Cruising – A Convenient Way to Travel as a Wheelchair User

If you’re wheelchair bound like me, cruising can be a very convenient and relaxing way to travel because you’re able to visit different destinations without the hassle of transferring baggage or checking in and out of hotels. On a cruise ship you literally take your hotel room with you. During my 22 years as a quadriplegic I’ve cruised six times: two Caribbean cruises, a Baltic cruise and three Alaska cruises, all with Royal Caribbean and Princess Cruises. I love cruising!  In this article I’ll share some of my experiences and observations.

Making your cruise reservation

The cruise industry is making major strides in adapting its ships to support the needs of disabled passengers, but the amenities vary from ship to ship. Therefore it’s essential for you to do some research before you book your cruise.

The Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising is an excellent guide book for finding out which ships are well equipped to accommodate people with disabilities.

My advice is to make your reservation well in advance. Each cruise ship has only a limited number of wheelchair accessible cabins which fill fast. Unless you’re able to get out of your wheelchair and walk a few steps, there is no point in reserving a cabin that is not wheelchair accessible because your wheelchair won’t fit through the doorway of your cabin. Usually, only wheelchair accessible cabins have entrance doors that are wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs

Wheelchair accessible cabins are typically 50% larger than standard cabins in the same class. But it’s still a good idea to confirm that your cabin has enough room for you to maneuver around in your wheelchair with your travel agent or cruise reservation specialist. For example, I need enough space between the bed and the wall to do transfers from the wheelchair to the bed and vice-versa using a Hoyer lift.

Choose a cabin in the center of the ship if you’re prone to motion sickness. Stay close to the elevators because the corridors where the cabins are located tend to be quite long and are often partially blocked by housekeeping carts during cabin cleaning which makes it hard for a wheelchair to pass by. The closer you are to an elevator, the less likely a housekeeping cart will be in your way. And if you’re a manual wheelchair user, you may find yourself straining your arms when you have to push your chair a long way from your cabin to the elevator because the corridors are fully carpeted.

Cruise lines generally make a lot of effort to accommodate your disability, but they have to know about it in order to meet your needs. When you make your reservation, tell them about the nature of your disability.

Getting to your cruise ship

If you live close to a major cruise terminal where many ship departure such as Miami, New York, Los Angeles or Vancouver, you might be able to drive to your port of departure to embark the ship. I had the pleasure of taking just a 25 minute drive from my home to the cruise terminal with my most recent round-trip cruise from San Francisco to Alaska last August. Not having to travel by air with a wheelchair can make your trip much more enjoyable because it eliminates the worry of your wheelchair getting damaged or of having to deal with discomfort while being stuck in an airplane seat (see our article about Minimizing Your Worries When Flying With a Wheelchair).

If you do need to fly to a Canadian or US port of embarkation, you will find that several cruise lines will make arrangements to pick you up at the airport in a wheelchair accessible van for a reasonable fee. Check with your cruise line at the time you reserve your cruise to see if this service is offered.

I’ve also noticed that the security when boarding the ship has become a lot more stringent after 9/11. The security procedures have become very similar to what you have to deal with when getting on a plane. Don’t forget your passport because they won’t let you on the ship without it. On our last cruise to Alaska, my sister checked a bag that contained her passport. She realized this as we approached the security gate and she had to rush back outside the cruise terminal to try to find the checked bag.  Luckily our porter was able to find it in the baggage area based on some descriptions we gave him and she retrieved her passport for security check-in.

Wheelchair accessible staterooms

Even though the ADA was passed in 1990, it took another 15 years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that foreign-flagged cruise lines must make their ships accessible to disabled travelers. Therefore, you’ll find that newer vessels have been built with fully accessible staterooms featuring wide doorways with level entries, roll-in bathrooms with shower stools, emergency call buttons and sinks that are accessible to those who must wheel up to the sink. So before you reserve your cruise, inquire about the age of the vessel.

All accessible cabins are roomier than their standard counterparts in the same class, but if you are able to afford the more expensive outside rooms, I really recommend that upgrade. On two of the cruises, we stayed in an inside stateroom, but I found this kind of depressing because the absence of windows makes the room look smaller and dark inside. I could never wait to get out of the inside cabin, a feeling I never experienced while staying in an outside cabin. If you’re in a wheelchair you tend to spend more time in your cabin because processes like getting ready for bed or getting up in the morning simply take longer.

