Hi, I won't go into any details that don't involve disabilities, but I wanted to give my thoughts on our Disney Magic Western Caribbean cruise started 3/13/10. My 8 year old daughter has Kearns Sayre Syndrome, a type of mitochondrial cytosis, and subsequently she has type-1 style diabetes, wears hearing aids, and uses a walker to walk (she can walk alone but only stiff-legged, and has very poor balance).
Re. the type 1 - other posts are accurate on this. There's no nutritional analysis for the foods served, but the food my daughter wants to eat is easy to count (fried and buttered noodles). The servers at dinner were always willing to accommodate a special request re. her food. We got room service for an afternoon snack (cheese and crackers) most every day. The only food issue we ever had was that the buffet turned into a sit-down, order from the menu sort of place, not much different than our dining room. When the snack food places were closed, it made quick food more difficult. Also, on Castaway Cay the lines for food were EXTREMELY slow and there was no place else to get food outside of the designated meal times. I'm sure that if we had needed food immediately, people would have been kind enough to allow us to cut in line had we explained. We did have one bad low and several rather high highs, but in general we didn't have any problems. I will say that I'm not hyper about her blood sugars, although we do check 4-5x/day and always before she eats or bedtime. Oh, also, it gets hot on the deck, so if you bring low blood sugar snacks don't bring melty ones. We use snack size Mounds and Paydays. And also the bar was happy to give us a bucket of ice to keep her pump in (I brought a towel and plastic bag) to keep her insulin from getting too hot while she swam.
We found all our fellow cruise mates to be kind and courteous. We saw very few ugly outbursts on the part of kids or parents. A very pleasant surprise. I feel confident that had we needed to ask for special treatment they would have been happy to make way for us.
Re. the mobility issues. Her walker is a bit wide, but we rarely ever found any problems getting through hallways or other areas. The only recurrent problem was getting into our state room. I had booked an inside stateroom, because we all sleep better and longer in the dark, and also b/c the inner rooms have the living area first in the door, then the bed in the back. But Disney kindly upgraded us to an outer stateroom, and since it had the split bathroom and closing porthole covers (for dark), I kept it. We could not get her walker into the living area w/o picking it up and over the bed, so we had to disassemble it each night. During daytime trips to the room we just left it in the hall (we were at the end of the hallway). Elevators were generally not a problem, she could turn the walker around inside the curved parts of the glass elevators or just back out of the others. There was one preteen CP child in a wheelchair, and one CP adult in a wheelchair, and one elderly person. I never saw them having any other problems.
The kids counselors were great, they just took everything in stride and treated Kate just like any other kid. When they had the kids' show, someone carried her onstage (the CP preteen was wheeled on) and stayed with her to help her with her balance. They did notice one day that she was falling more than usual and called us. No problem, just tired and the ship was rocking a lot that day.
Kids club counselors do not go in the bathrooms with the kids, so they are on their own for that. Kate wears a pullup as she sometimes has accidents (b/c her mobility slows her down) but actually she did great on the trip and only one wet day (somewhat miraculous, actually). But the counselors never said a word about it. The toilet seats are like airplane seats (every toilet), very thin and it leaves a large hole. The kids area has kiddy toilet seat covers. If this is an issue for you too, I suggest you bring one for your state room.
Kate is 8 but is in 1st grade and acts more like a 4-5 year old. She stayed in the Oceaneer Club area, although she went in the Lab once for the cooking group. The kids areas are no longer segregated by age, and kids can go to whichever one they want, generally. The counselors will move them to other areas *if* the kids request it. The teen club was reserved for 14+, but there were a couple of 13 year olds in it who were traveling with older friends.
The Mickey Pool was a nice depth - 1.5 feet. It was crowded on the sea days, but perfect on the port days. We didn't get off the boat with her, too much walking in the ports (just the docks are a lot).
The only real problem that we had was on Castaway Cay. We decided not to take her walker off the ship due to the sand, and instead my husband carried her off. At the end of the gangplank we asked the officer where we could get a wheelchair, and she directed us to the next gangplank. There, we asked someone else, and they pointed waaaaaaayyyyy across the island. We then asked another guy for help getting our daughter there, and he said "well we'd have to arrange for some sort of special transportation for you" and just wasn't very nice about it. So we started walking and it's a LONG way. We should have waited for the tram. Also, just as we got past the tram station, off goes a golf cart full of passengers who were a bit older (and overweight). Not to be snotty, but if they could have that, we could have been given a ride on that. So, the lesson here is to arrange any special transportation for Castaway Cay BEFORE you get off the boat. If you can go a bit of ways, the Tram is your best best, although I wouldn't try to get on it with a wheelchair. The sand wheelchairs, once we got to them, were great and Kate enjoyed using them. They are adult sized, and there were way more than enough, I think we only saw a couple in use. If the guy had just said to us "your best best is waiting right there for the tram, it will take you right to the area you need" that would have been perfect and we wouldn't have thought another thing about it. Unfortunately that really set a bad tone for our day - combined with the long food lines and the fact that we were just so tired by Friday, it wasn't our favorite day. Castaway Cay is BIG, by the way. The adult beach was a LONG way (you had to take the tram or spend all morning walking) from the kids' area, so we felt uncomfortable being so far away. The family beach was fairly crowded, but not awfully so.
That was an unusual experience, and 99.9% of all the CM we met were great to us. Peter Pan took a special interest in my daughter and sent her an autographed pic and invited her to a special meet-n-greet with the characters.
