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Weight limits on HAL excursions


Jersey42

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The restrictions I have a problem with are restrictions against diabetics on Catamatan tours. I understand they will be away from "help". Other tours of similar nature do not have this restriction. Most diabetics have emergency suppies with them all the time. If I a) sign a waiver; b) show my diabetic supplies and c) if necessay provide a doctors statement, I wish I could be allowed to participate.

 

Interesting....I would have a problem with that too. Is it a general, sweeping statement "all diabetics"? There's such a wide range. You can be diagnosed diabetic but have it under control with diet and exercise, you can be taking very low-dose Metformin once/day, on up to a brittle diabetic with an A1C of 13! Doesn't sound right to me either.

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The restrictions I have a problem with are restrictions against diabetics on Catamatan tours. I understand they will be away from "help". Other tours of similar nature do not have this restriction. Most diabetics have emergency suppies with them all the time. If I a) sign a waiver; b) show my diabetic supplies and c) if necessay provide a doctors statement, I wish I could be allowed to participate.

 

 

I wonder if all diabetics really confess if they are diabetic??

On another forum that I belong to -- I know of a woman who is diabetic, overweight and uses a scooter and is always taking catamaran tours.

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I don't see how it really matters to those involved who is setting the rules. I would imagine that your friend wasn't any less embarrassed or unhappy because it wasn't HAL's policy.

 

If HAL is offering a tour with a operator whose tour has a weight limit it's in HAL's best interest to know those details and provide that information to their passengers.

 

I agree that the onboard shorex people should know all the details, but it doesn't always happen. Often, all they have is the blurb their tour company gives them.

 

When we were on our Canada cruise, we took a tour to a hydroelectric power plant. I asked the shorex people on board if there would be a restriction on photography. (There usually is at a site like that) He said he didn't know, pulled out a paper and said that the only restriction was no pregnant women. I figured this was a safety rule.

 

When we got on the bus, the guide repeated the restriction about pregnancies and got a laugh--think about HAL's demographic. Then the guide said that anyone with a pacemaker could also not tour the plant. A pregnant woman or pacemaker patient was welcome to do the tour as far as the info center. But they could not go into the power plant itself. I think the issue was the strong magnetic field around the generators.

 

Well, a man on the bus had a pacemaker. He was very disappointed, but understood the safety issue. He opted to get off the bus because he didn't want to sit around in the visitor center waiting for the rest of us to see the good part of the tour. I hope he got his money back because this restriction was never stated in advance.

 

When we got to the power plant, we were told that we could not take cameras into the power plant. One man was very disappointed about that. Security being what it is these days, most of us weren't surprised, but this man may have stayed in the info center rather than leave his camera on the bus. I don't remember all the details of that.

 

When we got back to the ship, I told the shorex manager about the pacemaker rule and the camera restrictions. No complaints, just info for them for future reference. He thanked me, but I have no idea if the feedback got beyond him. So the next time HAL is in Baie Comeau, I wonder what the tour description will say.

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I've seen the need for this first hand. On an excursion in Cartagena in March (Celebrity), one of the passengers on the bus was very upset because the guy next to him weighed at least 350, making it impossible for the irate passenger to sit in the seat next to him. At the first stop, he took someone else's seat, causing a lot of harsh words and hard feelings. The person who had the seat next to the fat guy had to stand in the aisle for the rest of the bus part of the excursion. It was not a pretty scene.

 

And one that probably could've easily been avoided. What I do when I first get on board is go to the shore excursions desk so they can clearly see what I look like (350? I wish!), then tell them what excursions I'm interested in and ask them if the seating will be able to accommodate me. Often the staff will contact the excursion operators and explain the situation, and this almost always results in an arrangement that works for me and doesn't inconvenience others. Sometimes that means I have to pay double, sometimes I don't, but all it takes is a little proactive forethought and situations like these don't have to happen. In this particular case, I'm pretty sure something could've been worked out, as I went on a Cartagena bus tour last year while on the Zuiderdam, and had no problems whatsoever.

 

And yes, I buy two seats on a plane. Always.

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And one that probably could've easily been avoided. What I do when I first get on board is go to the shore excursions desk so they can clearly see what I look like (350? I wish!), then tell them what excursions I'm interested in and ask them if the seating will be able to accommodate me. Often the staff will contact the excursion operators and explain the situation, and this almost always results in an arrangement that works for me and doesn't inconvenience others. Sometimes that means I have to pay double, sometimes I don't, but all it takes is a little proactive forethought and situations like these don't have to happen. In this particular case, I'm pretty sure something could've been worked out, as I went on a Cartagena bus tour last year while on the Zuiderdam, and had no problems whatsoever.