On one of the cruises to Alaska we had a cabin with a window almost as big as the outside wall and my wife and I loved laying in bed early in the morning looking at the beautiful scenery passing by when the ship was entering a new port. I especially remember one morning when we entered Tracy Arm at 5 AM on our way to a glacier. If we had stayed in an inside cabin we probably would have had to start getting up at 3 AM to be able to enjoy the beautiful scenery from one of the decks. Instead we opened the curtains around 5 AM, and lay facing the window and very leisurely watched the many waterfalls running down the fjords and the pieces of ice that had fallen off the glacier passing by. Then by 6:30 AM we started getting up while we continued watching the beautiful scenery.  This gave us enough time to go to one of the upper decks before we arrived at the glacier. When the ship turned around and away from the glacier, we parked ourselves near a window at the breakfast buffet and took in some more of the breathtaking views while we enjoyed our breakfast.

If you have a room with a balcony, make sure you’re able to get over the lip to the outside; otherwise the balcony won’t bring you a lot of enjoyment.

And if you need special equipment in your cabin, your steward will do anything he can to get it to you. For example, I have had no problem getting extension cords and a replacement power supply for a piece of medical equipment which stopped working after a few days on the ship. Cruising is all about service!

Dining and entertainment on board the ship

Food on the cruise ship is abundant and the dining room service is excellent. You can pretty much eat around-the-clock and it’s almost guaranteed you will gain a few pounds. The bigger the ship, the more dining options you will have.

The main dining room is quite large and it’s usually not easy to get to a table next to a window because they tend to be further away and requires some maneuvering going between all the tables, passengers and waiters. I recommend settling for a table that’s closer to the entrance of the dining room. In the evening, the main dining room has an early and a late seating and some of the evenings formal dressing is required. When you regularly eat in the main dining room, your waiter really gets to know you and starts tuning into your special needs. For example, I always carry a glass mug with a handle in the backpack that hangs behind my wheelchair because it is easier for me to pick up. On the first night I asked our waiter to take it out of my backpack for me, but every night after that he did that without me having to ask as soon as I arrived at our table. And, when we were almost ready to leave he would make sure my mug was cleaned and put back in my backpack.

Dining in the buffet lounge is another option. The buffet lounges are typically located at one of the upper decks and have glass windows all around, an ideal location to soak up the scenery. Again, I was always pleasantly surprised by the attentive service I was given. As soon as I approached the buffet line, one of the staff members would come greet me and ask me whether I needed assistance. I always graciously accepted the offer so that my wife would not have to load up a plate for me, allowing her the time to make her own selections without feeling pressured needing to take care of me. And when we exited the buffet line, the same staff member who helped me fill up my plate would always make sure to find us a free table even when the place was packed.

If you get tired of eating in the main dining room or at the buffet, you can always choose to order room service or eat at one of the specialty restaurants on board the ship. Just be aware that some of these specialty restaurants may charge you an extra fee.

Entertainment on board the ship

Most cruise ships have large, accessible public rooms; therefore passengers with mobility problems can enjoy their full share of entertainment. The shows are actually really good and typically last about an hour. Wheelchair accessible seating is available in the show theaters, but my experience is that the quality of the seating varies by ship. The bigger the ship, the more seating options you have. For example, when we cruised on the Grand Princess in the Baltics, we had plenty of accessible seating options in the show room and my wife and I could sit next to each other. However, when we went to Alaska on the Star Princess, the accessible seating was in the very back behind the regular seats and my wife had to sit in front of me or even further away when those seats were already taken.

There are plenty of activities on board the ship during the day to keep you busy, but a lot of times I just simply loved to park myself at a table next to a window in one of the lounges to relax and read a book or to spot whales.

Shore excursions

Avoid cruises where most of the stops are at tender ports because most tenders (when the ship is anchored away from shore instead of next to a dock and a small boat must transport passengers from the ship to the shore) are not wheelchair accessible. Even if a port can accommodate docking ships it is still not a guarantee that a tender won’t be used when the number of cruise ships at the port exceeds the available docking spaces. This happened to me during my last cruise to Alaska. On my first cruise to Alaska we weren’t being tendered ashore in Juneau and I automatically assumed this would be the case again when we cruised to Alaska last summer. So I was very surprised to find out I could not get on shore in Juneau because a tender was being used to ferry people to shore. I learned the hard way that cruise lines alternate among each other between docking and tendering. Again, do your homework upfront and make sure you ask your cruise agent all the right questions when you book.

Shore excursions are operated by independent contractors and the accommodations they provide are beyond the control of the cruise lines. The tour operators are not obliged to provide accessible transportation, especially not in foreign countries. However, disabled passengers can improve accessibility by asking cruise lines to contract with operators that provide accessible tours.

If the cruise line does not offer any accessible excursions at a certain port, it might be worthwhile to do your own research and book a private tour or rent a wheelchair accessible van. Actually, that is exactly what we did in St. Petersburg Russia on our Baltic cruise. The cruise ship docked at St. Petersburg for two days and we rented a van with a wheelchair lift that came with a driver and a tour guide. We were able to tailor our tour and we had a wonderful time in St. Petersburg.  I’ll save those experiences for another article.

Happy cruising!