jarvb

I usually sail with husband and have assigned dining.  This January I am sailing with my daughter and trying my time dining for the first time.  How do you usually tip the wait staff in the main dining room.  I am use to tipping on the last night ( in addition to prepaid), how do you handle tipping with my time?  What would you consider a reasonable tip, if tipping per meal.  Thanks.

we were. On the Pride on Sept 11 and the holes were pre punched. If you aren't fussy about what the lanyard looks like, you can get free ones in the casino, from the cashier.

You can rent wheelchairs from two companies, Special Needs at Sea or Care Vacations. Both companies will deliver to the state room and pick it up from there after the cruise. We have used both companies for chairs and found them to be comparable. They can also arrange to deliver to a hotel room pre cruise if needed. We have jused both with RCI and Carnival and have had no problems with either company.

We have never been on the magic but have been on a number of other Carnival cruises. My son uses a power wheelchair full time and has had no problems with accessing any of the dining venues. The main dining rooms are usually two levels. There are elevators that go to both of these levels and the entrance to the actual dining rooms have always been slightly ramped. If you have assigned dining, you may want to notify the special needs dept before departure that he is in a wheelchair and that it would be helpful to have seating arranged for easy access in the dining room. That will help with having to not try to navigate a chair between tables. There will be some areas of the ship that may be difficult, or impossible to access in a chair but for the most part, I think you will fund the public areas are accessible.

Have you thought about renting a scooter or a wheel chair?

my son is a quad so we need hoyer type lifts and electric hospital type beds. We have rented both from Special needs at Sea and Care Vacations. It seems Special needs at Sea has ability to deliver more easily at some ports. check both companies for availability and price. Both companies gave been very reliable and easy to deal with. both will deliver to both hotel and ship if needed. Enjoy your cruise

You may want to consider a regular foldable wheelchair instead of a transport chair. The transport chair would require someone to move her all the time or for her to scoot with her feet if she wanted to move herself a little. all the wheels on a transport chair are small and the same size. If she decides to get off the ship, a regular wheelchair will be a more comfortable ride and more manageable to maneuver.They fold up just as easily as the companion chair and shouldn't be much more, if any more expensive to rent. The two companies that deliver to the cruise ships are Care Vacations and Special Needs at Sea. both are good companies and should be able to deliver a chair to a ship in Florida. If you need other specialized equipment we have found Special Needs at Sea was able to supply what we needed. Have a greet trip!

I cancelled the cabana, which was a disappointment for us. I contacted the special needs dept and they confirmed that there was about 50 yards of "loose sand". I tried to get them to clarify what loose sand was, just some sand that blew over the concrete or wooden walkway, or plain ole sand that is deep and piled up. They wouldn't commit. I decided not to waste time worrying about it and just cancelled, someone who is more mobile may be able to use it. I have found that most people don't know the difference between adapted and accessible. It is even more disappointing when the Special Needs department doesn't know the difference. It is so frustrating. You would think that since RCI took the trouble to go ahead and put in walkways, they would extend them a few more yards.

Joyce

I have reserved one of the cabanas, unfortunately I don't know which one it is, my TA reserved it for us, never got a confirmation directly from RCI as to which one is reserved just one is reserved, along with the charge card bill. I am hoping there is one that is a little more accessible and we got that one. My son will be using a power chair on the island, it can go over packed dirt and grass but I doubt it will make it over sand. Transferring him to a sand chair is not an option. We will see what happens. I just may be spending time at customer services voicing my displeasure ( to put it mildly), but hopefully not. Thank you for the heads up, I won't be surprised if there is a problem. Someday I hope to be able to just go on vacation with him and not worry about accessibility but that is just a dream at this point. It does get frustrating.

Thank you for further info about accessibility. My son is unable to stand at all so transferring to anything would be difficult. Hopefully they will move the lounges. we can probably bump him up one step , with help, if we take him on shore in his manual chair instead of power chair. We usually don't take his power chair with us, we don't trust the airlines with it. Power chairs are too expensive for the airline employees to abuse. Since we are so close to home port this time, we are planning on taking both chairs. We know he usually has to take the manual chair in ports due to no curb cuts and etc but I was hoping he could use his power chair in labadee. We will make it work somehow.

IT.looks like the cabanas are ramped so.it.should.be ok for direct wheelchair access. I had our TA reserve one for us. A shady place for.my son to.rest while the rest of.us are in the water will.be wonderful. Thanks for posting the pictures I feel.more.comfortable about the rental now

Joyce

We will be on Labadee in November. I have read that they have a few wheel chair accessible cabanas. Our son is in a power chair, but we can use a manual chair, if necessary, in port. How accessible are these cabanas, really. Will he need to transfer from his wheel chair to a sand chair to gain entry or can he just wheel himself onto the cabana?

