Help with questions about a disabled/accessible cabin

[Petoonya]

I'm an Oceania regular but trying to help a patient of mine and his wife who are first time cruisers. They've booked with Azamara, and sailing on a strongly booked cruise 9/20 on Pursuit. The gentleman is wheelchair bound. They are trying to determine the square footage of one of the inside accessible staterooms and are coming up short. TA is unable to get the info from the cruise line. The square footage for the same numbered cabin (4035) is listed for Journey and Quest on the Azamara website as 227 sq ft. But their cabin, and the only inside accessible available is oddly shaped- not the same as the same numbered cabins on Journey and Quest. It does look smaller on the deck plan than that for Journey and Quest.

 

I cruise exclusively on the small "R" ships on Oceania and the capacity is 650. Looks like on Pursuit it's 777. Were there additional cabins added on deck 4? Should they just go with the thought that their cabin will approximate Quests and Journey's at 227sq ft?

 

Thanks for your help! 🙂

 

 

 

 

[excitedofharpenden]

I'm not sure of the square footage, but if you have a look at this thread there are some photos. 

 

 

Phil 

[snowglobe]

We just checked into cabin 4035 (Journey) yesterday. I was a bit discomfited when I first saw the cabin, I must admit. The layout is interesting.

 

First the bed(s). We asked for a twin configuration, which we have. The ‘alcove’ has both beds right next to each other. The second bed is parallel to the far wall (roughly 20-22” clearance around that side and the foot of the bed.) The first bed has almost full length clearance of the wide open space, so should be easy to transfer to, however it is a bit high.

The bathroom - lots of clearance. Not as many or well-placed support bars as I’d like. Need to ask for a shower stool. Sink tipped for wheelchair user. NO storage at all, so they have brought in a small coffee table level small table to “place things” - but it’s already totally cluttered with Kleenex box, amenities jar, facecloths, etc... and if you need to bring a wheelchair or a walker into the bathroom - that table has to go!!

 

Here’s the main negative points of this cabin - and I suspect every other accessible cabin in the fleet: CLUTTER!!!

 

When I first came into the room, it would not have been possible to navigate in with a wheelchair or a scooter. An armchair was placed just where the opening door cleared, and a largish coffee table took up a chunk of the wide open space needed in the middle of the room. I had to ask for both to be removed, leaving no seating at all except for a small chair at the desk.

 

The desk is unusable to sit at & set up a laptop. A very large book takes a lot of space - that we moved. Two good sized phones + an emergency calling device take up most of the room (and use up most of the outlets) all of the useable electrical outlets and device ports are lined up agains the back wall of the desk, creating a huge mess of cables. The provided extension cord to recharge the scooter battery is very thick and adds to the mess. The only other outlet is towards the back of the small shelf where all the ‘bar’ amenities are located, making it extremely inconvenient to use - again clutter is the issue.

 

We are still adapting the space to our needs, so may post more in a few days. Wi-fi is the pits, but I’ll also try to post photos in a few days.

 

** More important than the cabin though is the general FAILS of the ship in being truly accessible.

*** If fulltime, total dependence on a wheelchair or power chair is your situation - DO NOT BOOK AZAMARA!

 

The ship has heavy doors, many, many obstacles like door lips or step-overs. Even when docked, access to the ship is via a stairway. Two crew members had to carry my scooter up & down the stairs and almost dropped it the second time. When I asked about wheelchairs, the response was that there will always be crew members available to “help”.
THEY JUST DON’T GET IT! I would be incensed going into Day 2 of my cruise if my mobility issues had me totally dependent on a power chair or wheelchair.

Edited January 24, 2020 by snowglobe