Princess Cay wheelchair accessible?

[woozles]

Can anyone respond to how accessible princess cay is with a wheelchair?

[FOPMan]

Princess Cays is a tender port. At least historically, tendering has been provided via several of the ship-board vessels, not an island-bound fleet. This means that it’s unlikely that power wheelchairs will be accommodated. If the seas are rough, the captain may also order that no mobility devices are to be transported, with concern about the ability of passengers who are not sure-footed to transfer.

 

Others may have insight to the current status of paths. As I recall, they at least used to have a wheelchair with balloon tires that was beach-friendly.

[kokopelli-az]

Here are a couple of links that might be of interest:

 

For this link, see section "How to Get Around in Princess Cays."

 

https://shouldbecruising.com/2021/11/19/princess-cays-guide/

 

 

And for this link, go to about the 8 minute mark where they are actually on Princess Cays.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my1y5K_fdPI

 

 

If you go to youtube and do a search on Princess Cays, many people have posted videos of it so you can get an idea of the terrain and paths

 

[cruisn43]

We were on Regal Princess in February 2020.  My husband travels in a portable power chair that weighs about 60 lbs.  The tenders/water shuttles were from the island, not the ship's tenders.  The boats were two level.  My husband stayed in his chair and wheeled right onto the upper deck.  They had a specific area where they wanted the wheelchairs to park.  Assistance was available from the crew both on the ship and on the island, but I feel better helping him myself.  His chair has a manual mode which we used getting off at the island to go down the switch back ramp off the water shuttle.  We could only access the left side of the island as you needed to cross a bridge to get to the right side.

 

Not sure if the above is for all Princess ships or not.  It worked beautifully on Regal.  I asked about Emerald Princess as we had a cruise scheduled on that ship, but no one on Regal was able to answer my question.  The cruise was cancelled due to Covid.

[PaulC29]

On 5/13/2022 at 12:32 PM, cruisn43 said:

We were on Regal Princess in February 2020.  My husband travels in a portable power chair that weighs about 60 lbs.  The tenders/water shuttles were from the island, not the ship's tenders.  The boats were two level.  My husband stayed in his chair and wheeled right onto the upper deck.  They had a specific area where they wanted the wheelchairs to park.  Assistance was available from the crew both on the ship and on the island, but I feel better helping him myself.  His chair has a manual mode which we used getting off at the island to go down the switch back ramp off the water shuttle.  We could only access the left side of the island

Was the ramp on the island to get off the upper level of the tender/water shuttle steep?  Wonder if they'd let people just go for the boat ride to/from the island and just get back on the ship. (weather/ calm seas  permitting of course)

[cruisn43]

@PaulC29  The ramp wasn't too steep.  It had a few tight turns, so I opted to put my husband's chair in manual so I could control the speed on the way down, and help through the turns.  There will be staff available to help.  Not sure if you use a manual or a power chair.  In a manual chair, you would want someone behind you to hold you back a bit.  If you are a full time power chair user you would likely be comfortable with the turns.  My husband only uses his power chair when outside of the house, and only when I am with him.

Once we were down the ramp there were paved paths you could take to listen to music or see the beach.  We could not get my husband close to the water, but it was still a nice place to spend an hour or so.

I don't know if they would allow you to just stay on the water shuttle and go back to the ship.  I don't see why not.

Before we took the water shuttle I went down to check things out and ask how it would work for my husband.  I was nervous and wanted to make sure things would be OK.  I had read many posts about tenders not being accessible.  The difference was the use of the water shuttles from the island.  If you are travelling with someone else, you could ask them to check things out and ask if you could just go for the ride to the island and back.

If we were on a cruise that visited the island we would go again.