Dawn/Spirit Handicap rooms

[firstcruise1970]

First off I don't mean to affend anyone if I misspelled handicap. But my Stepfather asked his TA about Handicapped rooms on the Spirit and was told the Dawn was more handicap "friendly". Does anyone know if this is true or not? Thanks for any feed back

[shoreguy]

First off I don't mean to affend anyone if I misspelled handicap. But my Stepfather asked his TA about Handicapped rooms on the Spirit and was told the Dawn was more handicap "friendly". Does anyone know if this is true or not? Thanks for any feed back

 

I just took a quick look at the Spirit deck plan. Your stepfather's TA might be right.

 

http://www.ncl.com/fleet/spirit/deckplans.htm#

[firstcruise1970]

I know the Spirit has only half the amount of rooms, I may try to rebook on the Dawn if it is less unfriendly as the Spirit. I was hoping that any ship built after 1995 would be equal as far as access goes but it's a sad day when you have to plan around what is accessable and what is not

[shoreguy]

I know the Spirit has only half the amount of rooms, I may try to rebook on the Dawn if it is less unfriendly as the Spirit. I was hoping that any ship built after 1995 would be equal as far as access goes but it's a sad day when you have to plan around what is accessable and what is not

 

Keep im mind the same access considerations are not global. The Spirit was never built with the US market as an option.

[QuickieGlenn]

I am in a wheelchair and sailing on the Dawn in March and I have asked some questions on this forum and searched the web and if you compare the Spirit to the Dawn you will see that the Dawn has more HC rooms available. I have read good things about the Dawn. I know all to well when you have to do research because some ones interpretation of wheelchair accessable is not true and they think a few steps should be no big deal.

I'll let you know how the Dawn is when I return.

[Smellytoes]

My mom stayed in a handicap inside cabin on the Dawn. She had a scooter with her. She can walk a little bit but not much. The cabin itself was huge. On the ship she could access just about everywhere. She did complain a little bit about acccessing the pool deck. She needed help getting through there, but staff would drop whatever they were doing to assist her. There was special seating in the theater with great sight lines, the restaurants were very easy to get into and she definately had NO trouble acessing the casino. One big problem that we had was before we left I had notified NCL of our situation. I was told by NCL that someone would be waiting for my mom with a wheel chair when our bus arrived at the pier. That was important because my mom can't stand for any length of time. Unfortunatly it took about 25-30 minutes until NCL could get someone to come with the wheelchair. Boarding had already started when we got to the peir and of course all the staff were busy.

[EileenN]

We have sailed several times on the Dawn in h/c room (BB) and suites on deck 11 (AF), Both were large with big decks but the decks were not easily accessible. The bathrooms were great and well planned. We asked for an extra mattress on one of the beds to make transfer from chair easier but the beds were low and we had it removed. There are alarms at the bedside, bathroom and near the door.

We have hesitated to cruise on the Spirit because the h/c balconies are not near the elevators and make it difficult moving in the halls, especially when the stewards are making up the rooms. We had hoped that when the Spirit went into drydock last year they had planned to add additional cabins on the upper deck and hoped they considered adding h/c suites. But the project did not get finished. Even the Jewel had h/c cabins in the aft which makes it hard to push a wheelchair on the carpet down to the back of the ship. Carpetting is a bear for pushers. We love the Dawn and would highly recommend it for h/c persons. The crew are wonderful with special needs. Our DD can only walk short distances and stand for short periods of time. We always bring our own chair. It makes things a lot easier.

Hope this helps.

[electricron]

Yes, the Dawn has more handicapped rooms than the Spirit, but then, it has more total rooms than the Spirit because it is a larger ship. When comparing ships of different sizes, it's fairer to compare percentages.

 

The Spirit has 5 handicapped cabins out of a total of 983 cabins, or 0.5%.

 

The Dawn has 16 handicapped cabins out of a total of 1112 cabins, or 1.44%.

 

The Sun, approximately the same size as the Spirit, has 20 handicapped cabins out of a total of 1001 cabins, or 2.0%. The Sun also has 42 hearing impaired cabins, or 4.19%

 

The Pride of Aloha, the Sun's sister ship, has 6 handicapped cabins out of a total of 1001 cabins, or 0.6%. It also has 45 hearing impaired cabins, or 4.49%

 

The Pride of America has 22 handicapped cabins out of a total of 1069 cabins, or 2.05%. It also has 40 hearing impaird cabins, or 3.74%.

 

The new Jewel has 27 handicapped cabins out of a total of 1188 cabins, or 2.27%.

[CPT Trips]

One of the couples that we met on our cruise had an accessible cabin on the Dawn. They specifically booked the Dawn for those handicapped features and from their reports, accessibility was OK. I think the TA might be on to something.

Cruise ships don't have to meet ADA requirements and on many there are lots of obstacles that are not noticed by most of us - little lips at doorways, heavy doors etc.

I asked about the accessible cabins on the Sun and was told that they were retrofitted in the last drydock, primarily to give more room in the bath/toilet area.

[lhugheshome]

I do not know about the Dawn, but I was recently on the Spirit and had an H/C cabin.

 

As mentioned the Spirit is not a new ship although it is beatifully maintained. There are only 4 H/C cabins and all are inside. The cabins are very large with lots of room for manoevering a wheelchair or scooter. The bathrooms are large with plenty of room for the chair. The only problem my nephew mentioned was that the doors to the bathroom and cabin were not automatic. This made it difficult to get in and out of those rooms without some help.

 

Getting around the ship was OK. There were the usual bumps to get through doors etc. There were numerous H/C bathrooms located about the ship...none had automatic doors.

 

The dining rooms were both accessable. Windows, the larger of the two was a multi leveld room. Depending on where you were seated it was often a long push to get to the table, even though you could see it right in front of you. Staff was very helpful. The Garden Dining room was all on one level and they seemed to keep the tables near the front of the room available for special needs. I know we preferred this restaurant simply because of the better seating arrangements.

 

The rest of the ship was accessable with the exception of the Night Club at the back of the Casino. There was not ramp access to this venue.

 

The ramp to get onto the ship in NY is long and steep. Make sure to get help! It is very difficult to manage. I would think this is true on the Dawn because they use the same pier.

 

The ramp at ports is not as steep. However it is not a smooth ramp. It has 2 inch deep metal bumps about 6 inches apart all the way down the ramp. We could not navigate the ramp without assistance.