Wheelchair Cruising the Western Med

[Grumblediddley]

Wheelchair cruising

Western Mediterranean – Southampton - Gibraltar – Cannes – Barcelona – Palma – Alicante – Malaga – Lisbon – Vigo - Southampton

Day One – Saturday 8th September 2012 – Southampton – Casual dress for dinner.

Signs direct cruisers to Southampton Docks from all approaches.

Upon arrival at Gate 10 the gatekeeper will direct you to the porters who will take your bags from you and direct you to your car park.

On entering the Terminal building you will meet your mobility scooter hirer, if you’ve hired one, and take over your scooter, as I did. [RCI do not condone commercial naming in these missives] Help became available as we made our way toward the check-in desks, and as we had a scooter and a wheelchair we were directed to leapfrog the masses. Our passports were checked, our photographs taken and the details embedded in our Sea Pass Cards. You pay for everything with this card [in American dollars], it is also your door key and your clocking ‘out’ and ‘in’ card when you want to leave and re-board the ship.

As we made our way on board, I made mobile contact with my oxygen machine and gas cylinder supplier [RCI do not condone commercial naming in these missives] whom we met on the way up to the ship. He guided us direct to our stateroom and showed us the oxygen equipment.

Your paperwork encourages you to go up to the Windjammer restaurant for refreshments before being called when your stateroom is ready.

The main entry into the ship is on deck four, port side midships. You will learn these nautical phrases as the cruise progresses.

Find the lifts - there are eight of them at the rear of the ship, six at the front – go up to deck eleven, follow your nose and the masses to the Windjammer Restaurant and have a good look around the serveries to see the variety of food available – if you can’t find anything to suite your palate you must be from a different planet!

Around one o’clock you will be advised that your stateroom is available for you – if all your bags are not in your stateroom, during the rest of the afternoon the remaining bags will be delivered to you.

Our stateroom was an adapted stateroom [half as wide again than a normal stateroom]– to suit a disabled person who needs that bit of extra manoeuvring space for their wheelchair/mobility scooter – the bathroom had a wet room type roll-in toilet and shower area.

Around four in the afternoon every guest had to report to their Muster Station for the Emergency Drill. Your muster station number is on your Sea Pass Card. Me being a wheelchair user had to report to Bolero’s Bar, where we would be shown what to do there – Oops, no-one came, so we went back to our stateroom when the muster drill was all over.

RCI did ask me to attest that I had a need of the adapted stateroom and to state my disability/s. It has been previously found by RCI that it is not uncommon for full blown walkie talkies to lie through their teeth to get an adapted stateroom.

For us the time on board was the same as was ashore in UK when we left Southampton – the ship time was changed to one hour fast of UK the night before we docked at Gibraltar and back to UK time again the night before we docked at Lisbon, then it stayed the same to Southampton. Time zone changes will be notified to you by a note on your bed by your stateroom attendant and on channel 40 on the TV.

Dress for dinner tonight is Casual for those dining in the served restaurants.

I had signed up for the My Time Dining option and did try our restaurant, the King Lear, but found that the portion sizes were too big for my appetite – my medical condition denies me a ‘normal’ appetite – we reverted hereafter to choosing what and how much we wanted from the Windjammer for all meals.

A daily information sheet called the Cruise Compass has all the information you will need on what’s on tomorrow where and when – this sheet appears on your bed as if by magic each day!

Send your goodbye texts to friends and family before the ship gets out of UK mobile phone transmitter range.

Day Two – at sea.

On our first ‘sea day’, those of us who had registered for our Meet and Mingle, met and mingled. We wore our name badges, put our raffle tickets in the hat and in due course we all had our names drawn from said hat and won something, from a Royal Caribbean key-ring to a bottle of fizzy plonk masquerading as shampoo. Then one last draw - was an RCI bag with one of everything in it – and I won it!! That’s Xmas presents sorted for this year!!

Traversing the Bay of Biscay we were not able to text as we were well away from any land based transmitter.

Get to know the ship and it’s layout.

Day Four – Gibraltar - docked 0900-1300

From my mobility scooter Gibraltar is a good place to roll around – nice and smooth [mainly] – not too high step up kerbs for my mini-wheeled machine to negotiate. For those who wished to ‘do the rock’ there were plenty of ‘tours’ with loads of carrying space to fit any sized wheelchair or scooter into.

One more day at sea saw us at Cannes via a super squall storm overnight on the way up through Marseille Bay.

Cannes is one of those ports where the guests are transported to shore using ship to shore tenders, operated by French operators. Each tender can carry up to 200 passengers, but only three wheelchairs! A bit of advice here might be to register the fact that you are a wheelchair user early in the cruise and as such ask that you ought to be afforded the privilege of going ashore in front of any [unregistered] ‘wheelchair’ users. That way those of you who are tethered to an oxygen bottle can maximise your time ashore and not waste it waiting for the unregistered ‘wheelies’ elbowing in in your place. I think the waving of Euro’s at the tender crew just might get them to assist one off and on their vessel, or they just might continue to cock a deaf ‘un.

