Margaret's perspective on cruising

On Saturday morning, Sea Princess arrived in Rotterdam, the third biggest port in the world after a Friday sail away from Zeebrugge, where we visted Brugge (Bruges).  

As you know, we arranged many excursions ourselves, but where there was a Princess Tours wheelchair accessible tour available in a port, we opted for that.  However, as we discovered in Civitavecchia (the port for Rome), we should not have been so confident.  Whilst catering very well for seniors who use manual wheelchairs or lightweight scooters and can climb stairs (there are many such people), it has no idea how to cater for people who can’t transfer to a “normal” seat. This is despite our tickets being described as “wheelchair-confined”.  Princess Tours had to learn the hard way (me stressing out big time/ John clinically and logically but very precisely stating his case), backed up by our new friends Mal and Lesley from Melbourne.

We had also booked Princess sponsored “wheelchair-confined” tours in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki and Tallin, so our confidence was at a low ebb after Rome.  However, we now have the ship’s full attention, and the Amsterdam coach trip was an example of great service and we told them so this morning.  They secured a coach with a side platform lift (like we had for our Computer Club tour to Hunter Valley), proper tie downs and seat belt.  Hopefully they will do the same where they can for our other ports of call.  Tomorrow’s tour of Copenhagen will be in a van like in Rome, we have been told.  We are getting “special” attention from Princess, but we’d rather that it was routine so that future travellers can benefit – all rather exhausting for everyone.

We emphasised this morning that we write a travel blog and that quite a few of our friends are looking to us for advice.  Lots of our friends with disabilities who have worked full time and/or successfully run businesses have disposable income and will be checking out cruising.  Sea Princess on-board wheelchair access is very good, and the crew are marvellous opening those difficult deck doors, reserving easy access tables for wheelchair users and helping any way they can.  We prefer eating in the bistro areas rather than in the dining room, simply because it’s more relaxed, but if you enjoy fine dining every night, you just need to make sure your allocated seating is easily accessible. On the first night, we had to ask to be reallocated (because the route to the table was not thought through by Princess) but this was very quickly arranged.

John has been far healthier on this cruise than he was two years ago on our trip through the Panama to the UK – no infections at all.  I’ve had a couple of days of back aches and being out of sorts (including being a painful travel companion) but nothing to worry about.  Our fuses are short but fizz very quickly.

As a partner, I think it’s a great way to travel – the best relaxation possible.  Unpack once, get into a routine with the changed personal care procedures (always different from home), meet and chat to interesting people, ocean gaze and read, read, read is my idea of a great time.  The library on this ship is nothing like as good as on the Cunard line, but mostly we read e-books anyway.  I also introduced a “family history” group on the ship, and we’ve had three meetings so far and made a few friends that way.  We would like to meet more often, but these “common interest groups” are scheduled by the ship’s entertainment team, and there is plenty of competition from other hobbyists – cricket fans, motor home travellers, residents of various Australian states, Kiwis, Maltese speakers.  And of course, shipboard life is full of activities anyway.

We’ve met many interesting crew members – many of the wait staff are university or college graduates from non-EU countries in Eastern Europe like Serbia/ Moldova with qualifications in economics, linguistics, accounting who cannot get into their professions in their own countries and who cannot get visas in Western Europe including the UK to work and save money.  Is this now the future for young British people outside the European Union?  I fear so, and so do they.  It was mostly their parents and grandparents who voted to leave.

The cabin stewards are Asian; our steward Rene is Filipino with three school aged boys he is sending to an English language fee paying school and a baby daughter.  He’s been on the ships for twenty years and his wife has to manage without him for about 10 months a year and relies on his wages and passenger tips.

I’ll leave Amsterdam till the next post. Keep the Facebook comments and the blog comments coming, we so much enjoy hearing from you.  Neither of us are homesick though.

Suez Canal in transit

Marg & John entering the Suez Canal

It was our first Suez transit as Margaret travelled to the UK in the early 70s when the Suez Canal was still closed.

