Scooter allowed off ship?

[FirstTimeRiver]

Traveling on Celebrity Constellation and reserving a scooter through either Scootaround or Special Needs Group. I have an accessible cabin booked. Cruise leaves out of Ravenna, Italy and ports are Split, Croatia, Dubrovnik, Croatia, Santorini, Greece, Rhodes, Greece, Ephesus, Turkey, Mykonos, Greece ending in Athens. I believe that in the tender ports I won’t be able to take the scooter off the ship but has anyone taking it off ship in regular ports? Is that permitted and are there challenges with cobblestones or other terrain in these areas? 

 

[Essiesmom]

Certainly you can take it off in the ports where you dock.  There will be challenges in Split, Dubrovnik, Rhodes, but just lots of cobblestones but doable.  Ephesus would be a nightmare, although people have reported they did it.  I remember cobblestones as being much more uneven there.  But I was not using a mobility device.  You might get lucky and get to dock in Mykonos, but don’t plan on it.  Santorini will give you a lovely view from the ship.  Athens should be okay, as long as you don’t plan on going up to the Acropolis.  The rocks are very, very uneven there.  I wished that I had had a cane.  EM

Edited September 4, 2022 by Essiesmom

[kokopelli-az]

1 hour ago, FirstTimeRiver said:

Traveling on Celebrity Constellation and reserving a scooter through either Scootaround or Special Needs Group.

 

Please report back as to whether you are able to rent a scooter out of Ravenna from Special Needs or Scootaround. 

[mets123]

My wife uses a scooter and takes it off a ship. I can't comment about European ports, but in ports like Portland Maine, and Nassau Bahamas, my wife went off the ship but found it very difficult riding on their cobblestone streets and went back to the ship within 20 minutes. She is on the heavy side, and I'm sure that it added to the discomfort. 

[FirstTimeRiver]

Well I'm not having luck renting a scooter for this cruise. While Celebrity recommended Scootaround and I got a quote of $525 for the week, when I actually went to book the rental, they checked and actually don't rent in Ravenno or Athens so I can't get one from them. I thought about bringing my own but am worried about damage over and back with the flight connections. I'm wondering if I'm better off just taking my transport manual foldable wheelchair and hoping hubby can push me like we did in Czech Republic, Budapest, and Vienna when we went of a River Cruise this past July. Cobblestones were rough but we worked it.

[Benthayer Gonbak]

On 9/4/2022 at 1:46 PM, Essiesmom said:

Certainly you can take it off in the ports where you dock.  There will be challenges in Split, Dubrovnik, Rhodes, but just lots of cobblestones but doable.  Ephesus would be a nightmare, although people have reported they did it.  I remember cobblestones as being much more uneven there.  But I was not using a mobility device.  You might get lucky and get to dock in Mykonos, but don’t plan on it.  Santorini will give you a lovely view from the ship.  Athens should be okay, as long as you don’t plan on going up to the Acropolis.  The rocks are very, very uneven there.  I wished that I had had a cane.  EM

I did Ephesus with a rollator that had to lift as much as roil.  The problem is that althe the stones are fairly large they aren’t even close to being flat!  Although it’s been a while I wouldn’t try it with my motorized wheelchair, and I just did Rome and the colosseum in it!m

[Benthayer Gonbak]

On 9/4/2022 at 12:48 PM, FirstTimeRiver said:

Traveling on Celebrity Constellation and reserving a scooter through either Scootaround or Special Needs Group. I have an accessible cabin booked. Cruise leaves out of Ravenna, Italy and ports are Split, Croatia, Dubrovnik, Croatia, Santorini, Greece, Rhodes, Greece, Ephesus, Turkey, Mykonos, Greece ending in Athens. I believe that in the tender ports I won’t be able to take the scooter off the ship but has anyone taking it off ship in regular ports? Is that permitted and are there challenges with cobblestones or other terrain in these areas? 

 

Santorini can’t really be done on a scooter!  And yes I took my scooter off  on a tender.  Hubby didn’t want to deal with the cable cars as there are lots of steps and my now wheelchair is awkward.  Previously we did the Sochi logical dig with a rollator.  You go straight to a different dock.  The tour was ice and the dig area is covered an scooter friendly.  They had told us that the walk to the cable cars was about 1 mile, somehow that didn’t register since we skipped them.  But at the end of the tour the bus let us off at the bottom of what looked like a parking lot that was too sloped.  After struggling up that incline things look better as it looked like sidewalk most of the way.  It was but I could take about 3 steps and then ther was a step.  One of the vendors felt sorry for me and talked about another way but decided it was worse.  I told him I had about 4 hours to get there and that if I got too tired I might just have to browse in the shops for a while!  
 

i did find a guide from toursbylocals that said there was a path between buildings that I might be able to walk up and down.  It would have been a wine tour with full accessibility once we got to his vehicle.  He did offer to help drag my scooter but said the terrain was too rough to ride it.

 

fwiw.  I travelled with a scooter for about 5 years and in the last year just got my wheelchair.  Both have made numerous international trips without damage although I’m told damage is more common than I’d like.  My fear is it being lost flying out.  But yes I still had trouble just before COVId, I kept having flat tires in Asia.  The maker has since stopped making non solid tires!  

[FirstTimeRiver]

Thank you for the valuable info. I am thinking of just brining my light weight travel wheelchair. Hubby will have to push but I can also walk with it if need be. Thinking Santorini may be where I should do a paid excursion by car?

[Benthayer Gonbak]

20 hours ago, FirstTimeRiver said:

Thank you for the valuable info. I am thinking of just brining my light weight travel wheelchair. Hubby will have to push but I can also walk with it if need be. Thinking Santorini may be where I should do a paid excursion by car?

Its really difficult if not impossible to get a ve Chile to the dock in Santorini  The only option I found was to walk down between buildings but that still required the cable cars.  Since we didn’t catch the cable cars I have no idea what that path looks like.

 

i did try to find  a tour by boat but gave up.  What I wished was that I could catch the tender to where the archeological dig picks up and then return to that area, but from there you need water transportation back as the tenders just run for the tour in the morning.