stocktonmackem

Well it depends on how well you can push the wheelchair up hills. The shuttle bus is at the top of a hill and so you have to push uphill to get back to the bus. Most of the hills are quite steep, think Grey Street in Newcastle. At the bottom. The thing is that it is constant. No flat areas in the centre. I managed on my scooter. What about the HOHO bus if it is adapted?

 

 

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Haha, I am usually good at banks but think you have made my mind up for me. We stayed on the ship last time we were there so it looks like I will be doing the same again. x Thanks for replying xx

Yes they do as it is about 20 to 30 mins. From ship to the centre.

 

 

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Dai, we will be in Oporto in June. I know it is meant to be very hilly but would you say it is worth going on the shuttle just to have a mooch about, even just to have a drink somewhere or would be be better just stay at Leixoes. x

A 2 litre wine box per couple in a cabin is ok, we do that. Marginally over the 2 bottle limit, but no dramas.:halo:

I asked on the P and O social media page and was told that you couldn't take a box of wine as it had to be one litre bottle per person and couldn't be combined. I was going to take the box on but not sure it would be worth the risk.

Very interesting thread. Slightly off topic I'm looking at Premier Inn for June and the West Quay one we really like is booked up.

On looking at the Premier Inn website there is one called "city centre" which doesn't look very central bearing in mind we are being dropped off so won't have a car. There is a brand new one called just "southampton|" that doesn't even show up on google maps yet! That looks like a better location for us.

Do any of you who know Southampton well know anything about it? It wasn't on the list when I booked for my Feb cruise! It's on Cumberland Place if that helps.

I tried to book the Premier in for one night in June but it was full. If you booked for 2 nights covering the one you want then it's available. someone mentioned on another group that if you book them both and then ring to cancel the one you don't want you should be able to get it. It was too late for me as I had already booked the Holiday Inn. I don't mind either to be honest but I usually just go for the cheaper option. x

When my husband first become disabled we used to fly to Tenerife as we had teenage children. My husband used to get stressed before the flight as he really didn't like having to be lifted on/off the plane, usually ending up bruised and battered. Family members had been cruising for years and kept telling us we would love it. My only encounter of big ships was to Denmark on a DFDS ship in the winter in gale force 11.. I kept saying no until my daughter herself cruised and took a photo of the disabled cabin and how easy it would be for us. That was it, down to the travel agents the next day. My husband now looks forward to his holiday as much as I do, in fact probably more. It is so much easier for him to be able to just get around on his own than going out in resorts. The only problem we encounter now is trying to get an accessible cabin. Fortunately I have 4 booked over the next 2 years.

All sorted for my cruises for 2019, My agent had them booked first thing this morning. Two accessible cabins, first choice cabins. Happy days.

Have today managed to secure an Accessible Balcony Cabin for our October cruise on Aurora, having been told some months ago that they were all sold out. I presume that this is as a result of a cancellation rather than an upgrade, as none of the Suites or Mini-Suites on Aurora are accessible, so whilst I am sorry that someone has been forced to cancel, I am delighted that we have been able to get an accessible cabin - in fact the same one that we had in May. Mrs Selbourne is very happy! Thank you P&O.

Nice one, enjoy your cruise when the time comes.

 

Happy Days.

 

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Nice, I have to wait until Wednesday seeing as I haven't reached the lofty hieghts yet. Fingers crossed that I can get accessible cabins. x

Hi, Stocktonmackem. Totally agree with you about the misuse of accessible cabins. I have been in contact with P&O over 4 years about that particular subject and other disability problems some I'm pleased to say have been remedied. They know there is a problem over the booking of accessible cabins and I have made lots of suggestions on how the situation could be sorted; all of which fell on deaf ears I'm afraid.

It is nice to see other people have the same concerns and could I suggest that you and any other disgruntled disabled cruisers contact P&O directly because the more people who do they will hopefully listen and make the necessary changes. I don't know if you are aware but P&O have a so called Disability Section but the direct line phone number is not shown on the website so you can't ring , you have to go through Customer Service who don't want to put you through(disabled section that you can'contact?). The person you need to talk to is the Disability Manager Paula Bown her contact e-mail is Paula.Bown@carnivalukgroup.com

It is good to discuss grievances and experiences with other members but you need to go direct with the companies if change is to be made

Best of luck CB.

Thank you CB, I will certainly send an email. I know you can't always believe what people say on social media but it seems to be people are saying they got an accessible cabin on a regular basis.

Pat was the cruise in the Caribbean? I suspect that on most sailings which involve flying the number of cruisers wanting them goes down.

 

I am just thinking of the hassle of flying as a disabled person.

 

Dai

 

 

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Not all of them Dai, I agree with the fly cruises being harder for us but at the same time I still don't think they should be given 19 months in advance.

Pat (?), you are far more active on face cloth than I am, and I am more sceptical of the honesty of FB posters. I would want to see some more believable posts about these issues before I begin to worry that P&O are disadvtaging disabled passengers, more than they already have with their scooter policy.

