DaveC426913

She can rent a Hoyer lift to be delivered to the cabin. It will be manual one so she would need someone traveling with her. The approved rental providers are www.specialneedsatsea.com and www.scooteraround.com, NCL only allows SpecialNeedsatSeas.

The airlines is not responsible for getting her to the washroom so she would have to plan accordingly .

yup. "It's in the bag", so to speak.

She will be transferred to an airline aisle wheelchair to than transfer in and out of the seat.

My friend has MS and is unable to leave her scooter. She needs s a Hoyer lift even to get into/out of bed.

I'm sure most ships are wheelchair accessible, but her scooter can't even go over a threshold more than an inch or two and it weighs, like, 500lbs).

Are there any cruise ships that are accessible to her?

Also, I guess, how will she manage the flight?

Also, how does one specify scooter-accessible - as opposed to wheelchair accessible?

Yes, and you will have a much better time in the Cinque Terre towns if you time your visit for days when cruise ships are not in La Spezia. The sheer numbers of cruise ship passengers simply overwhelm the towns during the day. To spend the night (or several) there is still pretty magical.

Good point. Got to figure out what days crusie ships are not there though...

The answer to the OP's question is simply NO! If you want to experience a specific part of Italy (or any other place) in depth....a cruise is not a good way. You need to simply take a land trip and spend as many days as you please in one of the villages....or perhaps nearby at a larger town such as La Spezia. Cruises are a great way to get the feel of a place and a quick overview...but cannot replace spending meaningful time on a land trip. So book a flight to Milan, rent a car...and you are ready to go :).

 

Hank

I know, I know. But it's always a balance between seeing a few places in-depth and seeing many places.

We are also seriously considering staying at a B&B and making day-trips. (Or better yet, a couple of different B&B's over the week, so we're not limited in our travel radius.)

There's almost no way you can go wrong finding things to see in Italy!

It would be cool to do Italy off-the-beaten-track. My wife has an Italian heritage and dreams of going there for a month, renting a small place and just going to the local markets for stuff to cook.

I'd welcome suggestions on where/how to do this.

We put off a trip to Cinque Terra many years ago because of the quake there. I'd like to get there eventually. Ideally, this spring/summer, for our 25th anniversary.

I'd like to maximize the time we can spend visiting as many of the 5 cities as feasible.

I've looked around at cruises and it seems to me there's only one port - La Spezia - and they only stop there for 12 hours.

I saw this:

http://www.cruisecritic.com/cruiseto/cruiseitineraries.cfm?startDate=2017-01&endDate=2017-07&portofcall=6632

But it's not as much help as I'd have liked.

If there are any cruises that stop over for longer than 12 hours, maybe we can get to more than one or two of them.

On the other hand, if we started or ended our cruise near Cinque Terra, we could spend as long as we can afford on land before/after the flight.

Suggestions?