Limited Mobility excursions

Hi. Planning a Baltic cruise next summer. What excursions are available for a person with limited mobility due to ankle and spinal surgeries? Can walk up to a mile but slowly. Can climb stairs...just not too many. Just wondering what the options are. Thanks in advance

Check the Cruise Planner. there are normally excursions for those with mobility limitations and most excursions indicate the amount of walking, type of surface and whether steps are involved.

Without knowing the ports, it's impossible to make any specific recommendations

A guidebook on your port will detail all points of interest, so the un-mobile can make an informed decision on what to do!

Hi. Planning a Baltic cruise next summer. What excursions are available for a person with limited mobility due to ankle and spinal surgeries? Can walk up to a mile but slowly. Can climb stairs...just not too many. Just wondering what the options are. Thanks in advance

First of all, contact Celebrity's Special Needs department and let them know your limitations:

https://www.celebritycruises.com/special-needs

Then contact their Accessible Shore Excursion department and ask if they will have any excursions that would be what you want. Note, it will probably be too early for them to have their shore excursions lined up for next year. They often have accessible shore excursions that are not listed with the excursions you see on-line. Here's is Celebrity's accessible tours email:

ShorexAccess@rccl.com

Have you considered a walker, wheelchair or scooter? Not all shore excursions can accommodate a scooter but it sure will help getting around a very large ship. If you do consider a scooter, you might book an accessible room to be sure you have enough room for it.

Finally, there is also the option of booking with a private tour operator and having your tours set up with your limitations in mind.

Hi. Planning a Baltic cruise next summer. What excursions are available for a person with limited mobility due to ankle and spinal surgeries? Can walk up to a mile but slowly. Can climb stairs...just not too many. Just wondering what the options are. Thanks in advance

I was recently on a Baltic cruise (Silhouette, 14 nights, RT Southampton) and I did notice shore excursions for passengers with mobility concerns. I’m afraid I can’t remember details, or whether these were available at all ports, but there was definitely something for St. Petersburg.

Unfortunately, high winds prevented us from docking at St. Petersburg, but I understand the lines for immigration can be quite long the first day. I would talk to Celebrity about having a wheelchair available for you to get through the line. There is some information about shuttles and walking duration in my review. The link is in my signature. Upwarduk also posted a review, both on these threads & in the reviews section. Another person from our sailing posted a review as well. Between us, we may answer a few questions about some of the challenges you might face, and some of the options available to you. I’ll look for shore excursion descriptions. If I find any, I’ll post the link here.

By the way, we encountered some combination of gravel, cobblestones, hills, uneven pavement and narrow walkways at some of the ports. One lady, who had recently injured her ankle, had quite a time in Copenhagen, even with two people pulling her wheelchair up the unevenly paved incline. She was clearly in discomfort.

Below is a link to reviews that may be useful to you. The couple have traveled extensively, and the wife has knee issues. It may be helpful to read about their experiences on their Baltic cruise.

https://www.thepreismans.com/index.html

I cannot comment on that particular cruise, but in general, follow the above recommendations for getting more information. From my experience, if the excursion has quite a bit of walking, in most cases it will not accommodate someone who can walk, but slowly. There also may be steps, uneven streets, cobblestone, etc.. You will likely need to find an excursion that can accommodate someone with a disability.

I also notice you are new to Cruise Critic. Welcome! I recommend you join the Roll Call for your cruise so you can converse with fellow travelers. You may find someone else in your situation you can share a private excursion with. Go to the Roll Call section of the website, search for your ship, and then scroll down until you find the correct sailing. You also can find port information in the Ports of Call section. If you are considering a certain excursion, you may be able to find input on it there, and you also can post specific questions.

Often the ship excursions that are for limited mobility are just bus rides. We have started booking private guides/drivers in some ports (still will do ship tours off and on). You can go at your own pace, stay out longer or come back earlier. With a car they can often drop you off at the front rather than walk a long way. On our last cruise we had a private guide to some pagodas in Myanmar. My wife took one look at the stairs and said she couldn't walk up them all. Our guide asked if there was an alternate entrance, and they drove us around back, up the hill, and into a small gated area. We would have never gotten that kind of accomodation on the ship bus tour!

Hi. Planning a Baltic cruise next summer. What excursions are available for a person with limited mobility due to ankle and spinal surgeries? Can walk up to a mile but slowly. Can climb stairs...just not too many. Just wondering what the options are. Thanks in advance

Here is a link: SPB Tours

Down near the bottom of the page, there is a form to use for contacting them.

Viktoria is great to work with and responded to our questions very quickly. They provided a folding wheelchair (at no charge) for a member of our party who needed one. It folded up and went right into the back of the van.

The driver pulled it out and unfolded it at each stop, then folded it up and stored it again when we were ready to move on.

The tour operators also offer an optional slower paced, more limited tour of St. Petersburg. But by having the wheelchair provided, all of us were able to enjoy the regular, full two day tour together and our party did not need to split up.

The wheelchair was wonderful for going through the long hallways in palaces and museums, and especially appreciated in the Hermitage.

SPB really goes above and beyond to accommodate their customers.

From talking with other passengers, I understanding that you can't go wrong using any of the major tour providers for St. Petersburg. They all give great tours and get glowing reviews, although there are some differences between them as to the ways that they run their tours.

So for purposes of comparison, you may want to contact a few of the tour operators in advance, describe what you need, and see what responses you get.

That was what we did, and how we came to choose SPB.

Hi. Planning a Baltic cruise next summer. What excursions are available for a person with limited mobility due to ankle and spinal surgeries? Can walk up to a mile but slowly. Can climb stairs...just not too many. Just wondering what the options are. Thanks in advance

We have done two Baltic cruises. One in 2015 and the other last month, July 2018. The two cruises had very different itineraries, so you need to name your ports of call.

I have limited mobility and took a manual wheelchair.

There is also loads of information in the Northern Europe and Baltics forum, here on Cruise Critic and on Tripadvisor.

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