One of the guys was a regular poster who I know would not make stories up. He was upset about it and rang back and they changed it to a different room. I agree that you shouldn't always believe what you read but on this occasion I had no reason to disbelieve him. I have calmed down a bit now although if you pinch my cabin again it might be different haha x

I have always assumed that guarantee passengers being assigned an accessible cabin is normally due to a late cancellation, which can happen. Even if P&O provided a waiting list for this it is probable that it might not be possible for anyone on the wait list to take up the offer at the time.

However I can only assume the one booked 19 months out was a mistake, since all passengers booked in a disabled cabin have to fill out a disability questionnaire, at which point the mistake will be noticed.

I am often critical of P&O's customer service, but generally in relation to accessibility they are excellent.

I would agree with you normally John but the lady in question was actually on board Azura when she booked so you would expect that they would have realised it was an accessible cabin. I have always had good things to say about customer service etc but this isn't the first time in the last couple of weeks that I have heard that someone has been given an accessible cabin. A regular poster on one of the forums went to book a single cabin and was given an accessible cabin as there weren't any singles left. Another one was given an accessible cabin because she needed two baby cots, how is that fair. These were on med cruises where people are crying out for accessible cabins.

I'm with stocktonmackem on this one. There is a March 19 cruise that we wanted to go on but can't as all accessible balcony cabins are booked, yet I find that people who don't need an accessible cabin are either able to book them or are allocated them. This is wrong and a serious issue that P&O needs to resolve. Genuinely disabled passengers are being prevented from booking holidays as a result. I can't help but feel that accessible cabins should only be sold to wheelchair or scooter users. I fear that they may be going the way of assisted embarkation and disembarkation i.e. being abused by some people who perceive some advantage, yet would perhaps be slower to embrace the level of disability that goes with being a full time wheelchair user.

The annoying thing about this booking was the fact that it was actually done on board Azura last week. How on earth can the agent do this. I feel so strongly about it that I am going to email Mr Edgington to get him to get the agents re-trained. I can understand it if it was a couple of months before but not 19months. Yes they will probably get moved but that is not the point. If I rang up tomorrow to try and book the cabin will they remember that the person they sold it to is not disabled . I don't think so.

I was wondering if anyone knows how high the toilets are in these cabins. Thanks

My husband uses a shower/commode to access the toilet and I have just measured it and it is 19ins deep. If i remember correctly it only has a small gap between top of chair and toilet. Hope this helps

stocktonmackem - no it wasn't a last minute booking. We booked Select in Jan or Feb 2014, direct with P&O, for a Christmas cruise in December 2015. Although we booked Select we were one of the first to experience the "guaranteed" booking, where we could not book our precise cabin numbers but were only guaranteed our preferred grade. Of course we wanted cabins near to each other. No-one was more surprised than us when we arrived on board and found the cabin allocated to the children was an accessible cabin, and we did query it.

Thank you for replying, it just seems they do what they like nowadays. I don't think they even realise what they are doing half the time. I will be facing the minefield on the 13th hopefully booking two cruises if the cabins are available. x

As far as I can remember they are no different in height to those in standard cabins, although there is much more room around them to manoeuvre. Will check with my kids when they get home because they were an allocated an accessible cabin on Britannia even though they didn't need it.

Out of curiosity was this a last minute booking for your

kids or booked in advance. I am getting more and more annoyed in the last few weeks regarding people getting accessible cabins when they don't need them. Obviously not blaming the people getting them just the agents/P and O for allocating them. It's bad enough that scooter users who don't need all of the facilities have to use them as they are not allowed standard cabins without non disabled people being given them. I was involved in a discussion on facebook where a lady was allocated an accessible cabin when she booked for Feb 2019 . That is so wrong. I am dreading trying to get an accessible cabin for 2019 when they go on sale on the 13th.

That is disgusting, you paid for your holiday to use a balcony. I would have been fuming. a couple of years ago the cabin below us had a whole washing line of knickers strung across her balcony. I asked at reception what the policy was regarding hanging washing out. It was definitely not acceptable was the reply. I mentioned about the lady below and they changed their mind as to what was acceptable and what wasn't. I think they are too scared to confront people. Hope you get a satisfactory outcome from head office.

The attached is from the P&O and Cunard Accessible passengers FB page, so I hope it works. There are quite a few accessible info sheets posted there, but not sorted in any useful way.

 

https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/P%26O%20NAPLES%202016.pdf?token=AWzA5D2TO7rA5ZEVS5TsKXfGlS3_BKLQZJnMOhd8tVg3B2uFs4eRv1uy_hgF97L-T9-7gPcBIerDXwBh7Q7Z5D9H2Jj9-bdEEBwIGU3WICbtnC9K20aY-_xPIzWOFiM3vQz3_K450bhAwlXp0Mqva3hf

Thank you, checked it out and I am interested in the Sorrento/Amalfi coast tour. Will need to be on the ball when they go on sale as only room for 2 chairs and 2 passengers.

