more cruise notes

Feb 17, tendered ashore! 4th cruise, 1st time I’ve tendered ashore. One time I didn’t want to, another time there weren’t any tender ports. One time the mini elevator to the tender ship level was busted so I couldn’t. So, with all those no-gos, I was sure I wouldn’t be allowed to go ashore today. And I realized last night, that I was kind of afraid to go too. But it was all good! 3 men carried me down 7 steps and hoisted me and my chair over onto the tender, and off on the other side. Ditto for the way back. They acted like they do this 100 times a day, and even the few minutes I spent waiting for my turn or later watching the tenders going in and out from a higher deck, I saw at least 3 other wheelchairs going ashore as I did.
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I’ve solved my problem with showers. Usually there’s a bit of time after you get back from a day on shore but before the ship pulls out. The ship is steady, and there’s not much to do anyway. So, if the seas are too rough for a real shower, I can at least plan for one next when we are in Ushuaia! Actually the seas haven’t been that rough since we crossed the Drake Passage, so I have had showers at other times too and I’m not feeling so scuzzy. The good news is that the fold down shower seat is pretty good. I still need Jim’s assist to transfer on and off. He steadies my wheelchair, and coming out lifts my knees, but I’d still call it independent bathing.
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Note to anyone interested in going to the southern hemisphere, wear sun screen! Even if it’s so cold you need a winter coat, so cloudy it looks like rain, if your face is exposed for a few hours, you’ll turn red. Jim learned this the hard way yesterday. I came in earlier than he did, so I was ok, but he walked around to the penguins, and was out about 3 hours.
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Had a frustrating talk with the Future Cruise Director. If you book ahead, you can put down a lower deposit, get about $100 a person on onboard credit, and also get a free upgrade in room class. Let’s say there are 3 levels of Concierge Class room, you book a lower one, get a higher one. But you can’t move up from the regular stateroom level to CC level, only within the same class. Except there’s only one accessible type room in each class. So, the upgrade is useless for me. I think they should have accessible rooms in each room type! Or at least acknowledge that this is unfair and give some kind of compensation. This is not a new story though, we have had the same struggle with our opera tickets. “Become a member! You can get seat upgrades!” But there’s no place better for us to go, and the seats we have are the worst in the section. To give the opera credit though, they do give us a price break and acknowledge that our seats aren’t much better than the section behind us, but there’s nothing they can do about the architecture of the building. I would have liked the Cruise Director here to have at least seen if there was something she could offer. So, we may put an open booking in, and at least get the onboard credit, but there’s no hurry. Or maybe we’ll try Princess Cruises next time!
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This cruise we didn’t get assigned to a table for 2 for dinner. We’re at a table with one other couple, and the man uses a wheelchair. The ship put us all at this table because there’s a bit more room around it, fair enough. I don’t think the restaurant has any agendas to put all gimps together, and there are certainly more than 2 wheelchairs on this boat – so far I’ve seen 5. Nor do they do the opposite and try to spread out nationalities or races or gimps, it’s a convenience issue. (Well, I have heard they put a group of 10 Germans together, so maybe they do have an agenda? ) No matter, I have no objection though, I have good friends who use wheelchairs! But this couple is interesting for reasons you wouldn’t expect. They are from California, both school teachers, one ex school teacher and one soon to retire teacher. And they are some of those people who have taken 30 cruises, including this itinerary already. They return to their favorites – Alaska, Hawaii – over and over.

This however, is their first one with him in a wheelchair, and he’s been a para a total of a week! Well, now 2 weeks I guess, since we’ve been on this ship for a week. He doesn’t call himself a para though, because he can still move his legs some, but he can’t stand or walk, so I’m calling him a para. I can’t believe they still came on this trip. I can’t understand why he isn’t in rehab. I can’t imagine he’s overall having a good time, but when I’ve seen him he seems happy enough. It’s all very weird. First of all, the docs don’t know why he can’t stand anymore, something about pinched nerves on his spine, I think they referred to spinal stenosis. But he was told that he could get use back just as suddenly as it left. He’s a big guy, probably about 300-325 pounds, my guess, and he uses a super wide chair. He didn’t have time to get a sturdy one made for full time use like mine, it’s more like an airport or ship chair, though it is his own. They didn’t have an accessible cabin reserved, and since none was available, they are in a regular cabin. Of course the chair can’t go through the door, so the ship gave them a desk type chair on wheels that sits in the cabin, and somehow they get him off the wheelchair and onto the desk chair so he can go around his room. His wife has to push him around inside, and I suspect she’s pushing him everywhere outside in the wheelchair too. I doubt he’s independent at all. He can’t get into the bathroom, so hasn’t had a shower, and they’ve had to be creative about other bathroom tasks.
They said how much they admire me for travelling with the wheelchair, but I can’t imagine I’m having half their problems. Some part of me wonders what in the world they were thinking? Did they have no clue how hard it would be? The woman talks of how she used to travel with a cousin who was paralyzed from polio, so she thought she had some idea. But this has got to be harder. They talked about how hard it is to get him dressed, so they aren’t doing formal nights. I think getting him to the regular dining room is his one outing of the day. The rest of the time he mostly stays in the room. Though they did say that even before they spent a lot of time in the room, which is also something I don’t really understand. Going around Elephant Island, the best viewing was on the starboard side, or like us from the back cabins, and their cabin was on the port side – did he see anything? Apparently they went up to the deck 10 for viewing yesterday at Elephant Island. I hope they did today for Paradise Bay also. We found this out at dinner yesterday.

They had neglected to buy trip insurance, and since the disability came on so suddenly, and last minute, they decided to come anyway. Otherwise they’d lose a lot of money. But I’d like to know - what has their medical care been like? Did no one suggest he get some OT at least? It sounds like when they get back they’ll start some serious PT and OT, but they thought it could wait. If I’d been his doctor I’d have seriously encouraged them to not take a trip now, but it’s possible he/she didn’t even know he was traveling. Still, if I’d been in their place – I’d have cancelled my trip, with or without trip insurance. I think they’ve learned something though. They were to go to a wedding in Texas in a couple of weeks, and they’ve just emailed their daughter to cancel those travel plans. He’s not ready for travel yet, got some work to do first. It’s not easy to travel with a disabilty, it takes planning, and it’s even harder when you don’t have the infrastructure set up to your advantage.
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It happened again. Our waiter in the high end restaurant on the ship last night asked me if I had been on the Summit (another Celebrity ship) a couple of years ago. He remembered being my waiter then. Didn’t remember Jim, just me. That was about 3 years ago. He’s worked Celebrity for 11 years – how many faces has he seen in all that time? It must be my charm!