As many of you would know, they are expanding the canal by adding another channel. It is part complete and sped up our journey by some 2 hours. We were the second ship in a convoy of 23 ships.

We found it interesting but not nearly as interesting as the Panama Canal with its locks, mules, and massive engineering works.

One interesting aspect was the security – we had our passports collected before Dubai and not returned until our approach to Italy – presumably to discourage us from jumping ship and joining ISIS.

An armed  guard - a lonely job

And all along the Canal are watch towers with armed guards constantly on watch.

A guard post

The memorial to those who built the Canal is impressive.

Monument to workers

And we are not sure what this memorial is all about.

An interesting point is that apparently the Ancient Egyptians also had built a canal for trade with the Eastern African coast and with what we now know as the Middle East.

Friendship bridge

The “Friendship Bridge” was built by the Japanese and opened quite recently.

How other people live - along the Canal.

It was a hot day and John managed to get a sunburnt face even though he was under cover – reflection from the sand, no doubt.

Salerno, Naples and Pompeii

I had to add the photos of these places to a Facebook Album because I'm having technical difficulties with Blogger - it won't insert photos right now, so apologies readers.

The ship offered no suitable tours from Italy’s Salerno, our first port of call in the Mediterranean. So John researched the port and neighbouring Naples and Pompeii to find a wheelchair accessible tour and made a booking before we left home.  He found a company which could provide a wheelchair accessible Opel van with a ramp, and a driver as well as a guide. The tour company is called Tour Guides Naples, so just Google it, we thoroughly recommend it.

So right on time, Massimo the accredited guide and historian found us at the terminal and directed Antonio the driver to take us directly to Naples where we climbed to a wealthy suburb called Posillipo with views to Capri and to Mt Vesuvius.

From there we returned to Naples with brief photo stops along the way, including the three castles within the city – the Castle of Saint Elmo, the New Castle and the Castle of the Ovo (Egg) which is at sea level; then a longer stop at the Plebiscite Square and the Umberto Galleries.  As well as huge domed skylights, the Galleries had many restaurants, bakeries and beautiful tiled art.

The pizza Marguerita for which Naples is famous was named after a visiting royal.

Early afternoon we left Naples for the drive to Pompeii, the site of a great tragedy when Mt Vesuvius erupted in AD 79 and destroyed the whole area, killing most inhabitants. Pompeii had been founded by the Osci or original italic peoples in the 8^th century BC, then conquered by the Greeks, Samnites and Romans in turn, but after this major eruption, Pompeii lay dormant for nearly 2000 years.  Although it was a Roman colony, there are also many traces of the Samnite traditions.  Earlier eruptions had not defeated the citizens, but the eruption of 79 AD certainly did.

By the time the volcanic matter, ash and poisonous gases had stopped raining down, all life had been extinguished in Pompeii and a large area around it. There was no chance of escape. Everything was covered with about six metres of ash which solidified after the first rains.  This is how the people and animal life ended up being discovered as skeletons with a hollow body shaped space around each.  The site was left alone because people feared it and apart from some looting, excavations did not occur until the 19^th century.  An archaeologist Giuseppe Forelli was the first to pour plaster of Paris into the spaces and thus preserve the bodies.

After lunch at a small cafe, we entered the Pompeii site at a secondary gate which led directly to a section of the site which is now fully wheelchair accessible.  Entrance was free for wheelchair users and their carers (or hanger-on partners like me).  We walked along a path between the Grand Palestra where the gladiators trained and the Amphitheatre (built in 80 BC, the oldest known) where the great fights occurred.  Everyone, free or slave could visit the amphitheatre to watch events.

Close by, we visited the Villa of Julia Felix which included many restored rooms, orchards, a bathhouse and gardens, as well as a cobbled street of houses and shops, some of them restored.  

At the entrance gates there is a display of the plaster casts of the poor inhabitants – the photos show us better than words can describe their dreadful fate.

