montgomeryfamily

What is served for lunch and dinner in the Concierge Lounge?

For the Oasis, if we want to email the concierge with a request, such as for the cabanas, do we email both of them or what, since there are two concierges. Is one of the concierges primary or do they divide up there duties or what? I wanted to email the concierge on Oasis with a request, but just didn't know the proper way to handle it when there are two.

I would appreciate it if you could also send me a copy of your spreadsheet too--kacruiser@sbcglobal.net. Thanks.

I saw that you had posted a picture of the parade near the Cupcake Cupbroad. Do you have any others? We sat right in front and watched the parade. Wondering if we are in any shots you didn't post? My Mom was in a wheelchair, so we would be easy to identify.

Julesbeara, where did your mother sit for the parade? We will have a family member in a wheelchair and wondered where the best place would be to go so he could see everything. Thanks.

In the dining room, was there any live music (piano, string quartet, etc) on any of the nights? Also, was there any type of crew "parade" or did the crew sing on the last night?

I was definitely oversimplifying for the sake of brevity. It's not strictly a financial equation. You could also factor in relative quality of facilities, etc.

 

But as a general rule, I think my point holds. If a company can demonstrate either significant barriers to accommodation and/or the availability of approximately equivalent accessible alternatives, in many cases they will not be forced to commit to the modifications.

 

I should point out I am speaking in the legal sense only, not the business sense. It often makes sense from a business standpoint to exceed the legal requirements.

I believe this statement/analysis is quite different from what you stated earlier and more accurate. Reasonable accommodation doesn't require a structural change where there is significant structural barriers to accommodation, but there is a requirement in such a case that alternate accommodation be provided where feasible. Examples would be placement of a ramp where there are stairs, providing a pool lift instead of rebuilding the pool for sloped entry, and providing a lift to go from one level to the next level.

Princess also has not included reasonable accommodations in their newer built ships where there would not be a structural barrier because those could be part of the design. This goes beyond designing to reduce/eliminate steps. For example, on Celebrity in newer ships (put into service 2008 and after), the theatre, which is built in a similar fashion as the Princess theatres entering from a high level and going down to the front via steps, there is a lift for wheelchair users and other mobility impaired to use to be able to go to and use seating at the front of the theatre instead of only being limited to the seating at the back. The Crown Princess, Emerald Princess, and Ruby Princess (2006, 2007, and 2008) did not incorporate any such feature--wheelchair users still have to sit in the back (of the "bus"...uh, I mean theatre :)) Not only is this a considerable distance from the stage for the performance, when a movie is shown in the theatre, the overhang from the balcony cuts off the upper portion of the movie screen.

In addition, where there is an alteration or remodeling of a structure, the company is supposed to revisit whether there is any longer a significant structural barrier and in the remodeling/alteration to incorporate accommodations. Princess doesn't appear to have done this---the creation of the Piazza/International Café area, the addition of the Sanctuary to various ships, and the major restructuring of the Grand to remove Skywalkers.

In fact, there are many areas in which Princess could easily provide accommodation but they don't (but other cruise lines do). For example, the heavy doors to the pool area make it very difficult for wheelchair users to enter those areas by themselves--replacement of the doors could be done, but automatic door openers (push the button) would achieve the same result. The same holds true for the heavy stateroom doors--none of the wheelchair accessible staterooms have automatic door openers. The new window suites have one wheelchair accessible suite--when the hallway was created, the heavy door to the lobby was fitted with a magnet and there is a button to trigger the magnet--but the button is approximately six feet high.

I just believe that no one at Princess considers these ADA issues, and yes, we and many others have written comments on our surveys, filled out those "let us know" cards, and otherwise communicated with Princess on these types of issues.

Whiterose, Princess does have an accommodation obligation, to some extent, in the provision of interpreters and other accommodation (but I know captioning is still controversial). I am sorry you have had this experience. I hope that you have requested accommodation in this regard from Princess on your upcoming cruise and that it will be provided to you.

