Service Dogs and DCL

[emtmom0104]

HELP!!! We are considering taking a cruise next month and my son has a service dog. We wouldn't be attempting to get off at any ports with the exception of Castaway Cay...how does that work there? Are they allowed off there? I don't want to plan a vacation just to spend it on the ship...Castaway is our favorite island!

 

[emtmom0104]

Oh and the kids clubs...can a kid have their dog in there? How does that work?

 

[lanejudy]

Wow, next month? Yes, service dogs are allowed onboard. However there is a lot of paperwork required, and it doesn't matter if the dog gets off in port or not he must meet standards for each port of call. Later this evening I can look for a thread or two that I had bookmarked about cruising with a service dog. But in all honesty, from what i've read, one month might be too tight a timeline. I suggest you contact DCL ASAP to get the process started.
Enjoy your cruise!

 

[cmwade77]

Here is the page about guests with disabilities:
http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/ships-activities/ships/services/guests-with-disabilities/

They have a form to send in on that page, which needs to be sent at least 30 days in advance. You might be able to get them to let you send it in with less time if you call, but as the PP has said, I would call ASAP, preferably today, if they are still open or first thing in the morning.

 

[lanejudy]

OK, here are some posts that might be helpful, I'll keep looking as I believe there is another thread with some fairly detailed information about the process to take a service dog on a cruise:

Hey everyone. We recently sailed our third Disney Cruise on the Dream, August 17, 4 night to Bahamas. We are a military family and were able to take advantage of the great military rates offered. We had booked 2 connecting verandah rooms on Deck 9. I wanted to post about our experience because a lot of the questions I had weren’t answered here.

There is a forum on cruising with a service dog on cruise critic that has tons of information, but only one poster with DCL experience and he doesn’t have a child in the kids programs. I figured my experiences would be helpful to other cruisers with special needs children, service dogs, or both!!

We did not have a handicap accessible room (but wish we had been able to get one – more on that later).

We are a family of 5. DH and I and three children Luke (12), Annemarie (8) and Jake (4). Jake has a seizure disorder, autism spectrum diagnosis, developmental delay/cognitive disability, and mobility issues. This was our first time sailing with Jake’s Service Dog, Blink. We sailed when Jake was about 10 months before he started having seizures on DCL. We sailed last year on Carnival and brought along a nanny to help us with Jake. So this was a first for us with Jake’s current diagnosis and no additional adult help!

Jake can walk, but can’t do stairs and has poor strength, coordination and endurance so we have a Swifty Push Chair that we use with him. For those not familiar, it looks like a giant stroller, but it has more orthopedic support and is designed for elementary aged children. It comes through a medical supply company with a prescription.

We were late seating. We have sailed twice before, each time when our older children were 4. We had main seating but found that the shows were so late that our kids fell asleep. Because it is summer vacation and our older kids are used to eating a little later, Jake has a feeding tube and doesn’t eat much anyway, and we really wanted to enjoy the shows we opted for the late seating. It worked great for the older kids – really liked the dine-and-play. Jake had problems, but we later realized it was related to the lights. Once we put his sunshade on his chair, he slept during dinner allowing us to enjoy it. I liked late seating and would do it again next time!! We required our kids to go with us to the shows or another family activity, stay until 9:15 and then we didn’t see them again until later.

We didn’t have any food allergies or issues to deal with. We bring food for Jake everywhere we go anyway since there is very little he will eat and we have one medication we can’t give through the feeding tube and have to give with food. Can’t provide any help to anyone regarding food sensitivities/intolerance/allergies or special diets!!

Some General Comments:

Expect some funny moments with the dog and the characters. Blink was not at all sure about Mickey and Minnie, but after a couple of days had them down pat. She barked at Goofy every time – mostly because the two time she saw him he came up from behind and it startled her. In the theater during the Golden Mickeys, there are monkey characters that come up in the aisles. We were in the back row in the lower section. Of course the “monkey” had no idea a dog was there and Blink was mostly asleep under a chair until the monkey came up behind “her boy”. She jumped up and probably scared the heck out of the “monkey”! She was pretty nervous too.

