gunnarx5

Hello, My husband & I are thinking about going on our first cruise ever. We've been looking at Carnival. Leaving out of Baltimore MD, going to Orlando, Nassua, & Freeport. My main concern.... I am in a wheelchair. I would have my own wheelchair with me but cant seem to find info on renting a beach wheelchair while in Nassua & Freeport. If I visit the Bahamas, I want to experience the beach/water. I talked to a Carnival rep via phone but they really didn't help me with the info. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance

Did you end up going to Nassau? We are going in 3 weeks and I'm trying to find info on it. If you went...what beach did you go to? How was it accessibility wise? We have 2 kids in wheelchairs...TIA.

What islands will you be going to?

We have 2 children born with a physical disability, both use manual wheelchairs and we have taken them on many cruises. They are now 14 and 11. We will be going on another cruise in 3 weeks! We always get an accessible room (you NEED that wider doorway and the extra space in the bathroom!).

We've never had any problems with getting onto the islands. Grand Cayman was the only tender port-and fortunately we were able to go there as well. (The cruise lines say that it depends on the weather/waves/etc if you will be able to move over the "gangplank" thing onto the tender boat.)

Most of the locals on all the islands we've been to have been very helpful-some even help us haul everything over the sand to a spot to park it for the day. However, Grand Cayman seemed to be all about the money when it came to transportation. We lucked out on getting onto what seemed to be the one and only bus with a lift to go out to the beach right away when we got to the port. When we got to the beach, the driver asked us what time we would want to go back to the boat-so we told him, and then promptly showed up at the meeting spot at that time. However, we had to wait until that van/driver was up next in line. We ended up waiting for 1 hour while the vans that were ahead of him in line had to fill up with passengers before we could get onto his van. Otherwise the other drivers would get mad because he could potentially get an extra trip in and make more money than them. Had we known-we would have adjusted our time and either left the beach earlier, or stayed out playing in the water longer. Even tho we were very frustrated with it...we had to laugh. When we thought the bus was full, they packed another 20 passengers on!!! It was like they were pulling seats out of a magic rabbit hat!

If you go to Jamaica....we did the Bobsled excursion thru the boat. It was a blast!! After wards, there is an infinity pool at the top of the hill with a waterslide. The lifeguard on duty was awesome...very friendly and asked if he could carry our boys up the stairs multiple times so they could go down the waterslide. Supposedly you can't take any photos in the pool area because they take them and then charge you an arm and a leg. But he told us that for $20, he'd take videos and pictures of our kids going down the waterslide...so it was worth it since we didn't have to break our backs. :-)

Otherwise, the main issue we run into is the sand...not very accessible with regular manual wheelchairs. But we love going to the beach, and hanging out there for the day, so we do it anyway. Once we get to the sand, we carry the boys to a spot, then carry the wheelchairs to the spot (turn the seat cushions upside down or cover with a towel so they don't get hot/wet/sandy). We try to get close to the waters edge so the boys can just scoot back and forth. We bring life jackets, footballs, googles and float the day away.

The boys did a "swim with the dolphins" excursion and we had a blast...even got to spend about twice the time in the water with the dolphins as my husband/daughter got! They obviously couldn't do the one where you stand on the dolphins nose-but they got to be pushed by a dolphin on a boogie board, pulled by the fins and all the clapping/kissing/tricks. It was one of those "once in a lifetime" bucket list items and we loved it. Also-barter for the photo cd-do not pay full price. ;-)

We've only been on Carnival boats, but never have any problems. Staff are all very friendly and practically trip over themselves offering to help.

The boys do the kids camps with their peers. If there's any bathroom issues, we are paged/called-but that hasn't happened yet. The last cruise we were on, there was an option to pay $5 per phone/ipod device and then we could text each other and that was awesome. With our older son-he could have a little more freedom to roam the boat with friends and we could always be in contact with him.

I'm sorry to hear about all that your family has been thru. When you go on this vacation, I hope you get to relax and recoup! Let me know if you have any questions about any islands you are going to. I'm currently researching the 4 new islands we will be at in 3 weeks.

My family and I will be traveling to St. Croix, St. Martin, Antigua, St. Lucia & Barbados on the Jewel Of The Seas in May, 2014. My daughter is a full time wheelchair user. Can anyone suggest any accessible tour companies on any of these islands? We will be sailing out of Puerto Rico.

Thanx :D

I just came across this thread...what did you do in these ports? We will be traveling to a few of them in a few weeks and have 2 boys that use wheelchairs.

Thanks!