Both Royal Caribbean and Celebrity provide interpreters and if you are giving advance notice to Princess of your need, they should be also. NCL learned this the hard way, in a 2010 consent decree with the Department of Justice (DOJ), so they also provide interpreters. You would think that Princess would take note of that. I am glad to provide you the information as to the DOJ consent decree with NCL involving accommodation of hearing impaired and the contact information for DOJ, especially if you are not provided accommodation services on your latest cruise.

While wheelchair users/mobility impaired do face various accessibility obstacles, they are able to enjoy much of the entertainment, games, etc--that is a major reason we still cruise on Princess. So from my perspective, you are missing a large component of the Princess cruise experience.

TracieABD, what port was this? I am aware of three ports that provide their own tenders which are special tenders that will allow wheelchairs and even scooters/electric wheelchairs to roll on and be locked in without any lifting (not using the Princess tenders). So perhaps this port had that type of tender available? I would like to find out so we would know about potential tendering options. We have not been on a Princess ship which has stopped at one of these ports since this policy went into place, so I don't know if the Princess tender crew would prevent us from tendering onto a port tender if they did not have to provide any assistance to the wheelchair?

We really miss being able to go to Princess Cay. It was one of our favorite ports. On our last cruise I was able to book a cabana, but when the Princess tender crew wouldn't allow us to board the tender, we had to go to the shore excursions desk and cancel it--they allowed us to cancel since Princess would not allow us to tender.

Wouldn't it be extremely dangerous for multiple people to be lifting someone into a tender? No wonder they stopped this.

As I said, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity still do this (and other cruise lines may also, but I don't have personal knowledge of that). These are trained lift crews. Using trained lift crews is also currently how Princess plans to handle the emergency evacuation of mobility impaired guests--in fact, the Princess plan is not just for wheelchair bound guests, but for those using walkers and otherwise mobility impaired who will need the additional assistance in the event of an evacuation. It is in Princess' emergency plan for these trained lift crew teams to go to the muster stations and evacuate the mobility impaired by carrying them onto the life boats.

Installation and use of the wheelchair tendering system does not require any lifting!

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.

Loonbeam, I disagree with your analysis, but since it is after midnight, I am not going to go into details at this time but do intend to post later in the day when I have more time. In the meantime, I refer anyone interested to the Dept of Justice (DOJ) ADA site. I believe it is clear from the cases taken by DOJ (and settlement agreements contained on their site) that the standard is not cost outweighing perceived benefit (at least not in monetary terms). Certainly you can also research and review the federal regulations and various court cases, but I think the DOJ site provides ample clarity.

Respectfully... this is not true. The decision to tender a guest in a wheelchair is at the sole discretion of the Captain. That decision is made with passenger and crew safety foremost in mind, therefore, if conditions do not permit safe transfer of wheelchair-bound passengers to and from the tenders, they will have to stay on the ship. There certainly is no blanket "if you're in a wheechair, you can't tender" policy at Princess.

First, let me amend my statement--the Princess blanket policy of precluding tendering for those in wheelchairs applies to any person/wheelchair combination which weighs more than 50 lbs, so in theory, if there is a person who weights approximately 35 lbs or less, they could tender, assuming the weight of an ultralightweight wheelchairs.

Obviously this would only permit small children to be able to tender in their wheelchairs, assuming a wheelchair weight of only 15 lbs or so. So this policy precludes almost all of the wheelchair bound passengers from tendering.

This is the Princess policy for tendering with wheelchairs which is copied directly from the contract of our booking on the Royal Princess.

WHEELCHAIR NOTIFICATION

... For the safety of all involved; passengers and mobility devices will not be transferred in/out of the tender if physical lifting of 50 pounds or more is required. ...If passengers are unable to tender or disembark because of circumstances outlined above there will be no refund or credit for missed ports.

Now, I am going to describe the reality we experienced based upon the several Princess cruises we have taken over the last two or so years since this policy went into effect (and we have taken four Princess cruises in the last two years). Before that time, crew member teams would lift the passenger sitting in his/her wheelchair onto the tender. Yes, there may have been times of bad weather or some other circumstance which prohibited tender, but mostly that also precluding any tendering. And that decision to preclude tendering was made after arrival at the port.