Many of the other villages around Pompeii had been rebuilt and the land is very fertile, with a rich agricultural industry.

Then it was back to the Sea Princess at Salerno, via the motorway which included many tunnels though the mountainous terrain. Massimo was an excellent guide and very knowledgeable about his city, Napoli where he was born and went to university.  We’d certainly recommend this company.

Of course we were extremely close to the Amalfi coast and would have loved to drive along it, as well as visit the isle of Capri, but with just a few hours on shore, that would have been impossible.

Muscat, Oman without John

This post is out of order.  It should appear directly after the post about Dubai, but we are playing catch up with our posts at the moment.  We can only do so after "sea days" and sometimes we take a day to recover from touring the day before, so please forgive us.  I also can't add any photos to this post yet.  I think the internet is too slow.

John doesn’t have a lot to say about Muscat, not having been able to leave the ship.

Why, I hear you ask?

Well basically because the Port Authority of Mina Qaboos, where the ship was docked, does not officially allow pedestrian traffic on the dock. All access and egress from the ship to the terminal and from the terminal to the dock entry gate must be by shuttle bus. And you guessed it, the shuttle buses have no wheelchair access.

And there were also no tours offered by Princess Cruises on accessible buses, and no private ones we could find.

Accessible taxis appear to be unknown.

A fellow passenger, who has paraplegia, managed to find a local shuttle bus driver whose car was parked on the dock, to use his own car to give our friend and his wife a lift to the dock gate, from where they caught a taxi to Muscat. On the return journey he wheeled from the town, asked security at the gate, and was allowed to wheel back to the ship. So it can be done.  Mind you, he was nearly wrecked from the heat.

In addition, he saw several members of the Sea Princess crew also walking back from the gate to the ship.

John is not happy.

It’s a pretty port and here are some photos John took from the ship. 

But Margaret caught a shuttle bus into Muscat twice – the first time she had forgotten to take her camera.  The trip was divided in two:  the bus dropped us 150 metres away at the terminal where we went through customs and immigration – then picked us up on the opposite side of the terminal.  It was basically a huge barn with very slippery marble floors, steps and a ramp. Not good for the many mobility impaired passengers on our cruise.

It was a very hot day – 38C and humid.  The bus delivered us to the town within 10 minutes, right to the Suq or market.  Most shops sold material – in bulk or made up into scarves and clothing.  There were the usual souvenirs and overall very colourful. Some of the lanes to the sides were extremely narrow, and as well as materials, there were many selling kitchen goods for locals. The food markets must have been elsewhere.  Margaret changed $20 USD into the local currency – dials and baisa,  three dials to the dollar - and bought two scarves, some postcards, a fridge magnet and two cool drinks.  She then went back to the ship to collect her camera and hop on another shuttle bus back to the Suq (not Souk) as the locals name it.

Unlike Dubai, there were no passengers off aeroplanes, many young and inconsiderate of local etiquette about covering up.  Sea Princess passengers seemed to be the only tourists in town, and the women – generally of a certain age - conformed to the custom of not showing elbows, shoulders and legs.

But it was extremely hot and many passengers were glad to get back to the ship.  It was the first day of Ramadam, but since there were so few food shops and restaurants in the area, it wasn’t noticeable.

Rome and Civitavecchia

Citivavecchia

Civitavecchia is the port for a visit to Rome, and it is the hardest name place to get one’s tongue around, I reckon I got it eventually but John found it harder.  It mean’s old city.  (So far, John has drafted all the blog posts, but this time it’s Margaret’s turn).

Mal and Les Noble from Melbourne

The day started off very badly since we’d taken Princess Tours at their word and booked an “Easy Tour of Rome” for people using wheelchairs, including those “confined to wheelchairs”.  It would be easier if they learned the difference between tourists who needed a hoist or ramp and those whose wheelchairs or scooters can be carried separately on board or in the baggage hold.

