a stop almost every single day, you’re going to want to get off at some point and do something. The land excursions are my favorite part! I love experiencing a new place and way of life.  Many onboard activities have schedules, some things may repeat but not everything, so you’re still going have to do some kind of planning, whether you’re staying on the ship the whole time or not.

CORY: I do not want to be stuck on the ship at all. I mean, by the time we actually get to a port, I’m pretty desperate to get off the ship. Make sure that there are tour companies within those ports that offer accessible tours, or if it’s offered by the cruise line or whatever. But make sure of all of that before you even book the cruise.

ASHLEY: Think about what you want to do in the first place. Do you just want to drink and eat the whole time and just go to shows, and you really couldn’t care less about getting off the boat? That could be a very nice vacation and exactly what someone needs to really wind down and relax. But some people, like Cory and I, who are super eager to get off the boat, we just can’t wait. We want to have an adventure of some kind.

Save

Save


Support New Mobility

Wait! Before you wander off to other parts of the internet, please consider supporting New Mobility. For more than three decades, New Mobility has published groundbreaking content for active wheelchair users. We share practical advice from wheelchair users across the country, review life-changing technology and demand equity in healthcare, travel and all facets of life. But none of this is cheap, easy or profitable. Your support helps us give wheelchair users the resources to build a fulfilling life.

donate today

Comments are closed.