 

And yes, I buy two seats on a plane. Always.

 

You are a very honest person.

Some people are not -- and this causes the problems. The seats are sold with the idea that there will be 2 people to a seat. Many of the tours that we have been on -- all the seats are sold. Thus when a man like that 350 pound one sits down -- he takes up 2 seats and one person has to stand. And on some of the tours that we have been on -- there wern't any seats available on the other bus. And the tour guide and bus driver are not authorized to refund money. Only the shore excursion people can do that -- whether it be from the ship or from the tour company itself.

I love your signature.

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I am also a large person 6'3", 350+, and my partner and I always buy an empty seat on a plane (usually reserve early enough to get an empty middle seat), or we splurge on first class. We are on the Westerdam on June 16, and will wait to book excursions on board or ask at the dock for advertised excursions if they can accommodate us. We haven't had problems before by being honest. Heck, we even had a pedicab in Cabo who insisted he could give us the grand tour! We tipped that fellow a pretty penny!!

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Krazy Kruisers, it is just a few specific ones in St. Thomas (USVI). Unfortunately, they are the ones I am interested in taking. I know it is the tour group and not HAL, still ... I am not insulin dependent, I keep my meter and candy with me and can provide doctors approval.

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Krazy Kruisers, it is just a few specific ones in St. Thomas (USVI). Unfortunately, they are the ones I am interested in taking. I know it is the tour group and not HAL, still ... I am not insulin dependent, I keep my meter and candy with me and can provide doctors approval.

 

Kathy

Since you aren't insulin dependent -- I don't see why you can't sign up for those tours.

As I said in another post -- people worse than you are taking those tours.

Yonnie

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The Rep from HAL should have been the person offering to stand.

 

I would highly doubt that there was a rep from HAL on the bus. I've never seen one. An occasional employee, taking an afternoon off, but not an actual rep.

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I would highly doubt that there was a rep from HAL on the bus. I've never seen one. An occasional employee, taking an afternoon off, but not an actual rep.

I've had HAL reps on many of my HAL tours, including on my recent Ryndam cruise. I think it depends more on the nature of the tour whether or not you have one. After the tour they give a report to the Shore Excursion Office.

They do not always identify themselves, or their function, but they very well may have been a rep on the referenced tour.

 

I don't recall ever seeing a HAL employee on one of my tours when he/she was not acting as a HAL rep.

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While on our "vacation" from HAL cruises, we've taken several others. We always book ship-sponsored shore excursions. Most cruise lines do a rather poor job of explaining their excursions, especially for those of us who don't fit into the "no health problem" category. We will do some pre-booking, but will ALWAYS go to the Shore Excursion Desk upon embarkation to do a final check to make certain that we will not inconvenience our fellow travelers in any way. (Our health problem is some mobility issues.) I recently spoke with a friend who had been on a HAL cruise and took all HAL excursions. She said she felt sorry for the people who were with her. They could not keep up with the tour guide -- the tour was labelled incorrectly. The one cruise line that did an excellent job of labelling their shore excursions was Celebrity. The excursions gave a clear explanation of number of stairs, distances walked at one time, overall distances walked, etc. We ended up having to cancel that particular cruise, but when we compared the explanations with tours that we had taken on other cruise lines at the same ports, the explanations were pretty accurate. We wish HAL would model their descriptions on Celebrity's.

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The excursions gave a clear explanation of number of stairs, distances walked at one time, overall distances walked, etc.

Oh, how I wish the published tour discriptions would list such things!

I do review the tours carefully as I book in advance, then go to the Shore Excursion Office the first day to discuss the mobility factors in each tour. How I hate when I ask about distance and the reply is something like "not far". Just tell me the feet/yards/etc and let me be the judge as to whether or not it is "far". My "far" is not the same as yours. Trust me on this one. Same with stairs. "Just a few" to you may be one flight; to me it's 3-4.

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I was just reviewing the Veendam Bermuda shore excursions, and I noticed that many of them have weight limits. The limit is stated in the brief description of the tour. When you click on the "more details" link, sometimes it does not mention a weight restriction, others times it says the same thing as in the brief description, other times it says you must book two excursions if you are overweight, and with others it gives a weight limit that is different from the one in the brief description. If you try to book any tour with a weight restriction in the brief description, it asks for your weight. If the weight you entered exceeds the weight in the brief description, it will not let you book the tour.

 

Is this normal with HAL? I have never seen this on other lines except under special circumstances like helicopter tours. What is the purpose of the restrictions for some of these tours? Most bus tours and the walking tour of Hamilton have weight restrictions. The golf tours do not.

