We recently enquired about a cruise; as it does seem to be a good way of seeing sights, especially as we’ve reached a certain age. So we called for a quote and as soon as my husband mentioned that I would need some room to store my wheelchair and would like to be near a lift, the quote jumped by £600 each!
Then I looked for a hotel with a nice view in this country and the prices were around the same price as the cruise.
Talk about rip off.
I haven’t had that many holidays in the last few years and my MS has progressed a bit since my last one, so I didn’t realise that once you so much as mention you have a disability and need to be on the ground floor and need a shower, not a bath, you really are limited as to what’s on offer.
It makes my blood boil. All the aids and toys we have to buy for my disabled grandchild cost more than they should too, its disgusting that any mention of a disability and the price shoots up.
It is indeed a great way of travelling as I’ve only recently discovered. But the cruise companies excuse the higher cost of accessible cabins by saying they need to be bigger to accommodate wheelchairs and extra equipment.
It is bloody annoying, especially when you have to also spend extra money on hiring equipment from Mobility at Sea (ie shower chair, toilet surrounds, hoists, etc).
But after having been on one (to the Norwegian Fjords), and only living an hour away from Southampton, I am now determined not to fly again and have already booked two more cruises for next year.
Can’t say i blame you about the flying.We went to Spain end of september/early october and it can be kind of stressful at the airports! Little bournemouth Airport brilliant,great communication so even if there is a few needing assistance you know you haven’t been forgotten and they will be back.Get to Malaga and they push my wife through a few security doors then leave her waiting in a totally empty corridor whilst they go back for others with wheelchair,seem to wait ages whilst others off same plane go a different way with their passenger assistance not coming through the security doors we did.Because they have sectioned the assistance up, you get dumped several times waiting for someone else to turn up and hoping they do! On the way back got to bournemouth and the whole plane has emptied and no sign of lift,i am asking if its coming to front or rear and the stewardess doesn’t know yet.After a while another enquires if we are ok and i explain waiting for lift,by this time 300 passengers are about to climb steps and get on and she has to run to stop them!Eventually they come and take her down steps on some horrible mechanical stair climbing chair all whilst the all the next passengers who are now delayed are stood 10ft away watching.Turns out the assistance had asked how many disabled and weather it needed to be front or back door and were told there weren’t any! My wife found it quite degrading and whilst i told her not to be silly i was very uncomfortable about it too.
Thank you for your messages; we tried another agent but with the same cruise company. The agent gave us a quote less the £600; but never sent us the follow-up confirmation email. so we’re presuming she wasn’t able to secure the cruise at the price she’d offered over the phone.
Have you tried just phoning the cruise company direct rather than use an agent? That’s what we’ve done. Yes, the price is increased for an accessible cabin, but you might just get a better price rather than going through an agent! Maybe. I hope you manage to give cruising a go. I was nervous about being in a floating hotel together with several thousand other people, but actually I really liked it. The other think my OH and me don’t do is dressing up in black tie, cocktail dresses and wheelchairs don’t go somehow and Mr Sssue vowed never to wear a tie again even before he finally retired from work. But we managed to eat really well regardless of not being able to use the main dining room on formal nights.
It truly is a wonderful way of seeing places that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to.
