Scooters own vs. rent?

Hello,

We are thinking of taking a cruise on Celebrity and this will be the first time my DH will be needing a scooter on a cruise.

Should he take his own or rent? We live in Florida and are just trying to wrap our heads around the logistics of taking his scooter (from home to hotel to dock to ship to ports, etc) or renting one to be on the ship. At this point he can walk short distances, sometimes with a cane, but no stairs.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Since you live in Florida and appear that you may be driving to the port than taking his scooter should not be an issue. You can drop your husband with his scooter along with all the luggage at the dock. Than you just have to go an park the car. On disembarkation day of the cuise get a porter to help you collect all the luggage. Than have your husband along with the luggage wait while you return with the car.

Personally always rent one for the cruise as I always have to fly to the port. Prefer not to take my scooter as do not want to arrive and find that the airlines has damaged my scooter and there's no time to locate a rental replacement. I take my walker and use wheelchair assistance at both the airport and the cruise dock. I take comfort in knowing a scooter will be waiting for me on board in my cabin.

I shall echo the comments above to say that we rent a scooter when we fly and take my wife's scooter when we drive. We flew with her scooter once, only once. It was our first "scooter cruise" and it left from Santa Domingo. The flight from Pittsburgh to Santa Domingo wasn't too bad, but the one day stay and transportation in Santa Domingo was less than steller as well as the flight back. When we got the scooter back in Pittsburgh, the key was broken off in the ignition switch and the arms were taken off and almost lost. Our horror story, but the reason we try to drive to either Bayonne NJ or Baltimore to cruise and avoid flying.

My husband uses a power chair instead of scooter but we try to cruise from ports that we can drive to. Baltimore, Bayonne & NY. His chair is about 300 lbs & we use a lift that is in our van. I did rent a w/c for one of our cruises but when I see the price for a scooter I cringe...i guess since he owns his chair.

We are fairly new to scooter travel, just this past year. My husband needs the scooter for any cruise and/or excursions so that he can enjoy sightseeing along with everyone else.

We have flown from LAX TO London & back, LAX TO Bangkok and back from Beijing, China, LAX to Athens and back from Venice, Italy and LAX to Jacksonville, FL. and back. It is not easy, but he prefers to take his own scooter.

First: You never give the airline people the key in the scooter.

Second: You show them how to disengage the wheels so that they can roll it and then engage the lock again.

Third: We take off the battery pack and (in most cases) take it with us on the plane. Sometimes they give us trouble in doing this, but the battery is a dry cell and is safe to fly in the cabin with us.

Somewhere in this thread, there is a long discussion about taking your scooter+battery on the plane. If you can find it you will get a better idea of how easy it is to get your scooter on and off the plane, on and off the ship and on and off the transfer bus.

When we get on the ship, we go to the excursion desk and tell them that we would like to know which excursions will/can take you with the scooter. Then they call ahead and check which type of vehicle/bus is being used and get back to us on which excursions we can use.

I ususally pre-book the ones that show up as wheelchair friendly when I do my pre-boarding information with Princess because Princess does not charge you until you board their ships.

Any scooter key will work.on any scooter.Any lawn tractor key will work on every lawn tractor and any elevator key will work on any elevator. I have a John Deere and craftsman lawn tractor. Same key. My $8000.00 Power chair doesn't have a key. I have flown my power chair at least75 times and had a problem one time. Jet Blue pushed me and my chair into an accessible van and they drove me too a w/c repair shop. The parts were out and waiting and in less than 30 minutes I drove it back into the waiting van and we were on the ship in plenty of time.The airlines have a contact with the company. They wouldn't even accept a trip. I don't have the luxury of transferring from My w/c to a regular chair but I have never heard of anybody taking a Scooter for a joy ride.Not that it couln't happen. Where would the go on the ship.

Thank for this info.. Didn't know all keys will work. This will be our first cruise using my husbands scooter. Last cruise we used his wheel chair. So someone always had to push him. We have to fly from Minneapolis to Orlando. Delta told us there is no charge for the scooter and that he can ride it right to the gate. Just worried about the airport transfer. His scooter does come apart.

The Florida airports are very good at getting accessible taxis to transport scooter users to the dock. They are drive in vans, where they lower a ramp and you ride your scooter right in. I always take my own scooter and have gone all over the world with it.

Scooters easer to fly than power chairs.If you can, fold the hande down and leave instructions for putting it in freewheel.

Thanks to all!

We've decided to rent a scooter.