We’re going on a cruise for my 30th birthday in January, and I was checking out the shore excursions available. Here’s one of the options from Cartagena, Colombia:
Take a panoramic tour of Cartagena in a vehicle designed to accommodate up to five collapsible wheelchairs. Please note this tour can not be pre-reserved. Please inquire at the Shore Excursion Desk once onboard. Because the transportation only accommodates 5 collapsible wheelchairs, the tour is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Transportation does not have a lift and cannot accommodate scooters. Participants must be able to negotiate 2 to 3 steps up into the transportation.
Wait…what? This trip is for wheelchair users. I get that. But you have to walk up steps into the bus. I am baffled. Sure, there are some people who can do that, but what is the point of a so-called “accessible” tour if it’s not accessible? Maybe I am missing something.
by
14 Sep 2010 at 15:22
That sucks, but yeah a lot of places “love” to sell wheel chair accessible as one of the selling points but whats the point when only half the place is wheel chair accessible right?
by
14 Sep 2010 at 16:27
I don’t like it, but I get it. It is probably geared towards older people on a trip with family with the assumption that the wheelchair user can walk a little and negotiate steps, but needs a chair for touring around, for what in most tours would be walking all day. The other assumption in this tour is that the people with the wheelchair user would handle their chair — family or maybe staff of a nursing home. So it’s a bus with room to store a couple of folding x-frame chairs.
At least they provide the detailed information rather than just claiming to be “accessible”!
by Mike
15 Sep 2010 at 16:53
Disabilities span a broad spectrum, from folks who get winded when walking a hundred feet through quadriplegics who are literally unable to move anywhere under their own power.
I’m glad to see truth in advertising here, though a bit chagrined that you can’t pre-reserve it.