Learning Curve

Day 2

Rhode Island was our first stop, which happened to be a tender port. Many cruise ship ports must use tender, or small boats, to get to the shoreline either because of shallow water or rocky coastline. I’m going to assume Rhode Island is a combination of both. In order to use tender if you use a mobility device, it must weigh 100lbs or less, and you must be able to walk a couple of steps with assistance. Unfortunately for me, my scooter weighs well over the weight limit. I wasn’t to upset as I had recently visited Newport, RI and its a relatively short distance from home. We used the time to explore the ship in relative quiet as many cruisers went ashore. While checking out one of our favorite pastimes while cruising, eating and what’ for dinner, we ran into someone in a type of wheelchair I was unfamiliar with. She explained it was collapsible, powered, and most intriguing to me, it weighed less than 50 lbs! If she so desired, she would have been able to use the tender to go ashore. The price point for the chair was right around $2k, a sizable amount, but much less than a full sized power chair. All sorts of opportunities began running through my head. I took down the name of the chair with plans to do dome research once I got home. why not aboard the ship you say? Internet aboard the ships incredibly expensive as well as extremely slow. Definitely not worth the money. A quick tip: If you are able to go ashore, many places have free wifi. You might have to purchase something, but you might be pleasantly surprised as I was in Jamaica, where I found the best gelato this side of Florence, Italy!