[nagdu] Traveling with a guide dog out of the country and on acruise ship
Natalie
nrorrell at qwest.net
Mon Nov 21 22:55:28 UTC 2011
Hi Cheryl,
Sounds like you had an awesome time, for the most part. I'll keep your
information from this post, should the Liskis and I ever plan to cruise.
Best,
Nat and Liam Joshua
----- Original Message -----
From: "cheryl echevarria" <cherylandmaxx at hotmail.com>
To: "nagdu" <nagdu at nfbnet.org>; "travelandtourism"
<travelandtourism at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 8:18 AM
Subject: [nagdu] Traveling with a guide dog out of the country and on
acruise ship
> Good morning all:
>
> Now that I have some time, I will be posting my reviews and experience of
> my recent cruise and excursions.
>
> This particular post is in reference to cruising with a guide dog from the
> prep work, to the onboard experience, this is also in reference to leaving
> the main land of the US.
>
> Before I start, yesterday, as I had posted, someone asked me about
> traveling with their guide dog to Puerto Rico. Well, since I have yet to
> take Maxx to PR with us, it was an awakening to the fact, that whenever
> you leave the mainland of the US, which also includes Canada and Mexico
> (some people may not have had this issue in the past, but these are the
> rules per the USDA.) that you must have in your possession a Certified
> USDA Veterinarian Health Certificate, now when you call your vet and let
> them know you are going out of the country, you need to ask if he/she is
> one, if not they will know where your closest one is, if not there is a
> listing on the United Stated Department of Agriculture website.
>
> Which I am willing to send to NAGDU/travel and tourism the information so
> that everyone has the link to the as well.
>
> The link is:
> http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/animals/animal_import/animal_imports_states.shtml<http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/animals/animal_import/animal_imports_states.shtml>
>
>
> When traveling especially with a service animal, in this case, a cruise.
>
> Planning ahead, if you know you want to cruise in April starting planning
> as early as possible. For those that have cruised before the staterooms
> are sometimes smaller than a hotel room, and having the room for the dog
> might be limited. In this case, even though I will not be doing this
> again, I asked for an accessible stateroom, some of this might repeat when
> speaking of traveling period for someone who is disabled. Because this
> was a travel agent graduation cruise with Norwegian Cruise Lines, all us
> travel agents had balcony accommodations, and every level of the ships
> have an accessible stateroom and no they are not more or less money then
> those for everyone else.
>
> When planning your cruise with a guide dog, you need to call like I said
> way in advanced if you would like an accessible stateroom, there are many
> people I am glad to say that are traveling, and these rooms go very fast.
>
> You need to let your travel agent, know you are bring your guide, they
> will accommodate you but if you don't tell them, they will not know to
> make a box for your dog to do his business. Also, they do not put the box
> in your room, it is a health issue, and no they will not put the boxes on
> the balconies if you have one.
>
> On Norwegian Cruise Lines, what they do is they will ask you what kind of
> stuffing you want in the box, it is a similar box to what we do at
> convention only smaller. The placing of it is in a crew area only area.
>
> Explanation here: On a cruise, there is an area every few staterooms in
> between that the crew move between to take there carts or need to take an
> elevator to get to the next floor, basically behind the scenes, so near
> our stateroom there was one of these doors and we were shown the box for
> the dog.
>
> Again, depending on the floor you are staying will determine where this
> is.
>
> Maxx was confused at first because it was inside and not outside the box,
> and when Maxx is away anywhere, it takes him at least a day to go do his
> business, but he finally liked it and all was good.
>
> You also need to do your homework on where you are going in my case it was
> Orlando, Great Stirrup Cay (which is Norwegian's own private island in the
> Bahamas), all the cruise lines have them, and Nassau (Paradise Island) in
> the Bahamas.
>
> Orlando is a US State so there is no worry in that of where you want to go
> on an excursion, we decided not to go anywhere in Orlando, and stay on the
> ship, and check out the rest of what was available to do.
>
> We didn't go to Great Stirrup Cay because at the island they bring ship
> tenders to the ship and that day their was 9 and 10 foot swells and the
> manager of the island said it was to dangerous to bring the boats out, so
> we had another day at sea. Also in the same area was Disney and Royal
> Caribbean and they couldn't get into there islands as well. These private
> islands are to shallow for the ships to have a pier to port to.
>
> In the Bahamas, we did have an issue with one of the excursions we wanted
> to do. I did call the excursion department with the cruise lines prior to
> what we wanted to do, and they told me we never had a problem with
> services animals and our excursions. Well, I did and the cruise line has
> been informed, I did give a report back to the Access Department and
> management upon my return, the good, the bad and the ugly. They are on
> it, so that these issues never happen again.
>
> Anyway the issue we had was, I wanted to go swimming with the dolphins, my
> sister and brother-in-law, niece and nephew, were cruising with us, and
> they were going to this.
>
> So when I registered for this on the ship they had no problem with it, but
> the following day I was told that I couldn't bring my dog. This was not
> from the cruise lines but the people who run the program. They were going
> to allow it this once just for me, since I was a travel agent. I said no,
> and that we were going to do something else. I have the e-mail from the
> company themselves of the excuse of why they didn't want to dog there. I
> mean Maxx was not going to go in the water with the dolphins, the supplier
> was concerned, since afterwards that in the same area that they have sea
> lions and that they have a less tolerance for illness and that they were
> concerned that they would get sick from the dog.
>
> In either case, I don't do anything that all of you cannot go and do.
>
> We went to the Atlantis Resort and it was well worth it, had an awesome
> time:
>
> To read more go to:
>
> http://www.echevarriatravel.wordpress.com<http://www.echevarriatravel.wordpress.com/>
>
>
> Leading the Way in Independent Travel!
>
> Cheryl Echevarria
> http://www.echevarriatravel.com<http://www.echevarriatravel.com/>
> 631-456-5394
> reservations at echevarriatravel.com<mailto:reservations at echevarriatravel.com>
>
> For daily updates read our blog at
> http://www.echevarriatravel.wordpress.com<http://www.echevarriatravel.wordpress.com/>
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