As you're all probably aware the 2011 Complete Cruise Brochure has just been published and should be landing on your door mats any day now. I've had a sneak preview and it's packed full of useful tips for cruisers as well as lots of excellent deals for the up coming year. What was surprising about it this year though was some of the surveys we ran for it.
The surveys, completed by our forum members at www.cruises.co.uk covered a variety of topics from the best overall cruise line to the cruise line with the best disabled access. Some of the results were quite surprising though......
Cruise line offering the best disabled facilities - I'll admit this may only be my own preconceptions talking but I really thought Fred Olsen would have scored highly here. As the average age of their passengers tends to be 55/65 plus I really thought their ships would be 'geared up' to handle the more infirm of cruise passengers. But they actually came bottom of our league.
They don't have any wheelchair or scooter hire onboard, you have to bring your own.
Motorised scooters/wheelchairs can only be brought onboard if you've booked a disabled cabin.
No service animals allowed - ie seeing eye dogs etc.
No directions in braille onboard
And there are no facilities available for the deaf/hard of hearing onboard ie signs in braille etc
The cruise line with the best disabled facilities onboard was actually the six star line Azamara, as voted for by our forum members.
So, have any of my readers ever traveled with Fred Olsen or Azamara and needed to use any of their disabled facilities?
What did you think of them and more importantly where could they improve them?
Happy Cruising
Looking forward to getting the new brochure. Was surprised, I thought Fred Olsen would cater for the disabled better too.
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