Caribbean Allan

The private excursion company that had the van and met us for or day in Falmouth was “Excursion Ocho Rios” and the driver was the owner, Richard Brooks. A vey nice, pleasant and fun man.

My wife had knee surgery and we had to do the same thing. There are two private companies that rent the scooters for cruise ships. We read the reviews and picked Special Needs At Seas”. Humm…. Maybe it was because of the reviews, I don’t know, but of the about 20 scooters we saw at sea, 100% of them were from this one company. They were wonderful. They were staged outside in a covered area not too far from baggage-off. Our Uber driver was able to pull up and drop us off right there. (In Galveston for Radiance Of The Seas). My wife was able do drive it right into the building for check-in, and then all the way into the ship. That was so much nicer than the “scooter delivered to the cabin”, that we read about elsewhere, but never saw. There are several styles to choose from. We ordered the smallest size scooter that will carry a 240 pound person and we were able to get it into the door of our regular sized balcony cabin. For the sake of this comment, I will call it “the medium sized scooter”. They do call it a different name. Please know that due to the skinny hallways outside the cabin, we could not simply turn the corner and drive it right in. I always had to bring it in or take it out of the cabin for her. It did involve slightly picking up one end. But it really was no big deal as it’s not that heavy. There are times that my wife wanted to go places on her own, and she did! She was able to go every place on her own. The Solarium, Viking Crown Lounge, and others. If she wanted to go our cabin to grab something or take a nap, she parked it near the end of the short hall at the atrium, and walked the length of cabins to our room. We found it amazing that there was ALWAYS a place to park it, if desired. There were seemingly an endless number of nooks, crannies, alcoves, or wide areas in which to park it. We did drive it into the main dining room once, and it was doable, but way too tight. After that first time, she just parked out outside the entrance doors. We charged it only at night, even though some of those alcoves had electrical outlets. In Falmouth, Jamaica, she drove it off the ship and all the way to a far-away parking lot where we met our private excursion company / taxi with whom we arranged a van. It really wasn’t that expensive at all, and was cheaper than Royal Caribbean’s offerings. The driver and I easily picked up the scooter and put it in the back of the van. My wife used it throughout the day. We loved that scooter, and it made the cruise just as fun as cruises in the past. Do not hesitate to rent a scooter. Have fun!

Even on the largest of ships, such as tje Oasis class ships, we never really have a problem finding each of our family members. This is because we know them so very well. I know where to look for each of them because I know what they like to do, Even so, i have to admit that to play it safe, we do all agree to meet about 45 minutes before dinner, just to make sure we do hook up. But as it turned out, it rarely turned out to be necessary.

I went to the Passport Office in San Francisco. I was there as soon as they opened and got my updated /renewal passport about 4 hours later. Unfortunatly, there are not many Passport Offices around. For example, I belive there are only two of them in all of California. I know this won’t help you now, but others might find this useful.