I’m writing this on Deck 14 on the cruise ship Celebrity Beyond. Cruising isn’t new to me but it’s often a challenge because of my multiple sclerosis (MS) mobility problems. This trip hasn’t been any different.
I try to plan for all possibilities, of course. Accessible stateroom? Check. Confirm that onshore excursions can handle me with my scooter? Check. Prescription Scopolamine patches to wear behind my ear to prevent seasickness? Check. But planning isn’t perfect, and those patches tripped me up, almost literally.
My wife noticed it first. She said I wasn’t acting normally during our first day at sea…that I was “squirrely.” She said I seemed a little confused. I admitted I felt a little loopy and thought my legs were a bit weaker than normal. But I wrote it off to the stress of getting onboard the ship with all of our stuff, and the trouble I had sleeping the first night on a hard pillow. When a new pillow helped me sleep but didn’t help to make me any less loopy, she suggested maybe the patch was the problem. I’d used Scopolamine half a dozen times before without a problem, but now I took a careful look at the medication’s precautions.
There it was: “Tell your doctor if you have angle-closure glaucoma (a condition where the fluid is suddenly blocked and unable to flow out of the eye causing a quick, severe increase in eye pressure which may lead to a loss of vision). Your doctor will probably tell you not to use scopolamine patch.” A few months earlier my ophthalmologist told me I had a fluid blockage in my left eye and she prescribed Latanoprost eye drops. I don’t know whether my diagnosis was, in fact, angle-closure glaucoma, but it seemed like a good idea to ditch the patch. And it was. My “loopy” problems ended when I removed the patch from behind my ear.
Accessible cruising
Traveling with a disability like MS isn’t easy. But of the half-dozen cruise ships on which I’ve been a passenger, the Celebrity Beyond has been the most accessible. My accessible cabin has a door that swings open with the swipe of a card or, inside, the push of a button. The cabin is also larger than standard and has a roll-in shower with a pull-down seat and hand-held shower head. Of course, there are grab-bars. (Except for the automatic cabin door, these are standard features for accessible cabins on most other cruise lines, but there are very few of these cabins on most ships and they get booked quickly.)
All of the public doors on the Beyond automatically slide open as they’re approached or with a hand swipe. This is true even for the public lavatories, which is a significant help when riding my scooter. Thresholds in corridor doorways haven’t posed any obstacles.
There are 16 decks on this ship, some with levels within them. But everywhere there are stairs there’s also a ramp. In the large theater there’s a row on the entrance level reserved for folks with a handicap. Some of its seats can be removed to allow a wheelchair to slide in, but I generally park my little scooter behind the seat and transfer into it.
In the ports that are visited things can become more challenging, starting with where the ship docks. It’s sometimes a 10-minute walk from the ship to the location from which the tours depart. It’s not a problem for me and my scooter, but it can be difficult for someone using a walker or a cane. It looks like Celebrity is providing wheelchairs to some folks and, at some ports, ramp-equipped vans are available to reach the tour buses. Not all of the tour buses can handle scooters or wheelchairs, however, and it’s hard to know how accessible a tour might be in terms of steps that need to be climbed or walking distances. During my pre-cruise planning I discovered that Celebrity has a special needs department that can help with some of this information. Other cruise lines may have something similar. Just the same, the information these folks have may be limited, so it’s good to do as much research as possible.
A good place to get first-hand, passenger-provided information is the CruiseCritic.com website. It has a Disabled Cruiser section plus passenger forums for cruise lines, ships, locations and disabilities. It’s great for specific cruising questions. There are also e-letters, such as Wheelchair Travel and The World is Accessible, which can be found with an internet search.
The bottom line is, don’t let a disability such as MS keep you from enjoying the delights of cruising. The ships are becoming more and more accessible and with a little advance planning your sailing is likely to be smooth.
(Image by Deirdre Wolfe from Pixabay.)
(This post first appeared as my column on the Rare Disease Advisor website.)