Cannes itself it quite a nice place to roll around in, albeit the kerbs were a bit high so I had to look well in advance for places to cross roads etc. Generally the pavements and roads were smooth. A good bit of advice is to retrace your route on your return to the dockside exactly as when we were there a part of the sea defences had collapsed and taken the walkway with it, we had to retrace our steps a good quarter of a mile!

I cannot give any guidance as to shore excursions from here on in as we didn’t do any.

Barcelona is a beautiful city – for me it is all things Gaudi – as a disabled wheelchair user we and our carer are allowed in to La Sagrada Familia for free.

Cafes are plentiful, coffee can vary from a euro a cup to over three the nearer you are to the tourist traps and be ever vigilant and protect yourself and goods from the pick-pockets and bag snatchers.

The pavement surfaces and the roadways are smooth and the slopes down the kerbs are many and well controlled by lights at the plentiful crossings.

Taxis capable of carrying me and my scooter are few and far between.

Palma, Majorca – the Cathedral was my aim and once again we are allowed in for free, but beware the paved surfaces are extremely uneven, very uncomfortable for little wheels and entry to the Cathedral for us wheelies is via the exit which is ‘round the back’. Once away from the immediate locality of the cathedral the surfaces smooth out. Again taxis capable of carrying me and machine are rare.

We didn’t get off at Alicante.

Malaga – a lovely new port, just about finished construction, an easy roll for a gentle stroll to a soft sand beach the kids will love.

Lisbon – a beautiful looking city on the approach to it – but be very aware of the pretty cobbled streets and pavements, they are a pain in the bum for me on a small wheeled electric scooter, and the hills were way too steep for my carer, it’s a damn good job I took the scooter ashore, she’d have never handled me in the wheelchair and the hills!

Vigo – a lovely city, like Lisbon it is very steep but the nearby facilities are all on the flat and smooth and so easy to get back to the ship again.

Any questions? – try me.

Graham - aka Grumblediddley

[jmehtauk]

Wheelchair cruising

Western Mediterranean – Southampton - Gibraltar – Cannes – Barcelona – Palma – Alicante – Malaga – Lisbon – Vigo - Southampton

Day One – Saturday 8th September 2012 – Southampton – Casual dress for dinner.

Signs direct cruisers to Southampton Docks from all approaches.

Upon arrival at Gate 10 the gatekeeper will direct you to the porters who will take your bags from you and direct you to your car park.

On entering the Terminal building you will meet your mobility scooter hirer, if you’ve hired one, and take over your scooter, as I did. [RCI do not condone commercial naming in these missives] Help became available as we made our way toward the check-in desks, and as we had a scooter and a wheelchair we were directed to leapfrog the masses. Our passports were checked, our photographs taken and the details embedded in our Sea Pass Cards. You pay for everything with this card [in American dollars], it is also your door key and your clocking ‘out’ and ‘in’ card when you want to leave and re-board the ship.

As we made our way on board, I made mobile contact with my oxygen machine and gas cylinder supplier [RCI do not condone commercial naming in these missives] whom we met on the way up to the ship. He guided us direct to our stateroom and showed us the oxygen equipment.

Your paperwork encourages you to go up to the Windjammer restaurant for refreshments before being called when your stateroom is ready.

The main entry into the ship is on deck four, port side midships. You will learn these nautical phrases as the cruise progresses.

Find the lifts - there are eight of them at the rear of the ship, six at the front – go up to deck eleven, follow your nose and the masses to the Windjammer Restaurant and have a good look around the serveries to see the variety of food available – if you can’t find anything to suite your palate you must be from a different planet!

Around one o’clock you will be advised that your stateroom is available for you – if all your bags are not in your stateroom, during the rest of the afternoon the remaining bags will be delivered to you.

Our stateroom was an adapted stateroom [half as wide again than a normal stateroom]– to suit a disabled person who needs that bit of extra manoeuvring space for their wheelchair/mobility scooter – the bathroom had a wet room type roll-in toilet and shower area.

Around four in the afternoon every guest had to report to their Muster Station for the Emergency Drill. Your muster station number is on your Sea Pass Card. Me being a wheelchair user had to report to Bolero’s Bar, where we would be shown what to do there – Oops, no-one came, so we went back to our stateroom when the muster drill was all over.

RCI did ask me to attest that I had a need of the adapted stateroom and to state my disability/s. It has been previously found by RCI that it is not uncommon for full blown walkie talkies to lie through their teeth to get an adapted stateroom.

