[Travelandtourism] Cruise Questions

[stacy.cervenka at att.blackberry.net]

Hello,

My fiance and I will be taking our first cruise in December. Both of
us are blind and we are interested in hearing the experiences of other blind cruise travelers, particularly those who have cruised without a sighted spouse, friend, or family member.

We booked an 11-night cruise on the Celebrity Equinox in an Aqua Class
balcony stateroom. The cruise goes to Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica,
Panama, Colombia, and Grand Cayman. Has anyone on this list had any
experience with this cruise line, this ship, or these particular
destinations? We'd love to hear any good, bad, and ugly stories about
anything you've encountered and also any tips you might have.

We’re not sure whether we should let the cruise line know in advance
that we’re blind. On the one hand, because we’ve never been on a large
cruise ship before, we think it would be helpful to get a tour of the
cruise ship before the ship departs. We understand that Celebrity offers this service to blind
passengers. On the other hand, because we’re in Aqua Class, we already
get priority embarkation anyway, so we'll have plenty of time to explore the ship ourselves. Also, it's not like we get any kind
of special tour when we stay at large hotels on land and finding our
way around them has never been a real problem. Do many of you find it
helpful to have someone orient you to the ship beforehand or is it not
that complicated?

My other big concern is, how will Greg and I find our shore excursion
groups? Are they pretty easy to locate once you get off the ship? In a
way, I have no problem letting them know we’re blind, since this is
our first cruise and we might not mind a little assistance. On the
other hand, I’ve heard one blind cruiser say that when the ship on her first cruise (run
by Carnival) learned she was blind, they cancelled many of her shore
excursions, claiming the tour providers weren’t equipped to deal with
blind people. Since then, she has taken many cruises and never lets them know about her blindness in advance. She has never encountered another problem. Greg and I both have excellent travel skills and don't
feel we'll need much extra assistance. We just don't want them to
freak out and cancel our shore excursions or take other unneeded
precautions.

Any advice you all might have for us would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!
Stacy

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