Roatan in a wheelchair?

All,

I am a business owner on Roatan who would like to offer services to improve the Roatan experience for someone in a wheelchair (my brother is a quadriplegic, so I understand the challenges of travel with a wheelchair). Since so many tourists come to Roatan on a cruise ship, I'm interested in hearing from those of you who have been to Roatan:

-Where did you go on the island?

-What did you like the most about Roatan, from an accessibility point of view?

-What did you find the most challenging/frustrating about visiting Roatan?

-What could someone offer that would improve your experience? I'm thinking about things like - were you able to get a wheelchair van, could you rent a beach wheelchair, etc?

Thank you for your input!

Hi, we did visit in December 2012 and had a great time.

We were able to rent a wheelchair van, but it broke down in Coxen Hole.

The people we dealt with were very nice though....and the locals we met as a result of the van trouble were priceless :>)

what type of services do you provide?

Hello, My husband and I traveled to Roatan on the Carnival Ledgend in October 2012. I would like to start off with saying that so far Roatan is one of the most beautiful places we've ever been.

We mostly stayed in the port area because there really weren't many places or things listed to do for someone in a wheelchair. The port area was actually pretty nice and paved. The walk over to the beach was a bit difficult because you have to get up over the hill from both directions. I wasn't able to do the sky chair over to the beach and back because there is no service to have someone take your chair across to the other side if are able to get into the chair lift. The other problem was there were no rentals for a beach wheelchair so getting down to the water was adventurous. I thought if there was even just a wooden ramp that could be put off to the side so a wheelchair could go down to the water and maybe have handicap accessible loungers right next to the ramp. The people there were really wonderful and quite helpful but I really enjoy having my own independence as much as possible.

We look forward to going back again and hoping I will have more options available to me and transportation to get around. Too many people like to raise prices for "accessible" travel and I prefer not to pay them the unreasonable charges just because I am disabled. I hope maybe something I said helps in some way.

I visited Roatan in April 2013 just for the day, and I wish I could've been three or four days. Beautiful place. I use a power chair full-time and we rented a wheelchair accessible van for the day (the only one available on the island, I was told). It would be nice if there were other choices for transportation. I wanted to see the whole island, so we drove from one end to the other, then we stopped at a restaurant and ate. It was very accessible, but I can't remember the name of it. The road was pretty bad, fewer potholes would be nice. The shopping area at the dock for Royal Caribbean was very accessible, but we really didn't have enough time to stop at very many other places to shop. The West End (I think it is called) had the streets torn up because they were putting in some kind of water lines or electrical lines or something, and our driver would not take us there. I think the best thing you might do is to come up with some sort of an online, printable guide that lists all of the features and attractions on the island, and also tells you if they are fully accessible, sort of accessible, or strictly off-limits for wheelchair users. Something like that that could be printed off and carried around would have saved me an awful lot of time searching the Internet. We did go to Victor Botton's so that some of our party could do the zip lines and then we played with the monkeys. Overall it was a neat day, just not long enough.

I agree with you 44minimum that a printable guide would be great! I do feel like we run around in circles on the internet searching for accessible places to go and see. I know I've clocked plenty of hours searching myself. LOL