I always find the best way to contact customer service is via the social media page by private message. Never had a problem and they always get back fairly quickly unless it's a weekend.

Out of curiosity TerrierJohn, do you know if there is an accessible excursion from Naples.

I'm just wondering what your enquiry was so that we can all try and ask the same question to see if we can get a free bottle of bubbly :)

Seriously, nice to hear good news - we are in a world where people tend to just want to give negative feedback about every tiny little thing. It seems like people aren't happy unless they are moaning about something.

(Well done for fixing the shower gel thing without making a right song and dance of it !)

I had read on Facebook about wheelchair users not having to wear a tuxedo. My hubby feels uncomfortable as Jacket gets bunched up. I didn't want to just turn up to dinner and be embarrassed if they said he needed a Jacket. I asked via pm on the social media page. Hannah got in touch with the ship and checked with the restaurant if it was ok just to wear a waistcoat instead. There wasn't a problem and I was happy that everything was fine. We exchanged a few pm over the course of a couple of days, me explaining that hubby was delighted that he would be ok just to wear a waistcoat. As far as I was concerned that was it. I was delighted to get on board to find the champagne and chocolates as they were definitely not expected. Needless to say I posted it on the P and O site just so that people are aware that they do the right thing sometimes. When we went to the restaurant on the first evening as soon as we got to the desk they even knew our cabin number. First time I have had a peaceful evening without hubby saying he was uncomfortable. x

On the odd occasion that I have had to contact P&O land based customer services they have been pretty hopeless, but I havent tried via Social Media. By contrast, I have usually found problem resolution on the ships to be superb. The best example we had was on Britannia. We were getting a drainage smell from the basin / WC in our suite. We mentioned it to the cabin steward who tried several things, to no avail. Mechanics then tried several things over several days, again no improvement. They provided an automatic air freshener which squirted out fragrance every so often which masked it, but they didn't give up. I would stress that we were not complaining and we were having a laugh with the mechanics and passenger services manager every time we passed him when he asked was it fixed yet and we said 'nope, still trying'! Anyway, a few days before the end of the cruise the Passenger Services Manager appeared and said that they were really sorry that they had been unable to fix the problem and were adding £300 on board credit to our account. We were flabbergasted. It hadn't been a show stopper for us and we hadn't complained about the problem or the number of viists to our cabin, even though it had been mildly irritating. We were impressed and grateful that they had tried so hard to fix the problem and had no expectation whatsoever for anything else, so the fact that they effectively wiped out our remaining on board account was fantastic and much appreciated.

Reading this reminded me of a little problem I had on Ventura last week. We use an accessible cabin and after hubby had his shower I moved the shower head up to suit me. Unfortunately the shower head decided to snap completely off the rail and water was flying everywhere. I was in a panic as it was the 1st formal night. I ended up having to go to shower in the spa area. It was just as 6.30 people were going down to dinner so not wanting to go into the lift with my hair soaking wet I decided to use the stairs, conscious of the fact I looked a right mess. I mentioned to our cabin steward as we left for dinner about the shower and he had it fixed by the time we got back that night. Again fantastic service. Maybe I should have complained that it smacked off my head and I needed compensating for it :D;);)

I have just returned from Ventura and before we went I had a small query. I decided to get in touch with P and O via their social media page. My query was dealt with promptly and answered all my questions. Upon arriving in my cabin I was amazed to find that there was a bottle of Champagne and Chocolates as a gift from the P and O Social Media team. These days we are all quick in complaining about P and O and there Customer Service that I thought I should give them a big thumbs up especially as it was only a query and not a complaint and no way would I have expected this gesture. :)

We have just come off Ventura, hubby is full-time wheelchair user. We didn't meet any problems whatsoever in all areas of the ship. As someone said earlier, in the theatre at each side of the front section there are seats which are meant to be for carers but be aware that people plead ignorance and put the arm rest down and pretend they don't know, ask them to move if you want that seat as they shouldn't be there. If you are on fixed dining be aware that the dining room is on deck 6 which is only accessible by a lift. It will be very busy just before dining starts so give yourself plenty of time to get there. The two freedom dining restaurants are easy to get to. We always find our fellow passenger to be very polite and courteous regarding getting in the lifts first etc but you always get one. Just remember you are on holiday so nothing should stop you having a fantastic time. xx

I wouldn't be surprised if you get some abuse Selbourne, I was shot down in flames not long ago for commenting on the number of people who don't actually need assistance when getting on a ship. It really irritates me as you see it on every ship. Like you say it spoils it for the people who actually need help. Glad you enjoyed your holiday.

I work for ASDA, (Almost ) 13 Years and counting... Can I get long service OBC from P&O ?

 

Joking aside... Would you have to show something to PROVE you were ex military or NHS staff ?

If you get OBC for working for Asda, then I want more cos I have done 25 years this year lol I get an extra weeks holiday so I will book a cruise if I am going to get OBC haha