Cruise Eastern wheelchair shore excursions?

[thebarley7]

Has anybody done any Eastern excursions (St. Maarten/St. Thomas) with a wheelchair?

We did Nassau ok (we had a very patient tour guide), and Castaway Cay is ok too, but it is hard to research foreign places.

 

[Michigan]

In St. Thomas we used Accessible Adventures http://www.accessvi.com/ you need to book early. They can take 2 wheelchairs that can't fold and I think only one additional that does fold.

In St. Maarten I booked a half day tour with Joyce Prince and she was fantastic. She will show you the entire island and take you where ever you want to go. She has a mini van and both of my daughters rigid chairs fit in the back without taking anything apart. www.joyceprince.com

 

[Cheshire Figment]

I was on the Magic 10/27-11/3. I am able to do (some) stairs very slowly and walk without my ECV, but did have an ECV on the ship and made some use of it onshore.

The tour I was scheduled for in St Maarten was cancelled due to flooding.

My tour in St Thomas (Coral World and the semi-submarine) required climbing into a jitney-type taxi (on the way back I was seated with the driver in the cab). Also, the semi-submersible had about 12 steps to descend/ascend. I think if I was actually wheelchair dependent I could not have taken this tour.

We ended up going to Nassau since TS Noel had passed within 30 miles of Castaway Cay, and when we would have docked there they had 12 foot seas.

St Thomas I did run around the docks area shops, but it is a US territory and ADA applies. St Maarten was not too bad running around the docks area shops, but really there was not much nearby.

I do not think that DCL actually has any accessible excursions in either St Maarten or St Thomas.

But maybe Kathy will chime in here.,

 

[dclfun]

DCL no longer has ANY accessible excursions in St. Thomas and they never have had any in St. Maarten. I once went on a DCL excursion to Coral World/Scenic drive that had a lift van with another young woman who used a power chair and her boyfriend. The driver refused to strap down our chairs so we went around the mountain slamming into each other and terrified that one of us would hurt the other or break our chairs. We reported the driver and don't know if that had anything to do with DCL no longer using that vendor. Anyway, as was mentioned above, there are independent tour operators that do have lift vans. One will get you to Coral World and the mountain-top observatory ( which has a lift to the observation platform). Coral World itself is accessible to someone in a power chair. I've also heard great things about Joyce Prince. If you are uncomfortable booking tours on your own, you can insist that the shore ex dept. on the ship find something private for you. This was done for me in Acapulco via DCL. You can also insist that you not pay more than any other guest taking an excursion, otherwise the private tours and vehicles are costly. I've headed out in my chair on my own in St. Maarten. There's a paved "pathway" to town however once you're there, none of the shops are accessible. St. Thomas is much better, however not every store has a low threshold. Hope that helps.---Kathy