Our experience is that for the most part, the Princess Patter for that port day, which is written and distributed the night BEFORE arrival at the port, states that passengers in wheelchairs will not be permitted to tender. When we went on a cruise after the Princess no tendering of wheelchairs/passengers over 50 lbs policy went into effect, we did not know about this change of policy as we had not read this previously and it was not in the Patter so we would go down and the tender crew/officers would tell us that you have to be able to walk onto the tender--they would not transfer a passenger seated in a wheelchair. Then they began putting it in the Patter, but as I said, that language was put in when the Patter was written well before arrival at the port. And after that, on later cruises on the few occasions when it was not in the Patter, we would go down and the tender crew would always say that the passenger had to walk onto the tender or no tendering. When it was in the Patter, I would go down and ask if we could tender with our wheelchair bound family member and was always told only if he could walk onto the tender. So on our last four Princess cruises our wheelchair bound family member has not been permitted to tender at any port. It was not due to weather, sea conditions, etc.

We have complained to Princess post cruise and the Princess response was to point out that language in the contract/notification I highlighted above about the 50lb weight limit. Princess has told us that this is Princess policy now.

So to those who made the comment to disagree with me about this--do you have any direct personal experience--either you or someone you were traveling with who was confined to a wheelchair (and weighed more than 35-40 lbs)--being transferred to a tender by Princess within the last two years? Because I would certainly be interested in getting the dates of those occasions if there were any.

Now for those who will respond that it is ok for Princess to have a blanket policy re the weight restriction because it is unsafe/could cause injury for Princess employees to have to lift more than 50 lbs, I point out that we have cruised on Princess since before their takeover by Carnival and that Princess, until approximately two years ago when the policy went into effect, always had trained lift crew teams to lift wheelchair bound passengers onto tenders (with the only restriction prohibiting scooters/motorized wheelchairs and very heavy passengers, made on a case by case basis). In addition, both Royal Caribbean and Celebrity still used lift crew teams to transfer wheelchair bound passengers to tenders. Finally, if there is a concern about crew safety/avoidance of injury, then Princess should install the tendering system that their sister subsidiary, Holland America, uses.

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.)

Are there any ramps or entrances with no steps such that someone in a wheelchair could enter the shop?

Thanks, I appreciate it. Hope you have a great time!

Could any of you that have been there tell me if this store/factory is wheelchair accessible? That is, if there is a step(s) at the front or anywhere within the store necessary in order to do the tour or if there are any narrow doorways where a wheelchair would not be able to get through? Thanks.

We were on the Jewel Dec 1 sailing and security was confiscating the water and sodas in the luggage. While I normally bring some bottled water onboard, I did not do so this time as we didn't have time to pick any up from the airport to the ship. However, we had a medical bag which had a small plastic sealed container of sterilized water. When the bag didn't arrive, I went down to security and there it was in the naughty room. There was a huge line of people and I waited for a few minutes. I saw sealed bottles and cases of water sitting on the table and saw the security taking sealed bottles of water from luggage. (There was also various types of alcohol on the table, but while I was waiting, all I saw them finding and taking was water).

Many of the people were upset and said they always brought bottled water. At first the security was allowing six bottles of water (for a four day cruise). Then the bar staff rep there stepped up and said NO BOTTLED WATER AT ALL. I was very surprised to hear this.

As for myself, when an officer finally walked by, I grabbed her, explained that mine was a medical bag and that we needed the bag now. She put it on the conveyer belt and the security inspector looked through it, but, while he looked through and questioned some of the items (which frankly, I found offensive within this open area and since these items were in sealed medical packaging and did not have sharp ends/edges, it was clear this just nosiness on the part of the officer as there was clearly no security issue. The officer stepped over, told the security inspector to put the bag through, and that was that (ironically, the sterilized water was never questioned).

We had been told at security that this policy prohibiting bottled water and soda from being carried on had taken effect before Thanksgiving, but I don't know whether that is true since others seem to be told that it was policy taking effect right before there cruise, which was well after our cruise.

