cruzbums

My wife is on Paritoneal dyalysis and we have cruised about 7 times on various ships.

I do not know what a recycular is as my wife just does it manually.

We started out having Baxter deliver the bags to the ship but had one experience in which the personel on the ship misplaced the seven cases of bags and we had to leave the ship because they had no idea where they were. They tried to indicate that they hadn't been delivered but as it truned out someone had just misplaced them. A cruise line that we use to use all the time seemed to have a very laxadazical attiture about dyalysis. Because of the difficulty to fly we only cruise out of Seattle as we live only 60 miles south of there.

We now cruise with NCL and they are very good at handling special needs. They really take a interest in our needs and we have had no trouble at all.

I will give you an idea of what we do which may not meed your needs but it will give you some idea of how it works for us.

First of all we cruise in a suite so we have a concierge to handle some of our needs and concerns.

We take the cases of bags with us rather than having them delivered. We inform the special needs dept. that we will be aboard the ship and that my wife is on dyalysis and that we will be bringing the cases with us and will check them through with our luggage. I mark each case with ships name, sail date, room # and my wifes name on all four sides. We have sailed on NCL twice now and the cases were in our stateroom in less than a half hour from the time of our arrival.

My wife has a carry on bag that she puts all of the supplies for dyalysis in and we carry this bag on. We also have a IV pole that folds down into a small package. It is small and has to be put on a table or desk but works fine for us. I bought this off the internet but I am sure that a medical supply house would carry them.

My wife does four exchanges a day at certain times. We inform the room stewards and anyone else that needs to know that we have to maintain a clean room and not to enter if the do not disturb sign is out.

This is about all I can think of at this time but if you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Another good source of information is Baxter if you use their products or maybe your Dr. My wifes Dr. gave us some good hints before the first time.

Be absolutely sure that you inform the necessary dept. of your cruise line that you will be on board.

I posted a while back that my wife is on PD and how great it was. We had done it last year and had no problem.

We were to sail on the Amsterdam from Seattle last Saturday (5/22).

It was a nightmare come true.

When we boarded the ship I went immediately to the Neptune Lounge and told them that my wife was on Peritoneal dialysis and that cases of solution should have been delivered to the ship by Baxter and could they call down and have it delivered to the room as soon as possible.

To make a long story short they could not find the cases of solution. After many phone calls to Baxter and much searching of the ship, we had to disembark just before sailing at 5:00.

It turns out that the stuff was delivered and ended up in the ships stores but we didn't find this out until two days after the ship sailed. HAL offered to fly us to Juneau on Wed. but it would have just been too much trouble for us as we had already recovered our dogs and it just would not have been convenient.

We had purchased the top of the line Holland America insurance. Too make matters worse people have begun pointing fingers at each other, blaming the other for the foul up and the insurance company is claiming that this is not covered.

We are very upset but will have to see how this plays out. What really upsets us is that we are very loyal HAL cruisers.

I guess the moral of this story is that you can't really trust the system.

My wife is on peritoneal dialysis and we took our first cruise last summer to Alaska.

She gets her supplies from Baxter and they are very use to delivering supplies to ships, hotels etc. They need to be informed at least one month before you cruise. They have a dept. or person that handles the travel deliveries and they will take all the information on ship, location, room # etc. They will then comfirm delivery close to the cruise date.

We were in a suite on the Oosterdam. When we boarded the ship I went immediately to the Neptune Lounge and asked the staff to please check to make sure that the supplies had arrived. They called somewhere and the supplies were delivered within 15 minutes.

We gave an extra suitcase to carry the supplies we need to take from home and we bought a portable IV stand to take with us.

Good luck on your cruise.