Hope this is helpful. We enjoyed our cruise very much, but I do admit that it was rather tiring for the adults!
Blessing, Lesley
Re. the type 1 - other posts are accurate on this. There's no nutritional analysis for the foods served, but the food my daughter wants to eat is easy to count (fried and buttered noodles). The servers at dinner were always willing to accommodate a special request re. her food. We got room service for an afternoon snack (cheese and crackers) most every day. The only food issue we ever had was that the buffet turned into a sit-down, order from the menu sort of place, not much different than our dining room. When the snack food places were closed, it made quick food more difficult. Also, on Castaway Cay the lines for food were EXTREMELY slow and there was no place else to get food outside of the designated meal times. I'm sure that if we had needed food immediately, people would have been kind enough to allow us to cut in line had we explained. We did have one bad low and several rather high highs, but in general we didn't have any problems. I will say that I'm not hyper about her blood sugars, although we do check 4-5x/day and always before she eats or bedtime. Oh, also, it gets hot on the deck, so if you bring low blood sugar snacks don't bring melty ones. We use snack size Mounds and Paydays. And also the bar was happy to give us a bucket of ice to keep her pump in (I brought a towel and plastic bag) to keep her insulin from getting too hot while she swam.
We found all our fellow cruise mates to be kind and courteous. We saw very few ugly outbursts on the part of kids or parents. A very pleasant surprise. I feel confident that had we needed to ask for special treatment they would have been happy to make way for us.
Re. the mobility issues. Her walker is a bit wide, but we rarely ever found any problems getting through hallways or other areas. The only recurrent problem was getting into our state room. I had booked an inside stateroom, because we all sleep better and longer in the dark, and also b/c the inner rooms have the living area first in the door, then the bed in the back. But Disney kindly upgraded us to an outer stateroom, and since it had the split bathroom and closing porthole covers (for dark), I kept it. We could not get her walker into the living area w/o picking it up and over the bed, so we had to disassemble it each night. During daytime trips to the room we just left it in the hall (we were at the end of the hallway). Elevators were generally not a problem, she could turn the walker around inside the curved parts of the glass elevators or just back out of the others. There was one preteen CP child in a wheelchair, and one CP adult in a wheelchair, and one elderly person. I never saw them having any other problems.
The kids counselors were great, they just took everything in stride and treated Kate just like any other kid. When they had the kids' show, someone carried her onstage (the CP preteen was wheeled on) and stayed with her to help her with her balance. They did notice one day that she was falling more than usual and called us. No problem, just tired and the ship was rocking a lot that day.
Kids club counselors do not go in the bathrooms with the kids, so they are on their own for that. Kate wears a pullup as she sometimes has accidents (b/c her mobility slows her down) but actually she did great on the trip and only one wet day (somewhat miraculous, actually). But the counselors never said a word about it. The toilet seats are like airplane seats (every toilet), very thin and it leaves a large hole. The kids area has kiddy toilet seat covers. If this is an issue for you too, I suggest you bring one for your state room.
Kate is 8 but is in 1st grade and acts more like a 4-5 year old. She stayed in the Oceaneer Club area, although she went in the Lab once for the cooking group. The kids areas are no longer segregated by age, and kids can go to whichever one they want, generally. The counselors will move them to other areas *if* the kids request it. The teen club was reserved for 14+, but there were a couple of 13 year olds in it who were traveling with older friends.
The Mickey Pool was a nice depth - 1.5 feet. It was crowded on the sea days, but perfect on the port days. We didn't get off the boat with her, too much walking in the ports (just the docks are a lot).
The only real problem that we had was on Castaway Cay. We decided not to take her walker off the ship due to the sand, and instead my husband carried her off. At the end of the gangplank we asked the officer where we could get a wheelchair, and she directed us to the next gangplank. There, we asked someone else, and they pointed waaaaaaayyyyy across the island. We then asked another guy for help getting our daughter there, and he said "well we'd have to arrange for some sort of special transportation for you" and just wasn't very nice about it. So we started walking and it's a LONG way. We should have waited for the tram. Also, just as we got past the tram station, off goes a golf cart full of passengers who were a bit older (and overweight). Not to be snotty, but if they could have that, we could have been given a ride on that. So, the lesson here is to arrange any special transportation for Castaway Cay BEFORE you get off the boat. If you can go a bit of ways, the Tram is your best best, although I wouldn't try to get on it with a wheelchair. The sand wheelchairs, once we got to them, were great and Kate enjoyed using them. They are adult sized, and there were way more than enough, I think we only saw a couple in use. If the guy had just said to us "your best best is waiting right there for the tram, it will take you right to the area you need" that would have been perfect and we wouldn't have thought another thing about it. Unfortunately that really set a bad tone for our day - combined with the long food lines and the fact that we were just so tired by Friday, it wasn't our favorite day. Castaway Cay is BIG, by the way. The adult beach was a LONG way (you had to take the tram or spend all morning walking) from the kids' area, so we felt uncomfortable being so far away. The family beach was fairly crowded, but not awfully so.
That was an unusual experience, and 99.9% of all the CM we met were great to us. Peter Pan took a special interest in my daughter and sent her an autographed pic and invited her to a special meet-n-greet with the characters.
Hope this is helpful. We enjoyed our cruise very much, but I do admit that it was rather tiring for the adults!
Blessing, Lesley