Even a small pushchair won’t fit through the cabin doors and the doors are HEAVY. It was a challenge to get Jake in, collapse the push chair and carry it in. And our Swifty chair is one of the lightest and most collapsible out there (although it still weighs about 30 pounds and has steel frame). If you have a heavier chair, you will need a handicap accessible room. We won’t sail again without a handicap accessible room.

They use strobe lights during the muster drill. Don’t remember noticing this before, but with a child with a seizure disorder, we definitely noticed as I was afraid it would trigger a seizure. Wait in your room until after the sirens have completed and the lights go off. Disney did not offer any alternative to the muster drill (Carnival let us sit in a quiet area away from the general chaos and had someone give our information to the muster person and made sure we know where to go). Jake was hysterical during the drill after the loud noises and strobe lights. DH walked out with him because no one around us could hear and he was kicking and thrashing so much and the area was so tight he was really disrupting everyone. A few minutes later a CM came and got the rest of the family and told us we were excused and helped us get an elevator ahead of the crush.

I am going to break this down a little and post topics to make it easier for someone doing a search to find the info! Please feel free to ask questions.

We had been in email and phone contact with Disney Special Services about our paperwork numerous times. I had even received both phone and email confirmation that Disney had all of our paperwork. I brought copies of everything for myself, but didn’t bring 2 copies. When we checked in, we were flagged because of the dog and a supervisor said we would need to be escorted on ship to turn in our paperwork. Not sure what happens to all of the paperwork you send in, because you need to give it to them again when you get to guest services. While we were given a boarding number, we were told we would need to wait and the supervisor would escort us on the ship and to guest services.

The supervisor did come and get us and it turned out to be great because she bypassed the line, taking us through the concierge entrance. She then took us to the front of the line, waited while we got our family photo, then right on the ship. And straight to guest services where she waited with us until she had verified we turned in our paperwork. I think if we hadn’t had a copy she would have politely escorted us right back off the ship!!!

I had only brought one copy for us as we had already sent everything in to Disney so was a little frustrated when they required me to hand in our only copy. We did get it back after Castaway Cay, but lesson learned, bring multiple copies of your paperwork!! Who knows what they do with the paperwork you send them.

 

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

also something to keep in mind Castaway Cay is still in the Bahamas Disney owns/ leases it but it is still under the jurisdiction of the Government of the bahamas

 

[lanejudy]

Here is another thread. In particular post #39 gives some idea of what you'll need to do to bring the service dog. Depending on your itinerary, there are shots and tests required by some countries as well as some sort of permit. This is regardless of whether the dog will leave the ship at those ports. As PP mentions, Castaway Cay is in the Bahamas and will have Bahamian requirements even though it's DCL's private island.

http://www.disboards.com/threads/dogs-onboard.3246485/

Good luck with all the paperwork and enjoy your cruise!

 

[SueM in MN]

Another very basic thing - the dog will need to be able to potty in what amounts to a small plastic wading pool. There may be sod in it, bark chips or some other kind of absorbent material like pellets or more like cat litter.
If you have a veranda, it will probably be placed there. Otherwise, they will designate a spot somewhere else for it.
This is an old post, but has a lot of potty information.

