On the 24th March 2017 we thought we would trial out the new ship to the P&O fleet Britannia. Ourselves personally we like the smaller ships up to a maximum of around 2500 passengers but still we want to at least try! This was also a few days before my heart surgery where I ended up getting a pacemaker.
So first impressions of the ship….. beautiful, wonderful, all shiny and new. The atrium was fabulous, nice and open, great for people watching which we love!
So we head off to see what our cabin looks like B719 wheelchair accessible balcony. The room is a good size especially for a new ship, plenty of room and lovely and modern. Could do with more storage and a plug socket close to the bed, especially for us who need ventilators. You get kettle in cabin and biscuits which is great but unfortunately the balcony lets it all down, it’s impossible to get out onto the balcony in a wheelchair as it’s just too narrow. If you can transfer like I can it’s not a massive issue but for those who cannot I would feel robbed if I’m honest.
The only port of call was Zeebrugge and we took a P&O excursion to look at the windmills, Gothic Home and Chocolate shop. It all went well my manual wheelchair went in the hold of the coach and we had the first row of seats on the coach, so I crawled up to them with no problem.
The villages are though cobblestones and that was at times hard or almost impossible for me due to the pain it caused so we just stayed at a coffee shop while we waited for everyone else to complete that part of the tour which we didn’t mind.
We then headed off to the chocolate shop which is wheelchair accessible however it is small and with a coach load of people in there you couldn’t move around easily, so I left Carl to do some shopping while I found a safe spot to stay!
Yes you are right that is a free chocolate fountain I found in the shop! Amazing!
The last stop on the tour was to the Gothic House, this isn’t really our thing but as it was included we looked around, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had gone out their way to make it as wheelchair accessible as possible, the only part you couldn’t get to was upstairs.
The ship itself for us is too big, it’s the same old story ew ships are bigger but smaller balcony and lifts so makes things a little harder for us. However we do come back into the Britannia so please look out for that blog as it will go into more detail and pictures. We said if it was the right itinerary we would go back on her again but we wouldn’t choose her for the ship, in fact we have completed a 2 week on her in the Caribbean and have another booked for the Mediterranean so watch this space.
Thank you for reading my blog on this 2 nighter cruise.
Cruising Wheelchair 
Could you tell me how you managed on the Caribbean cruise as I am taking a scooter thanks
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I took a manual wheelchair in my suitcase, if you look at the latest Sky Princess Blog your see how I did it, the Caribbean isn’t great for wheelchairs or scooters, it will depend on what type of scooter to, if it’s a big bulky one it may be difficult as they don’t have accessible vehicles and some scooters take up a lot of room but if it’s a small lightweight one you may be able to get into a minivan as that’s the type of transport used, not coaches like Europe. If your wanting to do your own thing most ports are not too bad but they do have high kerbs and sometimes you have to either go in the road or hunt for a dropped kerb. The reason I took a manual as well as electric wheelchair was because we wanted to do beach visits and sand and electric motors don’t mix well plus we wanted to do some excursions. So to summarise if you want to do your own thing in a big scooter your be ok but if you want to do beaches and excursions it could prove difficult. One last option would be to hire a manual wheelchair depending who your sailing with and where from, if it’s Miami then you use USA “Special needs at sea” if from UK it’s “Mobility at Sea” but if from Barbados or another Caribbean island I don’t think you can hire one unfortunately. Hope this has helped and enjoy! I loved the Caribbean!
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