Selbourne

Thanks Barbara. That all makes sense but we like to disembark after breakfast and after the initial rush has subsided, so we may just have to take our chances. Thankfully, from the excellent feedback I have received, it seems as though most ports have enough to see without necessarily using a cab.

Many thanks. We have an SUV that my wife can transfer into from her wheelchair (bit of a struggle). She definitely couldn’t step up into a vehicle, so I’m guessing a minibus wouldn’t be an option (from memory a step up is needed?). We used a taxi that was an estate car in Copenhagen recently and with help from me I got her in and out of the front passenger seat. I guess that the ideal transport would be a small SUV but I’ve no idea whether or not taxi drivers use those in the Caribbean / Central America?

Yes, when relaying the conversation to my wife I said that we were getting 65 nights in the Caribbean with P&O for less than £3k more than 16 nights in Norway would be with Saga. OK, we’d get some benefit from the included drinks (me more than my wife) and I’ve no doubt that the ship and food would be a step up, but…..

Useful info. Thanks. Had my call today from Saga as well. Only asked about the Northern Lights cruise. They had an accessible balcony cabin but it was £8,528 for 16 nights, and that was after the maximum 35% discount and a further £170 discount as we wouldn’t need their insurance. I just think that’s ludicrous. Also, the Saga itinerary isn’t as good for seeing the Northern Lights as the P&O ones, as they only do one night in port. I told the lady that I’d booked a cruise with Cunard in Britannia Club for half that price per night! Even allowing for gratuities and what we’d spend on drinks, Saga is still coming out way more. And it’s 3 times per night what we are paying with P&O. I’m cooling on Saga. I’ve asked them to refund the pre reg fee and we are still on pre reg for Summer 2025, but if nothing works out there I think we might call it quits. Might revisit them once we’ve done a couple of Cunard cruises in Britannia Club if that doesn’t live up to expectations.

That’s good advice. Many thanks. Can you (or anyone else) recall what the approximate cost is for a couple of hours taxi tour? I appreciate it will vary by island, but a ball park idea would be useful.

I found that interesting, as we were thinking of looking around the local area independently in the morning and, if we still felt that we wanted to see more, get a taxi in the afternoon. However, we wouldn’t want to do long tours, just maybe a couple of hours max. Do you think that we’d be able to do that, or do the taxis disappear completely in the afternoons?

We will move to Baltic (having only recently become Caribbean) after our long winter cruise. As far as I can tell, the additional benefits over Caribbean are negligible and, as you say, seem to be restricted to a different lunch, laundry discount and a slightly earlier boarding time. I say ‘slightly’ earlier because since becoming Caribbean we have had boarding times of 1215 and 1230. We will almost certainly lose our Baltic status after the qualifying 3 years, but the main benefits seem to kick in at Caribbean (priority boarding, 10% discount and a nice lunch), so it won’t be a concern!

Have you ever purchased that? Just wondering how easy it is to get & roughly how much it might be?

We spent ages looking at the new launch cruises and came to the same conclusion. The ones that we short listed were no cheaper than the same cruises for the year before, so we couldn’t see any advantage to booking so far out. Furthermore, our last few bookings have been after balance due date at massive savings. Amazingly we even managed to get accessible balcony cabins. We always booked at launch and the prices were never bettered, but that seems to be in the past now. As a result, we won’t be booking anything from this release. Going forward, unless it’s a unique itinerary at a cracking launch price we will probably do late bookings from now on.

That’s brilliant. Thank you 👍

It just says Hamilton, Bermuda, so I guess it could be there. Would you happen to know if the ferry is accessible or if P&O provide a shuttle bus? If it’s 20 minutes from Hamilton I guess they’d have to and hopefully they might even have accessible shuttles. More chance there than the small Caribbean islands I guess?

I’m truly appreciating all of this. Many thanks 👍 Can I ask what was it specifically about St Vincent that made you feel unsafe? From the photos that you kindly posted it looks like it might still be worth a wander. We’ve been to worse looking places 😂

Same issue here with the heat, so our plan is just to spend a few hours ashore to see each place and then revert to the air conditioned environment of the ship! Thankfully, as I do all the pushing my wife doesn’t have to exert any energy, but the lack of accessible toilets in most places tends to be another reason we tend not to be off the ship all day.

Yes I agree. On the whole, this is a great community and we all try to help each other out by sharing our knowledge and experience. I’ve hopefully helped others out over the years and I am most certainly deriving a huge benefit from everyone who is helping me out now. Dealing with disabilities can be very challenging and requires a lot of pre-planning in order to avoid getting into difficulties. I also like to make every port visit as enjoyable and as stress free for my wife as possible, as she has enough to deal with without me getting us into trouble!

