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A Morning Wharrrgarbl with a Note of Hope
Below is a selection of comments from this article about a Carnival Cruise gone wrong:
I feel the OP needs to take a deep breath. She has a poor cruise experience, she is not writing the script of a Lifetime Original Movie.
Note: I'm not the OP, but I feel you should shove it up your ass.
First, as said above, ADA laws do not apply to cruise ships which are mostly registered to other countries. If her disability made cruising so difficult, why did she not call and research if her wheelchair was an issue BEFORE booking the trip?
Second, I agree, smoke is a horrid problem on most ships. It's like a floating casino. It seems smokers flock to cruises because of lack of restrictions. Also, smoking is much more popular still on other countries so people puff away with reckless abandon. Same would be true if you traveled to most of Europe.
Never had ship crew be as rude as she is claiming. Can't tell if she's being overly dramatic or not. Why she used a debit card to pay for her cruise and allowed them access to her bank account. Also, if you'd use a credit card you could do charge backs to force them hand on an adjustment. I also very much doubt they said ""thanks for complaining, now go away."
Seems to me the OP may have points but she seems like a very angry and bitter person. I can just imagine what a pleasure she must have been to work with when she was unhappy if she is being this crash in an e-mail to the Consumerist.
Being disabled is difficult. Problems happen. But taking your rage over what you body can't do and using that negative energy to make a bad experience worse isn't helpful.
And then there is this guy:
Typical wheelchair people expecting the world to revolve around them. While accomodations should be made where practical, designing a ship is hard enough as it is. Making it easy to get around for people who have to or choose to use wheelchairs is no small task for a ship, where you need to utilize all of the available space.
Wheelchair laws have ruined many things, thankfully these ships don't fall under the overly heavy handed cripple laws of US and A. I was at a funhouse in NJ and they had to add an elevator for the wheelchair people
People like these make the veins in my head throb dangerously because chances are, they are the same opportunistic tools who would wave ADA compliance laws like a live hand grenade if they suddenly broke their legs a week before the cruise and decided to take it anyway. Then there would be no end of screaming about how they have a God-given right to the cruise they paid for, goddammit, and no corporate puppet was going to rob them of what they fucking paid for.
Yes, you smug assholes, there are some things disabled folks cannot do; we know this, and let me tell you, it hurts. But--and stay with me here--most of us don't expect the abled world to fix these problems for us if it is unreasonable to do so or would create a danger to others. I don't expect the Sherpas in Tibet to carve wheelchair trails up Everest just because I need to prove my handicapable cred, and I wouldn't expect a four-hundred-year-old hotel in Prague to be wheelchair accessible; the renovation cost would be onerous and, well, crippling to a business, and would likely never pay for itself, because Europe isn't exactly teeming with globe-trotting cripples. It wouldn't be fair to ask them to make extensive renovations on the off chance that a disabled traveler might turn up.
But here's the thing: Businesses are fully within their rights to admit they aren't equipped for my needs and refuse my patronage; it might not be legal, but as I said, I know reality and idealism seldom meet, and the seventy-year-old inn just might not be able to accept my wheelchair and my need for an accessible toilet. It's unfortunate, but it's also the truth. However, the second you assure me that you can, in fact, accommodate my needs after I have explained them to you, then you are obligated to meet those needs, and I don't care how hard it is for you. If you didn't think you could, then you should never have accepted my money and made promises you couldn't keep. Once you have my money, then I have the right to complain if and when you fail to provide the services I purchased, and it doesn't matter if I'm a talking head on four wheels.
Are there entitled asshats in wheelchairs? Oh, yes, and maybe some of them feel entitled by the wheels under their asses, but most disabled people are simply frustrated and angry about the dishonesty that so often permeates any effort to move through the world. So many businesses promise full accommodation and deliver the barest fraction of the sad minimum, and we don't realize it until we're sitting on the platform with our luggage on our laps and no choice but to either press on as best we can or give up the venture entirely. We're tired of being charged maximum price for minimum service and being shamed and belittled when we dare complain because we "should have known better" than to think we could travel the country or visit other countries like anyone else. We should have known better than to want more than the sad, cramped, isolated lives that government charity and the begrudging collective conscience of our betters allows us. It's heartbreaking and exhausting, and it sometimes makes us into the angry, bitter people so many so loftily chide.
Because I don't want this post to be nothing but a wallow in impotent fury, have some Christoph:
Yes, he looks maniacal, but he also looks so damn happy that it lifts my spirits to see him.
