Einstein on the Beach

August, 2007
by Dean Kramer

Once each summer, for several years now, my family, including my mother, sister, brother-in-law, Twink and I, have gone on a Caribbean cruise together. Each occasion has provided wonderful memories.

Ah, cripples and cruise ships—they’re made for each other!  Seriously, the cruise lines seem to go out of their way to make sailing smooth for those of us with disabilities. In addition to accessible staterooms, all necessary thresholds are ramped, public bathrooms have automatic doors, and the staff, invariably helpful to begin with, are incredibly kind and sensitive to people on wheels.

The only problem I have found is that most of the excursions are focused on able-bodied physical activity. There are Jet Ski tours, hikes through the rainforest, and parasailing for example. Parasailing sounds like it has something to do with disability and, were the cables improperly maintained, I suppose it could. In the best of times, however, it does not.

There are also tours utilizing vehicles inaccessible to powered or manual equipment users. These tours usually include walks, often in locations difficult for people with mobility issues.

This is not entirely the fault of the cruise lines. Most of the excursions are privately owned/operated. They naturally cater to the needs of the majority.

In addition, the ports of call themselves are in mountainous, quaintly colonial, relatively undeveloped nations. Though tourists’ dollars are a major source of income for these places, geography and architecture impose limits, and the satisfaction of disabled cruisers has not been a priority for them.

Up until this past cruise I had been content to stay aboard while my family went on tours or to the beaches for the day. The Caribbean is hot. It’s especially hot in the summer when trip prices are lower and teachers such as Twink and my sister have time off to travel. By staying on the ship I have quick access to an air-conditioned stateroom.

This past July we took our annual cruise. I made some changes in my own approach, which allowed me to enjoy more of what cruising offers. In addition, I found that things are getting even better for disabled cruisers.

We sailed with Royal Caribbean. On this cruise they offered something I had never seen before—a tour that was set up specifically for disabled people. It was called “An Accessible Tour of ST Thomas” and was run by a company called Accessible Adventures. My mom is 80 and for the first time in her life uses a cane or a rollator. We signed right up.

For 3 hours we were driven around the island in a van with a lift. The guide was knowledgeable and entertaining. There were stops in accessible locations for picture taking and shopping. I was able to do the entire trip in my manual chair, as were several other passengers in theirs. All of us were delighted.

In some ports the ship pulls right up to the wharf, but in others it anchors offshore and passengers are tendered to the port in smaller craft. Disabled passengers are often excluded from disembarking at tendered ports because of the difficulty transferring their mobility equipment from the ship onto a small, narrow and wobbly tender platform and thence to the smaller craft.

Our final port of call on July’s cruise was a beach resort owned by the cruise line. It had been developed on the island of Haiti. It was a tendered port. In their daily newsletter, Royal Caribbean made it very clear that disabled people were welcome to disembark and spend the day on the beach with everyone else.

They backed their invitation up with wide, stable tender platforms, fully automated so that crewmembers didn’t have to lift scooters or power wheelchairs. The tenders themselves were large double-decked tour boats that easily accommodated mobility equipment. The dock at the beach was also fully automated and led to a wide cement walkway down which I rolled. The walkway ended at a classic white sugar sand beach.

I have been to, and written of, another cruise line’s private beach (Es Vet Helfen, March 2005). There was a single beach wheelchair available there. It was poorly maintained, rusty and was missing the footrest. Twink and, when she became exhausted, my brother-in-law had to push it, seemingly for miles. When I was ready to return to the ship I pushed it, seemingly for miles, using it as a walker to spare the others, who wanted to stay out longer, having to push me back.

Royal Caribbean’s beach area was a huge compound of many acres including 5 different beaches, but there was a well-maintained fleet of beach wheelchairs. When I arrived at the sand my manual wheelchair was whisked away to await my return. I was transferred to a beach wheelchair and then was pushed by a beach wheelchair porter to a location of my family’s choosing where lounge chairs were set up for us.

How, you might wonder, does a person with MS manage to sit on a beach in the Caribbean in the summer?

The major change I made on this year’s cruise was to have on hand a cooling vest. It may seem a no-brainer to take a cooling vest to the Caribbean in the summer, especially if you've owned the vest for years. Unfortunately, due to MS cognitive difficulties, I have no brain. Until this trip I never remembered to pack it.  I also remembered to pack a folding cane for those times when my manual wheelchair might be of no use.

My vest is a close-fitting one. Soaked in cold water, it is said to keep one’s personal space 10 degrees cooler than the ambient temperature for up to 3 hours. I soaked it before leaving for the beach and put it and my folding cane in my beach bag.

In short order I was parked on a chaise in the shade of an accommodating a palm. In my cooling vest and bathing attire I lay gazing at the Caribbean and holding a frosty mug of some tropical, fruity, frozen concoction in my hand, barely able to believe my good fortune.

There was a tram that took you to various points of interest within the beach compound. There were 2 “flea markets”; one staffed by cruise line employees where you couldn’t bargain, and one staffed by local crafts people where bargaining was imperative. There were numerous bars, some historic ruins, and sports equipment shacks and staging areas (snorkeling, Jet-Skiing, parasailing, etc.). Most importantly, there were bathrooms. DIsabled people could also be transported via beach wheelchairs.

At one point, for a few hours, there was music and a free barbecued lunch. (We missed out on the lunch because, being too content, we lost track of the time.)

With my cane and my family’s help, I made the short walk from our chaise encampment to the swimming area. I spent over an hour in the water blissfully floating on a foam mat I’d rented from one of the shacks.

I refreshed my vest with cold water in the bathroom sink enabling me to stay at the beach as long as I wished without feeling tired, overheated, vulnerable, or trapped. What I felt most was normal.

Our ship held over 1,800 passengers and crew. Almost all of them were on the beaches that day. I have found that the help I may need making my way in the world is more readily available when potential helpers are relaxed, unstressed, and have time to give me their attention. Therefore, to assure myself of that help and to avoid getting caught in a last minute rush to the ship, I, along with other disabled beach-goers, returned before the rest of the passengers (including my family).

Thanks to the courtesy and understanding of both the Haitians and the ship's staff, even without my family's presence I had no trouble negotiating my way with a beach wheelchair porter, retrieving my manual chair, and, because Haiti is a foreign country, getting through customs.

How meaningful was it that the cruise line made such an effort on behalf of disabled passengers? Let me end with an encounter I had while returning from the beach that day.

While rolling down the hall to my stateroom I came upon a woman with a rollator entering her own room. “Did you have a good time?” she asked me.

“It was amazingly wonderful!” I replied grinning from ear to ear.

She smiled broadly. “It was the best day,” she said, “Until today I hadn’t been swimming at the beach in over 16 years.”

I guess that says it.