[nagdu] Traveling with a guide dog out of the country and on acruise ship

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/>
> _______________________________________________
> nagdu mailing list
> nagdu at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> nagdu:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/nrorrell%40qwest.net 