Eastern Carribbean excursions for limited mobility

[lesharona]

My Mom has limited mobility, she can walk but short distances, no stairs or very limited stairs. We are renting a wheelchair for her which will be in our cabin when we get on the ship.

Does anyone have any suggestions of shore excursions in St Maarten and St Thomas?

thank you.

[ndsumfun]

My Mom has limited mobility, she can walk but short distances, no stairs or very limited stairs. We are renting a wheelchair for her which will be in our cabin when we get on the ship.

Does anyone have any suggestions of shore excursions in St Maarten and St Thomas?

thank you.

 

In St Thomas you could do a tour with Godfrey. He will pick you up at 9, 10 or 11 for shopping downtown then picks you up at noon for a scenic island tour (very little walking). It is only $25pp You can choose to go to a beach, coral world ($14pp) or back to ship after the island tour. As for the downtown shopping there is a small shaded park with benches right where he drops you off. We sat over there & enjoyed people watching after we walked around the little craft market. My DH is confined to a wheelchair & the only problem we had with this was the HEAT! From what I've read Coral World is suppose to be WC friendly. We were suppose to go there but it was just too hot for hubby.

 

As for St. Maarten, there is a small shopping area right at the dock. There is also a water taxi that will take you into town but we couldn't go because of DH being in a wheelchair. Since you mom has a little mobilility I imagine that you could get a taxi to town & throw the wc in the back of a van. we were told when we were there that the streets are cobblestone so I don't know if that would present a problem.

 

Here are the links for Godfrey & Coral World

 

http://godfreytoursvi.com/

 

http://www.coralworldvi.com/index.html

 

 

 

Sure hope this helps!!! :D

[lesharona]

It helps alot! thank you so much.........both sound very enjoyable.

[lkmaryguy]

In St. Thomas we booked an excursion that was wheelchair accessible and its fun, your ina big trolley bus. they take you around the island to see the main highlights. Here is the link http://www.accessvi.com/tours/tours.htm

 

Can't be to much help for St. Marteen, was not my favorite place to go.

[ndsumfun]

i forgot about that one! Thanks for the reminder lkmaryguy!

 

Have you already done that excursion?? Was it costly?

 

Next time we are in St. Thomas I believe we will look into that. This past time we thought we had gotten a good thing but hubby was really kind of confined to the truck as it was very difficult for him to get in & out so he just stayed in for most of the tour.

[halfcrippledcruiser]

I was just in St. Thomas a few days ago as we just returned from a cruise. My mother and I were on an excursion called the "Accessible Shopping Tour," which was booked through Royal Carribean and put on by that outfit that another poster mentioned. The tour cost $65.00 a piece and promised a vehicle with a wheelchair lift. Here's the scoop: the vehicles they use hold about 16 people total. There's only room for about 2 wheelchairs in the darn things. There would be room for someone to stay in a chair, but I would say that would work for only one person. I was lucky ther was room for my chair. I'm the only one who had to use the lift because I can't go up steps to get into a bus. I then transferred to a regular seat and had to have people lift me out of it. We managed. There were two people who were both physically and mentally handicapped on the tour but they could do steps. One had a portable w/c with him. There was one other person with a leg injury. The rest of the people on the bus were healthy elderly people who looked quite spritely as they loaded and boarded the bus without any difficulty or apparent disability. At one stop, the driver left the bus and disappeared, leaving me and my mother on there waiting to get off. He had overheard the mother of another passenger say that she was keeping her son on the bus and assumed that I was staying on. It took ten minutes to hunt him down and I lost good shopping time. It's time consuming to load and unload and we only had 1/2 hour at each of the stops. He took us on a nice tour of the beautiful sights, but he was hard to understand because he held the mike too close to his mouth and because of his accent. My assessment: it's better to hire your own driver and go where you want to go and spend as much time as you desire there. Use a portable w/c and regular taxi if your person can transfer. If not, either use this tour or make advance arrangements for a vehicle with a lift. The Mountaintop shopping area was lovely, but we were there only about twenty minutes after the lift procedure and my mother tried to use the bathroom. (although there was only one accessable stall and the toilet was clogged and not flushing). My best experience in St. Thomas was shopping at the Havensight area. It was good for accessibility and a lot of fun. Good luck.

[stmomma]

We went to St Maarten and St Thomas in 2005. If you want to go to a beach in St Maarten and can transfer, book the Little Divi Bay Beach excursion. There are side walks right to the beach area. The restroom was a little small but ok with chair. If you have a regular wheelchair, you can probably pull it backwards through the sand if you want to get out on the beach a bit. Have fun.

[ndsumfun]

We went to St Maarten and St Thomas in 2005. If you want to go to a beach in St Maarten and can transfer, book the Little Divi Bay Beach excursion. There are side walks right to the beach area. The restroom was a little small but ok with chair. If you have a regular wheelchair, you can probably pull it backwards through the sand if you want to get out on the beach a bit. Have fun.

 

Thanks for that info stmomma........i will have to remember that because we will be in st thomas again next year.

 

 

 

halfcrippled - I am sorry you ran into so many problems. I too have had a few disappointments in the excursions I booked via the cruise line. This past cruise I booked all of my excursions myself through research on cruise critic. It was really the best time we have had.......still had a couple of probs but we are getting there!!!

[whimseydeedoodah]

We went to St Maarten and St Thomas in 2005. If you want to go to a beach in St Maarten and can transfer, book the Little Divi Bay Beach excursion. There are side walks right to the beach area. The restroom was a little small but ok with chair. If you have a regular wheelchair, you can probably pull it backwards through the sand if you want to get out on the beach a bit. Have fun.

 

 

Tina,

Thanks for this info! I was thinking about calling the little Divi Resort to inquire about a day pass. Pictures I've seen made it look pretty accessible and I love the idea of just hanging out there for the day.

[mlbtange]

My Mom has limited mobility, she can walk but short distances, no stairs or very limited stairs. We are renting a wheelchair for her which will be in our cabin when we get on the ship.

Does anyone have any suggestions of shore excursions in St Maarten and St Thomas?

thank you.

 

We'll be on a cruise with Royal Caribbean from August 3-12th and travelling to both St. Maarten and St. Thomas. We haven't booked anything yet for St. Thomas - but we found a tour for St. Maarten through Joyce Prince Tours. Her website is http://www.joyceprince.com/ We booked a private four hour tour for three of us for $150. My son uses a manual wheelchair and I use a scooter (ECV). Let me know if you have any questions.

BTW - any suggestions for Puerto Rico or Bermuda?

Lynn

[EileenN]

Joyce Prince tours were awesome for us with our DD in a wheelchair. They met us at the pier and were more than helpful for our every need. Enjoy!

[mlbtange]

Joyce Prince tours were awesome for us with our DD in a wheelchair. They met us at the pier and were more than helpful for our every need. Enjoy!

 

So wonderful to hear that!!!! We haven't had as much of a problem with my son's manual wheelchair as we have with my scooter - but I think we may have found tours now at all of our ports. As soon as I get the details straightened out - I'll post them here to try to help others.

Lynn

[whimseydeedoodah]

Joyce Prince tours were awesome for us with our DD in a wheelchair. They met us at the pier and were more than helpful for our every need. Enjoy!

 

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to post this info. I've been considering her tours and this just sealed the deal!

[DeepWaterMariner]

We were in St Martin earlier this year. My wife uses a wheelchair and we took a tour which went to the butterfly farm and to Marigot on the French side of the island. It worked out pretty well for us.