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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>Subject:</B> Cruising with
guide dogs.<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
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<P><BR><BR>Courtesy: Sue Haarden, Southern Pups. <BR>I'm ready any time.
<BR><BR>Resident Publications, NY, USA<BR>Monday, September 03,
2007<BR><BR>Cruising Blind: The Sightless Take To The High Seas<BR>By Mike
Stevens<BR>September 3, 2007 - 2:42pm Travel<BR><BR>Sue Slater could feel waves
of cold radiate from the glacier as her cruise ship slipped past the towering
wall of ice in Alaska's Disenchantment Bay. <BR>Suddenly, she heard a car-sized
chunk of ice tear away from the 40-story glacier before it crashed into the
frigid waters.<BR>Being totally blind, she actually saw none of this and relied
on her husband to describe the details of the scene while she soaked up the rest
with her remaining senses. "Alaska was just breathtaking,<WBR>" Slater said.
"I'd go back in a minute." <BR>For decades, the blind have headed to ski slopes,
national parks and beaches for holidays. Now, like Slater, a chatty travel agent
from St. Louis who lost her sight by her mid-30s, a growing number are heading
out <BR>on the high seas come vacation time. If a cruise ship sails there, blind
travelers have likely followed, Slater said.<BR>Familiar Caribbean spots in the
Bahamas and the Virgin Islands remain popular, but blind cruisers have also
climbed Mayan ruins in Belize, <BR>scampered up waterfalls in Jamaica and
touched the totem polls of Alaskan Indian tribes.<BR>Although the cruise
industry doesn't keep statistics, many travel agents and organizations like the
Society for Accessible Travel and Hospitality <BR>agree that there has been a
sharp increase in cruise travel among the blind in the last five years.<BR>"It's
grown exponentially,<WBR>" said Jani Nayar, the society's executive
coordinator.<BR>Cruises' popularity among the blind comes in part from
convenience, said Jackie Hull of Outta Sight Travel, a Port St. Lucie, Fla.,
travel agency <BR>that puts together vacation packages for blind travelers.
Normally, Hull said, a blind person on vacation would have to find his way to a
hotel, <BR>then to a restaurant and later to a nightclub or concert hall for
entertainment.<BR><BR>"On board, everything is there. It's so accessible, you
get acclimatized at once," Hull said.<BR><BR>And what they lack in sight, they
make up for with their other senses, whether it's sipping a pina colada,
listening to steel drums play on a <BR>Jamaican beach or hearing fish jumping
during spawning season in Ketchikan, Alaska. <BR>"People would say"Why would you
want to travel, you can't see? You can't <BR>sightse", " Hull said. "We go
beyond sightseeing; there are other senses."<BR>Hull and her husband, Gary
Metzler, are such big believers that they spend most of their money traveling
around the country lecturing on travel <BR>opportunities for the
blind.<BR><BR>Even before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act 17
years ago, the cruise industry began improving services for the blind.<BR>If
given advance notice, most cruise lines allow guide dogs, offer a guided tour of
the ship to help orient blind passengers and frequently offer sightless
passengers menus, itineraries and even bingo cards in Braille. Carnival Cruise
Lines includes a training course for staff members on how to interact with blind
passengers and their guide dogs. <BR>And the ships themselves are laid out to
avoid confusion.<BR>For example, even though most modern cruise ships usually
have 10 to 14 different decks, most activities from dining and dancing to
swimming and <BR>slot machines can be found on the same three decks. Speaking
elevators in most modern ships also help the visually impaired navigate their
way <BR>around.<BR>"You can't get lost on a ship," said Vickie Kennedy, a
buoyant 59-year-old Californian from the Bay Area who lost her sight to a
degenerative eye <BR>disease.<BR>In 2004, Kennedy helped organize one of the
larger group cruises for the blind and their guide dogs. It began while making
plans for an Alaskan cruise to celebrate her 20th wedding anniversary with her
husband, Jim, and guide dog, Freida, a yellow Labrador. After working with the
cruise lines to ensure Freida could come aboard, she was told the ship could
take two dozen more guide dogs.<BR>Kennedy began making calls and by the time
the ship left its dock, 21 dogs were aboard fitted with brand new heavy-duty
canine life vests and <BR>acclimatized to an ad-hoc doggy latrine on the tail
end of the eighth deck, or as Kennedy called it, "the poop deck."<BR><BR>The
ship's crew took to the canine passengers as well. The dogs would convene on the
top deck every afternoon to frolic off leash with crew members who were missing
their own dogs. The ship's captain, Fabio Amitrano, was especially smitten with
Kennedy's companion.<BR><BR>"My Freida had a love affair," Kennedy said. "The
two of them would take strolls on the upper deck together." At night, after
dinner, Kennedy <BR>remembered returning to her cabin to find a chocolate on her
pillow for herself and a doggy biscuit for Freida.<BR><BR>Such outreach efforts
are part of a larger trend in the cruise industry to make travel easier for
people with disabilities, said Stephen Mydanick, an executive from the Society
for Accessible Travel and Hospitality.<BR><BR>"Of all the industries, cruise
ships have done the most to make people with disabilities at ease," Mydanick
said. And not only the blind, but <BR>also wheelchair-bound passengers and
people who need dialysis treatments are finding warm welcomes as well as
elaborate medical facilities.<BR><BR>"The whole thing has changed from 'No we
can't do that,' to 'Please come cruise with us,'" Mydanick said. "It's paying
off for them, obviously."<BR>A 2005 study on disabled travel by Open Doors
Organization, a Chicago-based nonprofit that advocates for the disabled, found
that 12 percent of disabled travelers had taken cruises in the last five years
compared with 8 percent of the overall population.<BR><BR>Cruising in general is
big business. In 2005, 11 million people took a cruise, making it the
fastest-growing segment of the travel industry, <BR>according to Cruise Lines
International Association, an industry trade group. This strong growth has led
to exotic itineraries and new onboard <BR>luxuries ranging from Internet cafes
to ice-skating rinks. Themed cruises have also shown strong growth.<BR><BR>While
today these specialized cruises cater to gourmands with wine tastings and shaved
truffles or to fans of Broadway with onboard <BR>productions, it's possible an
entire cruise might be geared one day toward the blind, according to Brian
Major, an industry spokesman.<BR><BR>And Slater, who arranged her Alaska cruise
through Accessible Cruises and Travel, the blind-oriented travel agency she runs
in St. Louis, said that <BR>recent improvements onboard cruise ships benefited
people other than the disabled.<BR>After one of her cruises, Slater said all the
blind passengers sent letters to the cruise line praising the crew for their
efforts, from <BR>waiters describing what food sat where while presenting a
plate to building a special area for guide dogs to relieve
themselves.<BR><BR>Slater found out later that quite a few sighted passengers
sent in letters as well. After sharing a cruise with so many who were sightless,
they <BR>wrote, in essence, "Thank you, we saw the cruise through new
eyes."<BR><BR>-- <BR>I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private
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