I do hope this is not going fleetwide and I would like to know if this has continued on the Jewel.

Got it--thanks so much! :)

I would also appreciate receiving a copy of the spread sheet. Thanks. My email is kacruiser@sbcglobal.net

Great news--Princess is allowing bookings to be made for just $100 pp deposit on the August 19, 2006 Caribbean Princess Cruise Critic Group cruise!! And you still get the group rates and all of the amenities, including the shipboard credit!

Rebecca, I'm the group leader for the August 19, 2006 Caribbean Princess Cruise Critic group cruise. There is a lady who is older than you, but active and "young at heart" who is interested in sharing a stateroom on this group cruise.

Our cruise has great group rates and offers additional amenities, including shipboard credit and a photo voucher. We will have a sailaway party and a meet and mingle. But there is no requirement that you participate in any group activities--you can do as much or as little with the group as you want. Some people just book for the pricing. Also, there is no group dining--you eat when you want.

Click on the links in the banner for pricing information or email me at kacruiser@ev1.net if you have any questions or are interested in more information.

You would need to check with the specific cruise line to determine their policies.

I am a group leader for a CC cruise and recently checked with Princess on their service dog policy/procedures on behalf of a passenger who was interested. I obtained answers to their questions and also obtained some additional information I thought would be helpful (Although I'm not a TA, I had a good friend in college who was blind and had a service dog, so I asked about some other issues I thought would be of interest.) This is the information I obtained:

Princess does accommodate service dogs. The service dogs are allowed everywhere on the ship where passengers are allowed.

When you make the booking for the particular Princess cruise, you have to fax the Fleet Medical Services and inform them of the dog so that Princess will give you the authorization for the dog. They will send you information regarding the requirements for bringing the dog, including a medical certificate from a vet showing that the dog is healthy. You also have to bring the dog's food with you on the ship. You can also ask these official Princess folks any particular questions that you have so that you get the official response in writing back and can take that with you on the ship in case there are any questions/problems. (This is what I would do, especially if you make any special arrangements).

On each Princess ship, there is a location set aside for the dog to be able to "use the bathroom". In the dining room, if you want traditional seating, you can be booked for a particular table size and have the booking coded for a larger table size so that one of the chairs is taken away and the dog has a nice comfortable place to lay down. If you have the personal choice seating, then you would need to explain to the maitre'd each evening about the table size so that there is room for the dog, but they will accommodate you.

Princess was able to tell me whether the dog would be allowed off the ship at the particular ports for the itinerary we will be sailing (Princess Cay, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten). On this itinerary, all of the ports will allow the service dog to disembark. So there would be no restrictions on port access. On Princess Cay, the dog can run and play on the beach too, if you want to let the dog have some play time.

You would have to check for the port requirements for the particular itinerary you are interested in and probably be well-advised to double check any information you receive about the ports make sure the dog can get off.

Dewhit6959, before the drydock, when the Maasdam was was sailing in the Carribbean, we experienced ac problems when in a cat S stateroom on the Nav. deck. We were told by ship's engineering that the problem was caused by one of the ships air conditioning units which wasn't working effectively and that the problem was more severe in hot weather. (No mention was made of a ducting problem). We were also told that most of the other staterooms on the Nav. deck are serviced by a different air conditioning unit which was working and so those staterooms didn't experience any ac problems.

This issue/problem was discussed on the old boards but I don't believe any of those posts were brought over to the new boards. It was not just our Carribean sailing that was affected. Other Caribbean sailings that were sailing in the hotter summer months also had complaints. (We sailed during Aug.)

I had hoped that the problem with the ac problem would be repaired during the Massdam's dry dock. It would be interesting to find out when this person who experienced the problems sailed. Also, this reference to a ducting problem is new. Where did you find this issue discussed?

I would doubt that anyone would have a problem sailing on the Canada-New England route, as the weather is so much cooler there.

Thanks so much for taking the time to collect and save all of the shore excursion information from the old board. I am so glad that you had the expertise to know how to do this and very much appreciate the tremendous effort you put forth in behalf of all of us.