It also helps that I know he's a goddamn superhero with an awesome butler, trufax.
I feel the OP needs to take a deep breath. She has a poor cruise experience, she is not writing the script of a Lifetime Original Movie.
Note: I'm not the OP, but I feel you should shove it up your ass.
First, as said above, ADA laws do not apply to cruise ships which are mostly registered to other countries. If her disability made cruising so difficult, why did she not call and research if her wheelchair was an issue BEFORE booking the trip?
Second, I agree, smoke is a horrid problem on most ships. It's like a floating casino. It seems smokers flock to cruises because of lack of restrictions. Also, smoking is much more popular still on other countries so people puff away with reckless abandon. Same would be true if you traveled to most of Europe.
Never had ship crew be as rude as she is claiming. Can't tell if she's being overly dramatic or not. Why she used a debit card to pay for her cruise and allowed them access to her bank account. Also, if you'd use a credit card you could do charge backs to force them hand on an adjustment. I also very much doubt they said ""thanks for complaining, now go away."
Seems to me the OP may have points but she seems like a very angry and bitter person. I can just imagine what a pleasure she must have been to work with when she was unhappy if she is being this crash in an e-mail to the Consumerist.
Being disabled is difficult. Problems happen. But taking your rage over what you body can't do and using that negative energy to make a bad experience worse isn't helpful.
And then there is this guy:
Typical wheelchair people expecting the world to revolve around them. While accomodations should be made where practical, designing a ship is hard enough as it is. Making it easy to get around for people who have to or choose to use wheelchairs is no small task for a ship, where you need to utilize all of the available space.
Wheelchair laws have ruined many things, thankfully these ships don't fall under the overly heavy handed cripple laws of US and A. I was at a funhouse in NJ and they had to add an elevator for the wheelchair people
People like these make the veins in my head throb dangerously because chances are, they are the same opportunistic tools who would wave ADA compliance laws like a live hand grenade if they suddenly broke their legs a week before the cruise and decided to take it anyway. Then there would be no end of screaming about how they have a God-given right to the cruise they paid for, goddammit, and no corporate puppet was going to rob them of what they fucking paid for.
Yes, you smug assholes, there are some things disabled folks cannot do; we know this, and let me tell you, it hurts. But--and stay with me here--most of us don't expect the abled world to fix these problems for us if it is unreasonable to do so or would create a danger to others. I don't expect the Sherpas in Tibet to carve wheelchair trails up Everest just because I need to prove my handicapable cred, and I wouldn't expect a four-hundred-year-old hotel in Prague to be wheelchair accessible; the renovation cost would be onerous and, well, crippling to a business, and would likely never pay for itself, because Europe isn't exactly teeming with globe-trotting cripples. It wouldn't be fair to ask them to make extensive renovations on the off chance that a disabled traveler might turn up.
But here's the thing: Businesses are fully within their rights to admit they aren't equipped for my needs and refuse my patronage; it might not be legal, but as I said, I know reality and idealism seldom meet, and the seventy-year-old inn just might not be able to accept my wheelchair and my need for an accessible toilet. It's unfortunate, but it's also the truth. However, the second you assure me that you can, in fact, accommodate my needs after I have explained them to you, then you are obligated to meet those needs, and I don't care how hard it is for you. If you didn't think you could, then you should never have accepted my money and made promises you couldn't keep. Once you have my money, then I have the right to complain if and when you fail to provide the services I purchased, and it doesn't matter if I'm a talking head on four wheels.
Are there entitled asshats in wheelchairs? Oh, yes, and maybe some of them feel entitled by the wheels under their asses, but most disabled people are simply frustrated and angry about the dishonesty that so often permeates any effort to move through the world. So many businesses promise full accommodation and deliver the barest fraction of the sad minimum, and we don't realize it until we're sitting on the platform with our luggage on our laps and no choice but to either press on as best we can or give up the venture entirely. We're tired of being charged maximum price for minimum service and being shamed and belittled when we dare complain because we "should have known better" than to think we could travel the country or visit other countries like anyone else. We should have known better than to want more than the sad, cramped, isolated lives that government charity and the begrudging collective conscience of our betters allows us. It's heartbreaking and exhausting, and it sometimes makes us into the angry, bitter people so many so loftily chide.
Because I don't want this post to be nothing but a wallow in impotent fury, have some Christoph:
Yes, he looks maniacal, but he also looks so damn happy that it lifts my spirits to see him.
It also helps that I know he's a goddamn superhero with an awesome butler, trufax.