Here I am! We just returned from a week's DVC vacation at AKLodge concierge- more on that later. As for DCL, yes, I have sailed many times with Skye. While I can certainly chime in here, please note that these are my experiences and I really can't speak for the company however call in with any questions and you'll find someone there to help you. If you have a verandah the kiddy pool/sod is placed there, however if you have a different type stateroom or would prefer, it has been placed for us and other guests aft on Deck 7 on the large open verandah there. This is the ONLY area that it can be placed alternatively (unless something has changed and another space allocated) as guests are not allowed in crew-only areas. I was told that crew members could walk my SD for me if the relief station was "backstage", but I'm not comfortable with that and Skye really prefers not to leave my side- I need her with me too. DCL's special services coordinator, Carol, will be able to provide information on necessary permits and health requirements for the ports you'll be visiting and you can also discuss alternatives to sod, although I can't be certain that they'd provide an alternate substrate. I know I was told before by Princess that it's one material only (for them it's bags of absorbent pellets that stay inside a bag) and my SD would have to adapt. Sod is easy to replace and will be replaced on a longer cruise however mulch might be more difficult to handle in a sanitary fashion for the crew, and really it is up to us to train our SD's to relieve themselves on different surfaces. We went on the Panama canal cruise westbound the last time the Magic visited there and had no problems, however I could not get off at Cabo since I'm unable to transfer from a power chair and that port requires tendering. We didn't visit Aruba or Cartagena so I'm not sure about those ports and requirements. As your friend probably is aware, an SD must remain on leash or harness at all times when out of the stateroom. There is plenty of space in the dining rooms and in public areas such as theaters, etc. for a dog to be accommodated. I've been on cruises before with other SD's and never have been aware of someone having a challenge. I will say for your circumstances a Cat 4 with 5 guests and a dog will be a bit crowded- you also would want to call and be certain that a 5th guest can be added as this is a popular/full cruise. Even though your stateroom certainly accommodates a party of 5, their are general occupancy limitations ( based on space in the dining room, for instance) that sometimes precludes us from being able to add another guest to the voyage. I hope it all works out- it's an amazing itinerary and a fantastic ship.---Kathy

 

[lanejudy]

This thread has pictures of the "potty" area SueM describes: http://www.disboards.com/threads/service-animals.3047055/

Now that search is back up, there are actually several threads on the DCL forum about service dogs. I will forewarn, though, that many turn into discussions about "pets" being passed off as "service dogs" -- which I suppose could happen but would require quite a bit of effort do so on a cruise (as noted in the posts above). But basically, you've got your work cut out for you if you wish to bring your son's service dog on a cruise next month -- so I don't recommend spending time searching through threads but contact DCL right away.

Enjoy your cruise!

 

[lanejudy]

Here's one more -- someone who got the process completed in about a month -- there are a couple of service dog owners on this post, if you have trouble getting the process started you might want try contacting one of them. I believe at least one is a regular cruiser.

http://www.disboards.com/threads/help-service-dog-procedures-advice-needed-asap.3214573/

Good luck!

 

[videogal1]

I read the referenced posts with interest and heartily congratulate the family who seemed to accomplish their goal within their deadline. Working with DCL to achieve this was an extraordinary feat..I wonder, however, how DCL managed to help the family get the dog to the vet for the required set of vaccinations at the proper timing of a certain number of weeks apart, get the forms signed by the vet and whatever other civil agency is required (because the itinerary is not specified, there's no way to guess how many agencies of different countries would be involved for you...Cash and I went on several cruises, including the first repositioning cruise, and, at least for that one, the vaccination schedule was a nightmare!), mail the paperwork back to the countries for approval and wait for the approved permit to be mailed back so you can present it to the desk upon boarding the ship...Not to mention the time it takes to acquire the permit application in the first place... Not to rain on anyone's parade or anything...but good luck with that. One thing I did learn in all of our Caribbean and Mexico hopping is that dogs running loose is normal there and good doggie manners are not. If you do manage to get off the ship during this or any other cruise you take be very careful to avoid the native canines..they could be trouble.

Oh yes, the kids clubs...I cannot think of how DCL could amend the right of someone who is disabled, as defined by the ADA, from enjoying the use of their canine medical equipment in any way or anywhere, unless the handler is not able to manage the canine medical equipment by themselves in a way that prevents it from becoming a nuisance somehow. Then it can be asked to leave.

 

[lanejudy]

videogal1, thank you for sharing your experience with the procedures required to take a service dog on a cruise! I was under the impression it was a lengthy process and surprised to find the post that someone did it in about one month. It might depend on the length of cruise (# of ports) -- the current 3- and 4-night itineraries really only involve one other country (Bahamas for both Nassau and Castaway Cay) so that presumably could be easier than a 7-night or longer itinerary with 4+ different ports/countries.

I haven't read any direct reports of whether a service dog was allowed into secured programming at any of the kids' spaces onboard. I can see both sides of the issue -- the dog should be considered "medical equipment" such as a wheelchair or braces might be allowed; but if the child him/herself cannot completely manage the medical equipment without assistance, DCL will ask them to participate only during Open House times when someone may accompany the child to assist. It would be nice to get some first-hand reports on this.

Again, thanks for your input about the process.