Maybe then they’d get it right.  There are about four “confined” wheelchair users on board, with only John and Mal seemingly adventurous in port, but at least 20 scooter or wheelchair users who can transfer.  And scores of “wobbly walkers” as John calls them who also like the “easy tours”.

About 10 busloads of passengers left on coaches at the scheduled time of 9 am, but there was no sign of our transport.  Asking where it was, the contractors first stated that the “van was in the queue at the port”; then “the driver had a flat tyre”; then the driver, who turned up at 10:30 am with a perfectly good van with a hoist told us that “they’d “put gasoline in the van instead of diesel (not him,mind you).  GUESS WHAT?  We didn’t believe any of the excuses.

Instead, we reckon it was a right royal stuff up, whether on behalf of Princess Tours, or the contractor we’ll never know.  Princess took ultimate responsibility for the mess up and later gave us a gift of six chocolates on a plate.  John said they knew he was lactose intolerant so he wasn’t impressed.  We’ve already learnt from the Tour Office that the detailed form we fill in when booking is not shared between the shipping company and their tour office.

Let’s see how well Princess Tours does with the next five tours we have booked through the ship.

Meanwhile everyone else was getting on the shuttle bus to the nearby town of Citivavecchia, including our new friends Mal and Les Noble from Melbourne.  Mal also can’t transfer but has this nifty attachment which looks like a motorbike, and he’s game for anything.  He even drove it to Petra.

So, anyway we set off from the working dock along a tolled road to Rome, taking only an hour since it was Saturday.  During the week it takes twice as long during peak hours.  It’s very agricultural along the route, and reminded us very much of home except with the style of housing with all the terracotta roofing and vivid colours.

Marianna

The guide, Marianna (contracted by Princess Tours) was very intense – also a history graduate with excellent knowledge – but her pronunciation was not nearly as good as the guides for the private tours we had in Dubai or Salerno.  The driver Andriou was excellent and gave us his card afterwards – the company Fausta specialises in accessible tours.  Find them at www.accessibletransportationrome.com.  Unlike in Dubai, he had correct seatbelts ties for John.  Don’t bother going through your cruise line.

I’m sure we could have arranged to spend more time at fewer places, but as it was, John only left the van once at St Peter’s Square where we spent an hour.  I was able to leave the van at the Roman Forum and at the White Palace Square to take some photos and a movie for John, but otherwise we simply drove past other places.  We had a choice of entering the Basilica (wheelchair users are able to jump the queue apparently) or exploring outside, so we chose the latter.  First stop the accessible toilets, then photos.  The queue for the Basilica was enormous, so we assumed it would be very crowded inside anyway.

We drove past many churches of all eras, many built using stones from the Roman ruins, past statures of centurians and Roman emperors and of course past the Colusseum, the Spanish steps, the Borghese villa and papal palaces.  We found it quite overwhelming actually.  Too much information – we’d need to go back and spend a fortnight in Rome to get a real feel for it.  That’s the problem with cruising of course.

Church outside the walls

Spanish steps froma distance

Vatican wall

Roman Forum

Roman Forum

Luckily, amongst the crowds at St Peter’s Square, we were reunited with our guide and the van, and wended our way back to Citivavecchia by 3:30pm.  We asked the driver to drop us in town, after making sure there was a wheelchair accessible shuttle bus (coach) to take us back to the ship which was about one mile away on the working dock.   Most of these docks are hard, if not impossible to enter or exit independently because of the security.  There was plenty of the latter at the shuttle bus depot in town.

Proud residents in Citivavecchio

Building with old and new

Not so proud residents

In Citivavecchio

Drinking fountain in Citivavecchio

So we spent an hour or so in Civitavecchio, with John taking photos and Margaret enjoying her first real Italian coffee for 42 years.  Then back to the ship on a shuttle bus, without any dramas, apart from negotiating our way through a couple of soldiers with machine guns.

