Labadee cabanas

[jarvb]

We will be on Labadee in November. I have read that they have a few wheel chair accessible cabanas. Our son is in a power chair, but we can use a manual chair, if necessary, in port. How accessible are these cabanas, really. Will he need to transfer from his wheel chair to a sand chair to gain entry or can he just wheel himself onto the cabana?

Thanks,

Joyce

[Fat Paul]

As I recall the area by the over water cabanas was very deep sand. I walk with forearm crutches and was offered a ride in a sand chair. Labadee is one of our favorite ports.

[jpcello]

Here are a bunch of photos I received from the RCI Access office for the cabanas. I just booked one for me and my sister. She uses a cane full-time and will use her scooter on the cruise. First time doing the cabana and we're very excited.

[jarvb]

IT.looks like the cabanas are ramped so.it.should.be ok for direct wheelchair access. I had our TA reserve one for us. A shady place for.my son to.rest while the rest of.us are in the water will.be wonderful. Thanks for posting the pictures I feel.more.comfortable about the rental now

Joyce

[nieciez]

We had cabana 10 and the front part had two lounge chairs and there was no step up onto that area only the area with the sectional sofas had the step up of about 8 inches. I am sure they can move the lounges if you want. Here is a pic I took looking down from the inside of the cabana...you can see the ramp coming up on the right. My friend in the blue dress could not step up into the main part of the cabana but we took the ottoman portion of the sectional sofa and she sat on the edge of it then was able to swing her legs around to get into the cabana.

 

Edited July 5, 2014 by nieciez

[nieciez]

some more shots of inside the cabana

 

 

[jarvb]

Thank you for further info about accessibility. My son is unable to stand at all so transferring to anything would be difficult. Hopefully they will move the lounges. we can probably bump him up one step , with help, if we take him on shore in his manual chair instead of power chair. We usually don't take his power chair with us, we don't trust the airlines with it. Power chairs are too expensive for the airline employees to abuse. Since we are so close to home port this time, we are planning on taking both chairs. We know he usually has to take the manual chair in ports due to no curb cuts and etc but I was hoping he could use his power chair in labadee. We will make it work somehow.

[jpcello]

I just got back from my Allure Western Caribbean cruise and felt I needed to post about the cabanas in Labadee. I had reserved one based on the Shore Access office's comments about it being fully accessible. The cabana itself is fully accessible BUT getting to the cabana is not. We were assigned #10 which required walking across about 40-50 feet of sand to get from where the concrete walkway ends and where the entrance to the cabana is. My sister uses a motorized scooter and walks with a cane (not good balance). There would have been no way for her to walk from the end of the walkway to the cabana (definitely not on her own but maybe with assistance). They offers her use of a sand wheelchair to get to the cabana but if she would have needed to use the restroom or simply wanted to leave the cabana we would have had to track down the wheelchair, etc.

 

I ended up getting a full refund but we were very disappointed. What I saw of the cabana, however, was that they are awesome if you can walk with no problems.

[jarvb]

I have reserved one of the cabanas, unfortunately I don't know which one it is, my TA reserved it for us, never got a confirmation directly from RCI as to which one is reserved just one is reserved, along with the charge card bill. I am hoping there is one that is a little more accessible and we got that one. My son will be using a power chair on the island, it can go over packed dirt and grass but I doubt it will make it over sand. Transferring him to a sand chair is not an option. We will see what happens. I just may be spending time at customer services voicing my displeasure ( to put it mildly), but hopefully not. Thank you for the heads up, I won't be surprised if there is a problem. Someday I hope to be able to just go on vacation with him and not worry about accessibility but that is just a dream at this point. It does get frustrating.

[Texalana]

I just got back from my Allure Western Caribbean cruise and felt I needed to post about the cabanas in Labadee. I had reserved one based on the Shore Access office's comments about it being fully accessible. The cabana itself is fully accessible BUT getting to the cabana is not. We were assigned #10 which required walking across about 40-50 feet of sand to get from where the concrete walkway ends and where the entrance to the cabana is. My sister uses a motorized scooter and walks with a cane (not good balance). There would have been no way for her to walk from the end of the walkway to the cabana (definitely not on her own but maybe with assistance). They offers her use of a sand wheelchair to get to the cabana but if she would have needed to use the restroom or simply wanted to leave the cabana we would have had to track down the wheelchair, etc.

 

I ended up getting a full refund but we were very disappointed. What I saw of the cabana, however, was that they are awesome if you can walk with no problems.

 

I'm sorry to hear that RCL still has not extended the concrete path all the way to the wheelchair accessible cabanas! This is just SO wrong! :mad: We were very excited about having the whole family together for the day in a cabana and were extremely disappointed to find that my mom had to go back to the ship, as there was no way for her to cross the sand part of the path. We knew she wouldn't be able to get into the water, but we fully expected her to at least be able to get TO the cabana!

[jarvb]

I cancelled the cabana, which was a disappointment for us. I contacted the special needs dept and they confirmed that there was about 50 yards of "loose sand". I tried to get them to clarify what loose sand was, just some sand that blew over the concrete or wooden walkway, or plain ole sand that is deep and piled up. They wouldn't commit. I decided not to waste time worrying about it and just cancelled, someone who is more mobile may be able to use it. I have found that most people don't know the difference between adapted and accessible. It is even more disappointing when the Special Needs department doesn't know the difference. It is so frustrating. You would think that since RCI took the trouble to go ahead and put in walkways, they would extend them a few more yards.

 

Joyce

[jpcello]

Joyce, as my sister explained to me, our (US) definition of accessible is different than another country's definition of accessible.

 

When we were at Labadee I went myself to look (while my sister was still on the ship). The loose sand is exactly that. It's sand. The walkway ends and then there is sand until you get to the actual cabana. Makes no sense to me either.

[510picker]

Nothing worse than sand when you are in a wheelchair. I'm so glad I didn't book this cabana as it would have been so disappointing to see the path leading to the "accessible" cabana ends in sand. Such a shame that Royal Caribbean doesn't remedy this.