Celebrity Solstice - Med. Cruise

[scot2512]

I just returned from escorting a small group (19people) on the Celebrity Solstice including my husband who has been a paraplegic for 40+ years. The ship is beautiful and the HC cabins are truly excellent. Large size with a roll in shower with pull down seat in the bathroom. Accessibility throughout the ship was very good except for the carpets in the hallways. Very difficult on which to push so we tended to go up to the pool deck to traverse from aft to forward. They also had a lift chair to enable mobility impaired passengers to enter the pool. But of course what they didn't have was access to the tender at Santorini. They had told us to call a certain extension the morning we arrived in Santorini and they would let us know if the tender would be a possibility. We did call and reiterated confined to wheelchair-can't walk and they assured us it was possible. When we arrived at the gangway however there were approx. 10 very narrow steps to the tender and they apologised because they hadn't understood "can't walk"

They did have two shore excursions that were wheelchair accessible, Easy Athens and Easy Ephesus.

Overall great trip made better by using a "Free Wheel" on the front of the wheelchair (cobblestones were a breeze!) and a wonderful tour operator in Rome who did a private tour for 15 of my passengers and had a wheelchair accessible van. His company site is http://www.romeconnection.com/

and he does more ports than just Rome. That tour was the highlight of our trip. ;)