Tender access on Ovation of the seas

[rabbit1971]

Hi,

 My family are travelling on the Ovation of the seas for a transpacific crossing in april next year. This is the first time we have travelled with Royal carribean, having previously cruised with carnival and princess. My question is, what is access to the tender like? My youngest is in a wheel chair, and we have found varying degress of difficulty on different ships. If anyone is cruising on ovation soon, if they could post photos of where the tenders sit next to the ship, and where you disembark from at the island jetty, that would be amazing.I have found it can vary greatly, some ships you walk on to the tender and disembark the tender, from the same location. On others you walk off the ship onto the top of the tender, then to disembark you walk downstairs on the tender, to get to the jetty on a lower level.

 We are trying to decide if trying to get him off on the tendered ports is worth it with a manual chair, or to remain on the ship and have his powered chair.

 I hope this post is not too confusing.

 I have also posted this on the Royal carribean page, but I know what a helpful bunch the Aussie cruisers are, so I thought I'd post it here also

 cheers maree

[MicCanberra]

Hi Maree, 

I don't  remember any stairs to access the tenders but did find this article 

https://havewheelchairwilltravel.net/ovation-seas-accessible-cruise-ship/

[MicCanberra]

An extract,

 

One of the difficulties that our readers often tell me about is access to the tenders and shore excursions. It seems that if you are not mobile many cruise ships can’t accommodate wheelchairs in the tenders. I was thrilled that Kathryn took this great photo showing the access on Ovation of the Seas. How refreshing to see a ship with wheelchair access to the tenders.

Wheelchair access to the tender for shore excursions

Kathryn says, “being a brand new ship built in 2016 it’s very accessible, they even have wheelchair lifts to the tender boats. Here is the porthole at the bottom of the ship that I was able to get to to use tender boats using my manual wheelchair.” Kathryn does warn that, “people do need to realise that transfer to tender can be dependant on weather conditions, especially if you use a wheelchair, the water was pretty calm so that was good.”

[rabbit1971]

Thankyou Micanberra for this information, it certainly helps when planning which chair to take.

[Hogbay]

On 11/22/2023 at 10:09 AM, rabbit1971 said:

Hi,

 My family are travelling on the Ovation of the seas for a transpacific crossing in april next year. This is the first time we have travelled with Royal carribean, having previously cruised with carnival and princess. My question is, what is access to the tender like? My youngest is in a wheel chair, and we have found varying degress of difficulty on different ships. If anyone is cruising on ovation soon, if they could post photos of where the tenders sit next to the ship, and where you disembark from at the island jetty, that would be amazing.I have found it can vary greatly, some ships you walk on to the tender and disembark the tender, from the same location. On others you walk off the ship onto the top of the tender, then to disembark you walk downstairs on the tender, to get to the jetty on a lower level.

 We are trying to decide if trying to get him off on the tendered ports is worth it with a manual chair, or to remain on the ship and have his powered chair.

 I hope this post is not too confusing.

 I have also posted this on the Royal carribean page, but I know what a helpful bunch the Aussie cruisers are, so I thought I'd post it here also

 cheers maree

Here are photos of quantum at Vila. There is wheelchair lift on ship but staircase at whalf. 

[rkmw]

At some tender ports the tenders bob up and down from the seas so with a wheel chair it can be difficult