Thanks,

Joyce

We were on the train last May. We did not need to use an accessible bathroom. If they have one it will be tight for two people. The lift just made his manual chair, his power chair would not have fit. The elevator is also very narrow and just about made it with my son, his chair ,and husband. My son is a quad so it is necessary to have so some help him. I would just contact the railway and ask about the bathroom and any other concerns,everyone there were very willing to help and make sure my son had a good time. It was well worth the ride. Word of cAution, we were unable to get a wheelchair accessible cab at 6 am to get to the early train, in anchorage. In anchorage the cabbies are independent operators with the cab companies and no one started till 8. it may not be that way in other cities but if are in Anchorage andyou have a person who is unable to transfer out of a chair to get into a cab, have plan B ready. That was our most trying part of the whole vacation, anchorage hotel to train. Everything else was a piece of cake.

My son has a seizure disorder, controlled thank God,. Notify the special needs department that your child has a history of seizures so they are aware that he may need assistance during the cruise. Hopefully the medication will control the seizures and they won't be a problem but if you do have an episode, just treat it the way you normally would. Be prepared, have your medication with you, extra in case of being late back to port, take with you on tours if you will be off the ship at normal medication time. If you have rescue meds for those difficult seizures, be sure to have that with you. ( not everyone has rescue medicines, we don't) Just enjoy yourself. Right now the seizure disorder is new and you are still learning, eventually you will just make it a part of your life and work around it. I hope the medication your son is on is successful in controlling the seizures and you are able to enjoy your cruise without worry. You are right to do cruises close to home right now, once you have him stabilized on medications, I wouldn't hesitate to travel farther, just be sure to have travel insurance with medical coverage and maybe even evacuation coverage if needed, but then again, that makes sense for everyone traveling out of the country.

We never took formula off the ship, we arranged his tube feeding times so that we didn"t have to take formula off the ship. I don't know how your formula is packaged, or how often you are feeding her, but maybe you could just take what you need, eliminating the possibility of having to bring opened container back to the ship. My son was an adult so he just took a whole can of the jevity each time, there was never any open containers with left over formula. I know with a child that may not be the case.

When my son was using the feeding tube, he was also on a pureed diet. I forget how it worked the first night but i think they just pureed the food that night at dinner time after he selected what he wanted. Then each night, the head waiter would meet with us with the menu for the next day and we would select his meal then. If he wanted breakfast and lunch in the MDR we could have done that also. He wanted to eat breakfast and lunch else where so we were told that if we needed assistance in finding foods for him just to ask for the head waiter and they would be there to assist is getting what ever he needed. We honestly had no problem anywhere we went. We also were apprehensive before we were on the ship, but we had no need to be. As far as the weight of the suit cases, just pack in more than one bag, be sure to mark them medical supplies and pack the formula by itself , again clearly marked. The airlines were really good about not giving us any grief with the medical supplies. They never questioned what was in the bags either.

We traveled with our adult son two years ago who had a gastrostomy feeding tube. We packed all the feeding supplies in one suitcase and labeled it medical supplies. The airline should not charge you for medical supplies. The actual formula for the feeding was a case of cans of Jevity. We took the whole case, the airline reinforced the case in another plastic bag and did not charge for that either, again it was considered medical supplies. I took extra supplies, just in case we got back to port late or planes were delayed. I can't help with the Ketogenic diet but if you let the special needs department know about your daughters special dietary needs, they will go out of their way to accommodate her needs. It may not be perfect but they will certainly try.

In June of this year we flew to Anchorage Alaska precruise, staying one night and planned to take the Alaska railway to Seward. We traveled with my adult son who is a quadraplegic and unable to transfer from a wheelchair to a cab. Anchorage does have a few wheelchair accessible cabs and was able to get one at the airport to the hotel without problem.

There are only two or three cabs at the present time that are wheel chair accessible, meaning the passenger can ride in the chair, the problem is the operators of the cabs are independant contractors and make thier own hours. This is where we ran into a problem getting to Seward on the 7AM train.

We were told by the cab company ( there are two cab companies, both with two cabs) to call about an hour before we needed to get to the train statiion and they would try to get us a can. The majic word is try. I was assured there would be no problem but when I pushed for a guarantee the cab dispatcher him and hawed. What they failed to tell us was they had no way of knowing if any of the cabbies would be in at that time of the morning and they had no control over thier starting times as they are all independant contractors. Anyway, we needed to be at the train statiion no later than 6:30AM, problem is none of the cab drivers( with the accessible cabs) begin working before 8AM. We called both cab companies every 15minutes from 4AM until a little after 6AM with no response.

We finally decided to try a regular cab, using the hoyer lift we rented, to get him in the cab. We called ahead to the group we were traveling with who agreed to have a few strong men waiting to llift him out of the cab. We then called two cabs, one for my son and my husband and the wheel chair, the other for me and the luggage. We arrived at the train station at 6:25AM. If we did not make this train we would have missed the boat, literally.

There is an afternoon train from Anchorage to Seward, that would not present a problem as the cabbies are all up and on the road by then.

Another word of caution about the railroad. They are wheelchair accessible but if the wheelchair you are using is large there may be a problem The lift onto the train just about fit the manual chair we were using for the trip. It is narrow to accomodate the train door and walkways. There is an elevator to the domed area, that is also very narrow. If you are using a standard size wheel chair there shouldn't be a problem. The rail road was worth all the trouble getting to it. The ride was beautiful and my son was able to view a lot of the scenery from the spot reserved for his chair. The staff of the railroad was super, very friendly and helpful.