[Travelandtourism] How Kennedy Space Center Treated us on July 2 and on July 9th

[cheryl echevarria]

Good morning all:

I am also copy Dr. Maurer and NY State President Carl Jacobsen on this e-mail since he sits on the board and is my State President. I will also be putting out an article in the braille monitor.

Kennedy Space Center was rude and offered no assistance, even though the information on the website of my supplier who by the way would not post something like this on there website to risk their company's reputation.

When I was originally looking for tours for July 9th, I saw this description of the Kennedy Space Center and I thought yeah this would be wonderful, especially since in 2009, our Louis Braille Coin went up in one of the Space Shuttles.

This was taken directly for Viator website, which is my tour company that I have booked other tours from in the past with no problems.

Guests with Disabilities:

Guests with Disabilities:
* Visitor guides are available in large print format, braille and audio tape
* Wheelchair accessible
* Wheelchairs are available at no additional charge from the Information Counter inside the entrance
* Captioning systems are available for the IMAX Theatre presentations.
* Descriptive narration is available for the IMAX presentations for guests who are blind or vision impaired.
* Restaurant menus are available in braille and large print format. Crew members are available to retrieve items and assist when necessary

This sounded wonderful don't you think so.

Well we move forward to Cari and Brent Ford, who are from Missouri, good friends of myself, and I had just helped them arrange stay for there family for their wedding in June.  They were spending their honeymoon with their NFB Family at the Convention.

They arrived at Kennedy Space Center and in future I will refer to as KSC on July 2nd around 9AM.  Cari Ford called me very upset that the lady wouldn't allow her entrance, so I asked her to put me on the phone with the lady that was giving her problems, mind you I was still home in NY trying to get ready for convention myself.

I spoke to the woman, (I never got her name, but we know when this happened), I asked her what the problem was did she have the correct tickets, etc; she told me yes, but did I realize that they were blind, I said yes I did, in fact, I am also blind and that I will be there at KSC on July 9th with about 20 people. Well she can't come in without a sighted person with them. 

She said that we don't have someone to show them around, I said they know that and I was told about the services mentioned above, she said we don't' offer braille, I said okay, I said they can go to the IMAX and to the lunch, and the guided tour on the bus. Well I don't know how they are going to get around if they can't see.  

I told her to let them in and so they were. I then called Viator, who said that they were sorry about that, they only get there information from the places themselves, meaning Kennedy and not make it up out of thin air, they were just as upset as I was both of our reputations were on the line, so they tried calling KSC, but after being very professional and after 2 hours they couldn't get through, it was Saturday the management office wouldn't be opened again until after the 4th and that they would do everything in there power to find out what happened.

This is getting long and I will continue in the Braille Monitor as well. But I just want to give you some of the outcome, I was play phone tag over the week with Ms. Jerri Sioutis of Kennedy Space Center, letting me know that they don't cater to the blind, cater to us, we need to be catered to, which I thought was rude in the first place, that if we wanted to bring a sighted guide with us, there would be no charge, we on the 9th had 3 totally sighted people with us, 1 partially sighted myself, and were still treated like we had some kind of contagious disease, including when getting on one of the guided tour buses back to the main entrance one of our people who were sighted was told we don't want you people on our bus because they had there own group, which her name was June, because we got her name, and that the bus tours do not hold dedicated groups.

More to come, still have not received anything back in writing from KSC. But for those interested in going in August that mentioned this, stay away until we come knocking on there door.

You know I am glad we are going back to Orlando in 2013 but I am hoping like Governor Patterson was saying at the Convention, and if you haven't heard the speech yet go to NFBNY.org and it is on our home page.

That our front line football team should sack, fumble and tackle, sorry I am not good at football terminology but you get my point to KSC. Because I am coming back to fight.

I told her that she is violating the laws of the ADA, and that they let my clients in, finally she let them in.
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>

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