Royal Caribbean’s opportunities for guests with disabilities

Vacations should come without limitations, and this is at the forefront of Royal Caribbean International cruise line’s ethos for passengers with disabilities and special needs. Each ship in the fleet is designed to accommodate everyone and to provide the most luxurious, fun and accessible cruise experience, specifically for guests with disabilities and special needs.

Royal Caribbean’s fleet has been outfitted with a wide variety of features designed to give access to all kind of disabilities. Whether its mobility, hearing or visual disabilities, including children, people with short stature and individuals with cognitive, intellectual and development disabilities. For people with mobility disabilities, the spacious ships feature corridors that accommodate 180-degree turns for wheelchairs, automatic doors, gradual inclines into all public rooms, elevators, and ramps. Even the guest relations desk comes with a lowered counter. The accessible staterooms ranging from 159 to 298sqft are designed with many automatic doors, offering a five-foot turning radius in sleeping areas, bathrooms and sitting areas for easy manoeuvrability, and lowered closet rods and safes.

Deaf and hard of hearing guests can enjoy an immersive cruise experience and peace of mind with visual alerts features and sign language interpreters on board. The portable hearing room kits provide visual and tactile alerts for door knocking, telephone ringing, alarm clock and smoke detector.

For guests with visual disabilities, Royal Caribbean International has worked to incorporate Braille wherever possible, in the staterooms, staircase handrails and public areas. The crew and staff are on hand to assist by reading menus and signage or in any other way that can make a guests’ cruise vacation an exceptional experience. Even service dogs are welcome on board with their food and special equipment.

Royal Caribbean can accommodate guests with a variety of special dietary needs at no extra charge, offering low-sodium, low-fat and gluten-free items on the menus. Every Royal Caribbean ship offers limited professional medical services for a reasonable fee. These physicians and nurses can be found in the on board medical facility. All types of oxygen are permitted on board. Moreover, guests requiring continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis are welcome on board, not to mention guests with cognitive, intellectual and developmental disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease.

To ensure that more guests can enjoy the ships without a worry, Royal Caribbean offers the complimentary award winning Adventure Ocean Youth Programme for children with disabilities. Qualified specialists divide the groups based on ability rather than age for youngest special-needs travellers, in addition to toilet-trained policy exception.

Autism on the Seas certifies Royal Caribbean with an Autism Friendly Certification for their efforts to ensure their products and services are accessible for inclusion and participation by the Autism and developmental disability community. The certification includes achievement in different areas such as: cruise line staff training, youth programme services, pre-vacation planning and services, dining and dietary needs, disability accommodations, guest satisfaction and feedback.

Royal Caribbean relieves disabled guests from all obstacles that come with planning the perfect holiday, be it on board, or during shore-based excursions.
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