H/C problems in NCL's Pearl

[montlee]

We just got off the NCL Pearl and wanted to tell some of our experiences. Their main dining room is on deck 6, but you can only get to it by walking down 6-8 steps or going to deck 7 and cutting across. There was only one elevator with a '6' button, but we could never get it to open on our floor (8) or on floor 7.

 

Four days into the cruise, I complained and they gave me a special card that opened that elevator. When I commented that the card should be in our room, they said "not all H/C rooms are occupied by H/C people". Good answer!

 

We had a room with an obstructed view, but we could see a lot above the life boats. It was very roomy with lots of storage. It was one of 8 H/C rooms off a small restaurant called Blue Lagoon. We loved that restaurant. It was open 24/7 and we could take things back to our room. The problems was the Blue Lagoon did not have much room for a wheel chair to maneuver thru all the tables and chairs.

 

The ship had a lot of ramps everywhere, making pushing a w/c hard to do.

 

The biggest problem on the cruise was the excursions. We only signed up for one on-line. When we got on the ship, I double checked to make sure it was H/C friendly. No problem, they told me. There was no problem getting off the ship and on the bus. It was when we got to the plantation we had a problem. There were 14 steps up into the place! My husband got out of the chair and two of us helped him up the steps and another person carried the w/c. after we got there we found out there was a ramp in the back! No one from NCL was looking out for us - and I had asked about it!

 

The second problem arose when I found out we were tendering into one of the ports. I booked this cruise because we were to dock at all 5 ports. The tried to tell me they would have 4 men pick up the chair with him in it and carry it down the steps into the tender. Yeah, right!

 

Again, we managed to get him into the boat with the help of four or five other passengers.

 

After we got in, a man fell and cut his leg and they didn't even have a first aid kit, they had to run onto the ship to get it.

 

I noted on my comment card that they need a meeting for all H/C passengers (like RCCL does) and iron out these problems.

 

It didn't ruin our cruise, but gave us a lot of frustration. I'm not complaining here; just trying to give you a 'heads up'.