It appears that many cruisers had been to Rome a number of times before, so spent the day getting a cheap haircut, stocking up on medication or simply enjoying the pleasures of a portside working town.

And did I mention that the weather was perfect?  Indeed, a glorious day of sunshine, about 28C.

Must go, we are just entering the Strait of Gibraltar and are about to see North Africa (Morocco) on the portside and Gibraltar on the starboard side.  We will exit the Mediterranean in a few hours and enter the Atlantic Ocean.  I’ve lost John – looked everywhere for him – off taking photos and movies no doubt.

Dubai adventures with John

Well, we’ve been to Dubai now, and we’re pretty sure we won’t be back.

Why? Well, a mix of reasons, some of them probably inconsistent with our views on other places. But, there you go, who said we have to be consistent?

We docked at Terminal 3 at Port Rashid and could walk from the gangway to the terminal entry in less than a minute. So far, so good.

The terminal is huge and ornate. It looks like this.

There was a promise of free wi-fi and there was, but it was very slow and kept dropping out.

Security on the way to the outside world was super easy. No problems there.

We had booked two tours – a three hour one starting at 10am and a three hour dinner cruise on a dhow with a pick-up of 7.00pm.

Mahmoud , Egyption

Our driver, Mohommad, and the “disability helper”, Harry, arrived with a photo of John and found us easily and right on time (10.00am).

Mohommed, Pakistani, the driver

We got to their van – a Toyota Coaster or maybe a big Hilux (about 8 or 10 seats), and they opened the rear to reveal a full complement of seats with no room for me. And, yes, John had advised them of his needs, even sending dimensions and photos.

Harry, Indian, helper

So they removed one seat and piled it upside down on another seat, produced a portable ramp (about 2 metre in length) to give John access through the rear door. The gradient was about one in four or five – not good for many, but ok for John.

Many of you will now be horrified to learn that there was no way to tie the chair down and no seat belt for John.

John shrugged and off we went on what we expected to be a three-hour tour.

Our guide, Mahmoud, was picked up at the entrance to the port – just why security allow only two employees of a tour vehicle to enter remains a mystery.

We all introduced ourselves and we discovered that our Guide, Mahmoud, is Egyptian, has a degree in Archaeology, our driver, Mohommad, is Pakistani with a diploma in Chemical Engineering, and the disability helper, Harry, is Indian with unknown qualifications (we guess none at all).

All three were consummate hosts and we all got on very well for the whole day.

The port is about 35 kms from the city proper but we didn’t head directly there.

Mosque

Our first stop was at the Jumeirah Mosque, just for a photo.

Burj Al Arab

Next was a photo op of the Burj Al Arab, a grand hotel with no single rooms, just suites, with the cheapest being $5,000 per night in the off-season. High Tea is about $220 per head.

We didn’t enquire about wheelchair access.

Next we were driven through the entrance (with security) and around the driveway of a luxury hotel, the name of which we missed. But just look at some of the 20 or so golden horses along the driveway. And the fountain is not bad either.

Interchange

As I’m sure lots of you know, Dubai was just a village from the late 18^th century until Sheik Khalifa convinced the separate emirate states to formally co-operate and take advantage of their oil riches. Much of Dubai is built on reclaimed land and the rest on sand.

We were informed that at one time 25% of all the construction cranes in the world were in Dubai doing their stuff.

The money, of course, came from oil. But now, oil and gas comprise just 3% of the Emirate’s income.

One of the most exclusive developments is the palm shaped series of raised areas. The piece d’resistance of this area is the Atlantis the Palm.

Let’s hope it doesn’t suffer the same fate as its original namesake.

Dubai Mall is reputedly the largest in the world and it’s adjacent to the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa (burj means tower).

The lobby of the Mall looks like this.

And just beyond the entry is the huge aquarium.

Up in the lift ground to level 124 of the Burj Khalifa in 60 seconds.

The view from Level 124 and 125, which we also visited, was stunning, if somewhat spoilt by the sand haze, which is apparently always present when the wind is blowing from the desert.