@Gettingwarmer I cannot see your post? Edit - apologies. Just noticed you have put comments alongside my post. Sincere thanks 👍

I’ll try to have a further dig around because the booklet they sent me with the policy has no further wording which, according to the link you provided, would cover me.

What is shocking you the most Dai? 😂 Hope that you are both enjoying your cruise BTW.

Definitely one person opening an account covers the spouse as well. I asked when setting it up yesterday and the insurance documents also clarify that, so just one £13 a month account needed.

Thanks. That’s very useful to know and may well be the best approach. I’m just nervous that they might remove cover. I thought about calling them and saying “we are considering going away for longer” and see what they say, but that may be risky!

Our home insurance is 60 days unoccupied. There doesn’t appear to be any option to extend that (it would only be by 5 days). I’ve checked the policy document and there are no clauses saying that certain things such as family staying for a period don’t count, so one of our daughters is going to come and stay for a period during the time we are away so that the house isn’t occupied for 60 days, as well as checking on the house regularly. I also intend to leave the heating on, but at a low temperature, to hopefully remove any risk of pipes freezing. The only internally exposed pipes are by the stop tap in the kitchen and I shall leave the cupboard door open so that they don’t get too cold. I will lag the outside tap (as I do in the winter anyway). If there are any other tips I’d be grateful, but my sense is that all of that might be a better approach than calling the insurers and running the risk that they remove cover, especially as we are not contravening the wording of the policy and, as I say, there are no ‘conditions’ beyond the simple 60 day unoccupied.

This is invaluable info folks. Sincere thanks. Please keep them coming. I’m making copious notes! As it sounds as though any shuttles may not be accessible, I’d really appreciate some clarity on which ports use shuttles (where we might definitely have to use a taxi to get anywhere decent) and those where a shuttle or taxi would not be necessary and the ‘nice’ areas are an easy walk from the ship. My wife’s wheelchair is a manual one and I push her. We can therefore cope without dropped kerbs, as long as the kerbs aren’t too high.

Thanks. This isn’t sounding very good. I hope that we haven’t made a very expensive mistake by booking this cruise 😱. Your explanation probably explains why there are so few ‘accessible’ excursions on offer and all but one of them are ‘sold out’ (we’ve booked the one that wasn’t - in St Kitts). The one glimmer of hope is that my wife can transfer to and from a taxi with my assistance, so we might be able to do some ‘taxi tours’ (assuming that these are available in certain places and safe to do so). They sound like the sort of places where hiring a car may not be easy or wise (even if they do exist). Hopefully someone will be able to reassure me that there will be some places where we can just wander around from the ship with me pushing the chair and at least feel that we have ‘been there’?

My wife and I have booked the 65 night ‘Aurora’s America & Caribbean Discovery’ departing 3rd Jan. We haven’t been to any of the ports before (other than Miami and Key West, but that wasn’t on a cruise). We try to just look around the ports independently (from the ship or the shuttle drop off point, if there is one) rather than do excursions, as my wife is a wheelchair user and can’t use a coach. I suspect that some ports are good for DIY and are nice places, whereas others may not be. Some places may not even be safe to walk around independently? We’re not beach people, but a promenade is always nice. We mainly like to see the towns and any significant sights that are ideally accessible without the need to travel from the port. However, if the port itself is completely naff, I’d rather know and get some ideas where we might be able to get to easily, perhaps by taxi? Also any ‘must see’ places, but keeping in mind the wheelchair! I realise that this is a big ask and I don’t expect anyone to go through the whole list (although that would be absolutely fantastic if they did 😂), so any and all tips would be sincerely appreciated. The full list of ports is; Hamilton - Bermuda Nassau - Bahamas Port Canaveral Miami Key West - (Possible Tender) New Orleans San Juan - Puerto Rico St Maarten Dominica Kingstown - St Vincent Bridgetown - Barbados Fort de France - Martinique Curaçao Oranjestad - Aruba Cartagena - Colombia Colon - Panama Panama Canal (Partial Transit) Puerto Limon - Costa Rica Roatan - Honduras (Possible Tender) Belize (Tender) Costa Maya - Mexico Cozumel - Mexico (Possible Tender) Georgetown - Cayman Islands (Tender) Ocho Rios - Jamaica (Possible Tender) Tortola - British Virgin Islands Basseterre- St Kitts & Nevis Antigua Praia da Vitoria - Azores

In all honesty I don’t know. The T’s and Cs state; “You may use multiple devices on one package but can only use a single device at any one time. If you wish to use multiple devices simultaneously, you will need to buy additional packages”. That sounds to me like I could use the WiFi on my phone or iPad and my wife could also use it on hers, as long as it’s at different times. I guess she’d have to log on as me?

I read it as per person, but we could both use the one subscription as long as only one of us was using a device at the same time.