tanzer22pilot

My husband and I are going on the Ruby Princess in February for an early Anniversary trip. Would we both have to buy the drink card? Or could we both use the same one?

Would you buy a lift ticket and have your husband go up the lift and when he got back down then unclip his lift ticket for you to use? I am sure Princess factors in a certain amount of "stealing" into the cost of the drink packages.

I'm about to leave for my 25th cruise on Princess even though I have been denied access on every Princess ship. I have a severe hearing loss and am denied "access" to virtually alll of the onboard entertainment. I cannot hear the shows, the movies are not captioned, I cannot enjoy any of the games or quizzes, gee whiz lots of times I cannot even hear my waiter.

 

And yes I tell the staff every time I get on board, I fill out the end of cruise forms etc. If you have a handicap of any kind you're not going to get "equal" access. However, this does not stop me from enjoying my cruise. I'm sure other passengers think I'm rude or stupid but the reality is I often cannot hear what people are saying so I'm shy about joining in a conversation. I wish with all my heart this was not so but it is and I have to live with it.

If we are ever on the same cruise, a few rounds of your drinks would be on my tab. Thank you for understanding.

The ADA issue has been pretty much hashed out, but just in case people come and look at this later I'd like to add a few points.

 

As noted, the ADA only requires 'reasonable' accommodation. If a facility can show the cost or providing accommodation exceeds the perceived benefit, then they do not have to do it.

 

In determining that, it is also considered whether the item in question is 'core' or 'unique'. For example, on a cruise ship, access to one's cabin or the dining facilities would be core features. The Sanctuary, being an add on feature (and this is the key part) with functionally similar areas being available around the ship, even if not as nice, would probably not qualify.

 

Basically, given that there are already accessible loungers throughout the ship, with drink and food service, there's no ADA requirement in play here.

Thank you for saying it much nicer then I did.

Cheryl, I can answer your question. Having been on the Grand a number of times both before and after the major retrofit by Princess in which Skywalkers was removed and other major structural changes were made to the ship such as building One Five and adding the Piazza and International café area, among other changes, I can tell you that there is no wheelchair access to the Sanctuary and never has been wheelchair access to the Sanctuary, as we looked both before and after the retrofit. I was surprised with all of the major structural changes to the ship that a lift was not added, since it would be a minor change to do. There was a lift in Skywalkers which took wheelchairs from one the lower floor to the upper floor (which was all discarded when Skywalkers was taken off the ship and One Five was added). So the idea of using a lift to take wheelchairs from one floor to an upper level was already in use on the Grand before the retrofit in Skywalkers--just never applied to the Sanctuary.

 

On the Crown Princess, the wheelchair access is a lift from one deck to the Sanctuary deck. The lift goes through a cut out area in the deck. It is not an actual elevator, but indeed only a lift very similar to the one which had been used on the Grand in Skywalkers.

 

Having been on the Golden, the Caribbean, and the Star Princess ships since the Sanctuary was installed on those ships, I can tell you there is no lift or elevator access of any kind to the Sanctuary. Apparently Princess chose not to include a wheelchair lift when these ships were retrofitted to add the Sanctuary feature. And even though there has been additional retrofitting by Princess to add features such as the Piazza and International Café, among others, Princess has not added a lift to the Sanctuary or added other accommodation features/changes.

 

I agree with you about just ignoring Tanzer22pilot who apparently is being irrational and using hysterics instead of approaching the issue in a common sense way.

 

There are many areas that people in wheelchairs cannot access on ships because obviously it would not be structurally possible to make such changes or it may be cost prohibitive. But I agree with you that there are often cost effective methods of accommodation which can be applied to allow greater access.

 

Something of which you should also be aware as it is a change in Princess policy that occurred approximately two to three years ago--if you cannot walk onto the tender, you are not allowed to tender. This is notwithstanding the past Princess practice of using crew tender teams to lift those in a manual wheelchair onboard the tender and also the fact that a wheelchair tendering system actually exists and is in use by Princess' sister subsidiary Holland America. (and wheelchair bound guests are still required to pay the port charge for a tender port even though Princess doesn't permit them to tender.)

Thank you for writing that. Ship design is much different then some general contractor adding a ramp up a half flight of stairs.