What Cabins Designed for the Physically Challenged Should Include

Accessibility on cruise ships: The advantages of a cruising holiday |
Cruising tips | Cabin features

Cabins designed for the mobility-limited typically have doors that are about 30 inches (76 cm) wide. ‘Standard’ bathroom doors are normally only about 22 inches (56 cm) wide, whereas those designed for wheelchairs are about 28–30 inches (71–76 cm) wide. Ask your travel agent to confirm the width of cabin and bathroom doors. Allow for the fact that your knuckles on either side of a wheelchair can add to the width of your wheelchair. Beds in cabins for the physically challenged aboard most ships are not equipped with a ‘panic’ button, adjacent to a bedside light switch (Carnival Destiny, Carnival Triumph and Carnival Victory are examples of ships that have them).

• No ‘lip’ or threshold at the cabin door, which should be a minimum of 35 inches wide (89 cm).
  
• Bedside ‘panic’ button linked to the navigation bridge (which is staffed 24 hours a day).
  
• Enough space to manoeuvre a wheelchair between entrance, bed, closet, and bathroom.
  
• Closet with ‘pull down’ clothes rail.
  
• Telephone mounted at wheelchair height.
  
• Mirrors that can be used when seated in a wheelchair (full-length).
  
• Safe or lockable drawer that is reachable at wheelchair height.
  
• Convenient electrical outlet for battery charger (for electronic wheelchair users).

Bathrooms Designed for the Physically Challenged Should Include:

• Outward opening door.
  
• No ‘lip’ at bathroom door or into shower stall.
  
• Shower stall (with detachable showerhead located at head height when seated in a wheelchair).
  
• Shower chair that folds up when not in use.
  
• Grab rails for shower and toilet.
  
• Toilet with electric automatic seat pad cleaner.
  
• Washbasin low enough for wheelchair to be close.
  
• Emergency red (panic) button or pull-cord in or adjacent to shower (for falls).
  

Bathroom doors are a particular problem, and the door itself, whether it opens outward into the cabin or inward into the bathroom, hinders manoeuvrability. Five cabins for the physically challenged in QE2, however, have electrically operated sliding doors into the bathroom, a completely level entrance into cabin and bathroom, and remote-controlled lights, curtains, and doors, as well as a door intercom and alarm.

Bathrooms in many older ships are small and full of plumbing fixtures, often at odd angles, awkward when moving about in a wheelchair. The bathrooms aboard new ships are more accessible, but the plumbing is often located beneath the complete prefabricated module, making the floor higher than that in the cabin, which means a ramp must be fitted in order to wheel in.

Some cruise lines will, if given advance notice, remove a bathroom door and hang a fabric curtain in its place. Many lines will provide ramps for the bathroom doorway, where a sill or ‘lip’ is encountered.

Berlitz Guide © Apa Publications 2008