Adjacent to the Mall and the Burj Khalifa is an artificial lake where a fountain display is shown every half hour. Set to music, it is quite beautiful. It runs for about four minutes and attracts large crowds.

We were told the jets can be projected to the height of a 50 storey building.

Candylicious

Back to the van passing the largest candy store in the world, Candylicious.

The Dubai Museum is housed in an old fort and it houses exhibits depicting life in the Dubai area when it was a pearling centre and also a centre for trade.

We spent about 30 minutes there but could easily have spent a few hours.

Real women in museum

A panorama inside museum

Our final stop before returning to the ship was the Gold Souk (souk means market) where there were maybe a hundred shops selling gold jewellery.

(photos of gold souk).

The Souk was on the Creek which is an older part of town where the not-so-well-off live.

We were dropped back at the ship at about 4.00pm – so a six hour tour instead of three hours. Cool, we thought.

We had a bit of a rest and were waiting in the terminal at 7.00pm when Mohommad and Harry turned up on time to take us to our dinner cruise on a dhow on the Creek (actually an inlet).

It took a forty minutes or so drive to get to the marina area.

We sensed there was drama when the man in uniform from the dhow was seen pointing at the portable ramp carried in the van and phone calls were made.

Off we went to the dhow with Harry carrying the ramp.

Dhow

The entry onto the dhow was via a moveable five steps device, which was moved away and replaced by the ramp. 

A one-in-two gradient is too much even for this intrepid couple. And to make it worse, there was a 100ml step up at the top of the ramp, followed by a 100ml step down just 100ml later.

Offers were made to push John up, carry John up, and, most bizarrely of all, to get John and chair onto the ramp (which folded longitudinally) and then lift the lower end to level it out.

John politely declined all of these offers, pointing out the dangers to all concerned.

Mohommad phoned the tour company and John accepted apologies and offered a full refund and a trip to the Dubai Mall to see the fountain again (this time lit up, of course) and the laser show on the Burj Khalifa.

That was accepted and off we went.

Another phone call, this time from the manager of the tour company, who very politely informed John that the morning tour had been the wrong one (we suspected as much) and that it should have been three hours and that what we’d paid did not include admission to venues, amounting to some $140 (again, we had suspected this).

John struck a deal that the $170 we had paid for the dinner be just waived and it be declared all square. The manager agreed but said he now owed us $40 USD, so John got him to agree to give Harry and Mohommad $20 each (we had already tipped them at the end of the other tour).

The night fountain show and the laser show were probably better than our dhow cruise and dinner – so it all ended with our being happy.  However, the company’s administrative systems left much to be desired.

Marg had a snack at the Mall while John videoed the events.

Here is a taste of the laser show.

We were dropped back at the ship at about 11.00pm, exhausted, hungry and happy. Up to the bistro and something to eat and off to bed.

Day two in Dubai was spent trying to get free wi-fi in the terminal, but giving up and just relaxing on board. Oh, yes we did buy a couple of cheap souvenirs – a fridge magnet and a mug.

Many of our new friends had different experiences in Dubai and some did some interesting tours including camel rides and desert drives.

This last picture is for Bruce, showing cars in port - imagine the dust getting into them before the customer picks one up.

So why didn’t we like it – or more to the point, why would we not go back?

Basically, we think the culture and economic system is unfair to the poorer people and overly panders to the very rich.

Government revenue is raised not by income tax, but lots of user pays, which like a GST or VAT, disproportionally disadvantages the poor.

The political system is autocratic and, although seemingly benign or even benevolent at the moment, may not be when the ruler changes. Autocrats can always change the approach to things like health care and education (both good at the moment). With no public dissent allowed, this may be difficult to resist without violence.

Our inconsistency is that we love NYC which in many ways also is not a poor person’s paradise, and the US political system is also biased towards the rich. But we will willingly visit NYC over and over.

And finally, the weather in Dubai is just too hot.