For us the time on board was the same as was ashore in UK when we left Southampton – the ship time was changed to one hour fast of UK the night before we docked at Gibraltar and back to UK time again the night before we docked at Lisbon, then it stayed the same to Southampton. Time zone changes will be notified to you by a note on your bed by your stateroom attendant and on channel 40 on the TV.

Dress for dinner tonight is Casual for those dining in the served restaurants.

I had signed up for the My Time Dining option and did try our restaurant, the King Lear, but found that the portion sizes were too big for my appetite – my medical condition denies me a ‘normal’ appetite – we reverted hereafter to choosing what and how much we wanted from the Windjammer for all meals.

A daily information sheet called the Cruise Compass has all the information you will need on what’s on tomorrow where and when – this sheet appears on your bed as if by magic each day!

Send your goodbye texts to friends and family before the ship gets out of UK mobile phone transmitter range.

Day Two – at sea.

On our first ‘sea day’, those of us who had registered for our Meet and Mingle, met and mingled. We wore our name badges, put our raffle tickets in the hat and in due course we all had our names drawn from said hat and won something, from a Royal Caribbean key-ring to a bottle of fizzy plonk masquerading as shampoo. Then one last draw - was an RCI bag with one of everything in it – and I won it!! That’s Xmas presents sorted for this year!!

Traversing the Bay of Biscay we were not able to text as we were well away from any land based transmitter.

Get to know the ship and it’s layout.

Day Four – Gibraltar - docked 0900-1300

From my mobility scooter Gibraltar is a good place to roll around – nice and smooth [mainly] – not too high step up kerbs for my mini-wheeled machine to negotiate. For those who wished to ‘do the rock’ there were plenty of ‘tours’ with loads of carrying space to fit any sized wheelchair or scooter into.

One more day at sea saw us at Cannes via a super squall storm overnight on the way up through Marseille Bay.

Cannes is one of those ports where the guests are transported to shore using ship to shore tenders, operated by French operators. Each tender can carry up to 200 passengers, but only three wheelchairs! A bit of advice here might be to register the fact that you are a wheelchair user early in the cruise and as such ask that you ought to be afforded the privilege of going ashore in front of any [unregistered] ‘wheelchair’ users. That way those of you who are tethered to an oxygen bottle can maximise your time ashore and not waste it waiting for the unregistered ‘wheelies’ elbowing in in your place. I think the waving of Euro’s at the tender crew just might get them to assist one off and on their vessel, or they just might continue to cock a deaf ‘un.

Cannes itself it quite a nice place to roll around in, albeit the kerbs were a bit high so I had to look well in advance for places to cross roads etc. Generally the pavements and roads were smooth. A good bit of advice is to retrace your route on your return to the dockside exactly as when we were there a part of the sea defences had collapsed and taken the walkway with it, we had to retrace our steps a good quarter of a mile!

I cannot give any guidance as to shore excursions from here on in as we didn’t do any.

Barcelona is a beautiful city – for me it is all things Gaudi – as a disabled wheelchair user we and our carer are allowed in to La Sagrada Familia for free.

Cafes are plentiful, coffee can vary from a euro a cup to over three the nearer you are to the tourist traps and be ever vigilant and protect yourself and goods from the pick-pockets and bag snatchers.

The pavement surfaces and the roadways are smooth and the slopes down the kerbs are many and well controlled by lights at the plentiful crossings.

Taxis capable of carrying me and my scooter are few and far between.

Palma, Majorca – the Cathedral was my aim and once again we are allowed in for free, but beware the paved surfaces are extremely uneven, very uncomfortable for little wheels and entry to the Cathedral for us wheelies is via the exit which is ‘round the back’. Once away from the immediate locality of the cathedral the surfaces smooth out. Again taxis capable of carrying me and machine are rare.

We didn’t get off at Alicante.

Malaga – a lovely new port, just about finished construction, an easy roll for a gentle stroll to a soft sand beach the kids will love.

Lisbon – a beautiful looking city on the approach to it – but be very aware of the pretty cobbled streets and pavements, they are a pain in the bum for me on a small wheeled electric scooter, and the hills were way too steep for my carer, it’s a damn good job I took the scooter ashore, she’d have never handled me in the wheelchair and the hills!

Vigo – a lovely city, like Lisbon it is very steep but the nearby facilities are all on the flat and smooth and so easy to get back to the ship again.

Any questions? – try me.

Graham - aka Grumblediddley

 

Hi

 

I am a full time Wheel chair user - (i just cant get up other wise all is well)

 

I am taking a cruise on July 2014 and will have few of the ports that u did i.e Gibralter,Palma,Vigo,Barcelona

 

I wish to make most while i am there and evaluating options if to do shore excursions via Ship or if there are good options out there and save some money - can u please share ur experience- ~Thx