Shore Trips

[Marishabee]

Does anyone have any experiences with this group for excursions?? They advertise a whale watching in Dominica that is wheel chair accessible.Dad in nontransferable from his power chair. I am looking for some way to see a bit of this island as i hear it is lush and beautful. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Mary

[Queenie2]

They are an agent and they contract out the excursions to local providers, so although they can tell you a bit about the trips, they do not control them. They are US based and pretty reputable as far as getting money back is concerned, and they are easy to contact and understand. Their employees have a fairly decent understanding of access, but they rely on access information from local operators.

 

In your case, i would specifically ask if your father can stay in his own wheelchair because he cannot transfer. I only know of one accessible vehicle there and it's not able to accommodate folks who cannot transfer. The do have a ramp and they store the manual folding wheelchairs in the aisles of the bus. So I would also ask how they are going to get to the dock if it's not located near the place where the cruise ships dock.

 

So I would say as long as you ask very specific questions you will probably be OK with shore trips. They may have to go back and forth with the local operator a few times, but in the end they will usually get you the information you need. I know of one case where they let the client contact the tour operator directly to sort out access questions/details, but that is highly unusual. In most cases they don't want to give out the local tour operator information, because they don't want you to book directly.

 

Candy

[Quampapetet]

Your best bet is to ask here on CC (on the appropriate location board) about who the actual tour companies are. Then, contact the tour companies yourself with any questions as well as ask here on CC (and other boards, if you don't get an answer here). ShoreTrips won't give you the names of the companies themselves and I wouldn't recommend you asking accessibility questions via a third person who doesn't understand your needs or how to ask about them.

[ndsumfun]

we spoke with them in April & some of their listed tours were no longer avail. It is nearly impossible to find ANYTHING accessible in Dominica. None of the attractions are w/c accessible. We just kind of rode around the island......had a GREAT tour guide. don't know if he could accomodate a power chair though. Hubby uses a manual......I really did some research & couldn't find much at all that we could do. 1 thing that I know is accessible is the rainforest tour. They can remove the seats in the little air lift thingy to accomodate a chair. some of the park is not accessible but from what they told me most of it is.

 

Anyway, a friend of mine has used shore trips numerous times & never had a problem. I would call & check with them to see exactly HOW accessible the excursion is..........because most of the time tour operators pick up in a bus/van & do not have lifts. It's like you think it will be accessible & then you get there & it's not as accessible as you hoped.

[Splinter]

We used them for Acapulco last year, and it was a disaster. While we had a van with a lift, it had no functional tie-downs, so I ended up sitting on the floor behind my mother holding her chair in place to keep it from flipping over on the steep hills. I must say though that when we got home and complained to the owners of ShoreTrips that they did refund half our money and apologized for not more completely checking out their contractor in Mexico.

 

I would consider using them again, but only if I spoke personnally to the ShoreTrips owner about what they know about the contractor and their accomodations and what your exact needs are.

 

Also, I neverr expect to use a power chair in a foreign port due to frequent lack of curb cuts, ramps, etc. You can bump a manual chair up a curb or even a step or two if you have a good pusher with you. Using a slide board and help we can transfer my mother into a regular sedan type cab for a drive-around tour. On the ship we have our own lift, so can easily move her from her power chair to her manual chair when needed, but the lift doesn't work with a car, so we take a Beasy Board for those needs.