 

Shorexes use small vans in Bermuda because the roads are too narrow to handle large busses. Therefore seating is limited to x number of people weighing under x pounds. Even if busses are used they are very narrow and short, therefore the seats are smaller than ones we are used to on shore excursions. It is a matter of available space and not discrimination.

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I've had HAL reps on many of my HAL tours, including on my recent Ryndam cruise. I think it depends more on the nature of the tour whether or not you have one. After the tour they give a report to the Shore Excursion Office.

They do not always identify themselves, or their function, but they very well may have been a rep on the referenced tour.

 

I don't recall ever seeing a HAL employee on one of my tours when he/she was not acting as a HAL rep.

 

Hi Ruth! Thanks for sharing your knowledge. As for never seeing a HAL employee, I have actually been on several tours when my seatmate was working on the ship. Granted, they were musicians or other entertainers, but still employees. Being a solo cruiser sure has an advantage when it comes to meeting people!

 

On my recent Zuiderdam cruise we were talking about CC and someone asked me if I knew you. I'm pretty sure it was Jimmy the Piano Man. I told him that I didn't 'know' you, but I am sure familiar with you from the boards, and we had interacted on here. We both agreed that you are a lovely woman.

 

Maureen

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Thank you for the kind words. And I'm flabbergasted that Jimmy remembers me after all this time.

Were the HAL employees on your bus officially representing HAL? As I said, they don't always identify themselves, or their function.

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Thank you for the kind words. And I'm flabbergasted that Jimmy remembers me after all this time.

Were the HAL employees on your bus officially representing HAL? As I said, they don't always identify themselves, or their function.

 

No, they were just taking the tours. I think I have run into them because I travel solo and so do they. Hence, an empty seat. :D

 

I think Jimmy reads the boards on occasion, so he keeps up with people he has met. He said that he remembers you being friends with a 'priest', so I guessed he meant Greg, Rev. Neal. Where is he? Haven't seen him post in quite some time. Maybe I've just missed him.

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I've seen the need for this first hand. On an excursion in Cartagena in March (Celebrity), one of the passengers on the bus was very upset because the guy next to him weighed at least 350, making it impossible for the irate passenger to sit in the seat next to him. At the first stop, he took someone else's seat, causing a lot of harsh words and hard feelings. The person who had the seat next to the fat guy had to stand in the aisle for the rest of the bus part of the excursion. It was not a pretty scene.

 

I hope you never weigh in at 350 pounds and have people refer to you as "fat" in their posts. I think we have more polite terms out there to call people other than "fat".

 

 

Douglas...Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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The excursions gave a clear explanation of number of stairs, distances walked at one time, overall distances walked, etc.

 

On our recent cruise on the Statendam, the Costa Rica port was canceled (rough seas) so I still have the shorex tickets (I hope the uploaded picture is big enough to see this). In the bottom box, it gives some info as mentioned in the quotes (this was on all our shorex tix). Perhaps they will soon add this info to the online descriptions. "Ship length" is a bit vague unless you know how long the ship is, which you would know once you're on it, but maybe not when you're pre-booking online (esp. newbies).

 

Added: I see the upload picture is small - one of the tickets states: "Up to 1 hour of walking". The other states: "Up to 1 ship length of walking and 10 steps".

ShorexTix.jpg.9b22c22cda98bcbbe25ae56530c774ce.jpg

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I think Jimmy reads the boards on occasion, so he keeps up with people he has met. He said that he remembers you being friends with a 'priest', so I guessed he meant Greg, Rev. Neal. Where is he? Haven't seen him post in quite some time. Maybe I've just missed him.

He's right! Greg was on that cruise when Jimmy entertained.

Greg's alive and well, and very busy with work. As a matter of fact, he just recently took a short cruise for a break.

I saw he had posted last night.

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Ruth you are so right about employees on excursions.

Something not mentioned is that employess are able to "win" tickets on an excursions as a perk for extra service etc. Those employees are requested to write a review of the tour so ShoreEx can get feedback about the tour.

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I know some excursions that involve horseback riding do involve weight restrictions.

 

There are certain excursions that make perfect sense, horseback riding is one. No one wants to injure a horse. But it doesn't make as much sense when it comes to other activities. When you are snorkeling you float generally (except if you are a skinny 7 yr old boy;)).

 

I am truly puzzled by the rationale on some of their weight limitations.

 

P.S. I have participated in many of the water activities that are now weight restricted for the shore excursions in the ABC's. I had no problem nor did I witness any other pax, "fluffy" or not, have any problems with those excursions.

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