I was excited to sail on the Norwegian Bliss for my company’s annual conference cruise this year. I had heard such rave reviews and had already booked several clients for Alaska cruises next year. My feelings of the ship are mixed, there weren’t areas that were completely inaccessible, but the overall feeling aboard was a bit chaotic during this week long adventure. There was so much to see and do and not a clear layout that made exploring the ship easy for this wheelchair-user.
The ship has some really cool features: Waterslides, great restaurants, such as Margaritaville and Los Lobos, and fun bars such as The Cavern where an excellent Beatles band plays nightly. The Broadway show, Jersey Boys, also has a full-blown production on board, which is a highlight. I didn’t get to the other shows, Havana or the Speakeasy experience, but heard they were great! The Bliss has two standout things that make it special, one of them is a full top deck dedicated to a go cart track. For a small fee you can race around a track in a go cart and race other passengers. Another unique area on board is the Observation Lounge, the ultimate relaxation spot (saw several passengers sleeping) offering 180 degree views in a 20,000 square foot space. Come here for quiet conversation and get cocktails at the 360 degree bar and constant small bites buffet. This has already been marked as the place to be on this huge ship. Other areas that are unusual but very welcome, are the outdoor Waterfront eating area outside of most restaurants. On nice days, al fresco dining is a must.
But, since this website is dedicated to focusing on accessibility for special needs guests, let me provide some insight on the accessibility features aboard Norwegian’s 16th ship, the Bliss.
Embarkation…always the first sign of how things will go for the larger ships. The Bliss has 4000 guests and 2000 crew members that they need to smoothly move off and then onto the ship within a few hours. We started out with long lines outside of the terminal. We ended up inside after several minutes of waiting and headed towards Security. Prior to the security checkpoint, we were told we needed to split up and were then sent to two different lines. We couldn’t understand why we they did this, and I think they didn’t really have an explanation either.
Nevertheless, up the fairly steep terminal ramps we go and enter the cruise ship.
We quickly found our way to the closest elevator bank. This ship has two sets of eight elevators each, one bank towards the front of the ship and one toward the aft, back.. There were some long waits on the day of embarkation with everyone needing to access them on the same day, around the same time to board.
We headed to our ADA cabin, #11918, which was located at the very back of the ship. This made things difficult at times. The hallways on the Bliss are really narrow, so two-way traffic was difficult. When the cleaning or food carts were out, it was impossible to get passed them (in a wheelchair) without having someone move them out of the way.
Our stateroom was beautiful! Tons of storage, nice big bathroom, roll-in shower with pull-down seat that was large enough. There were grab bars throughout and knee space beneath the sink with mirror at correct height. Lots of drawers and closet space, with pulldown bar to access the closet rod. Nice, ample desk/vanity area with mirror and lighting.Access to the large lanai was via a ramp that required a running start. The entrance had a little bump, but not too bad, however I did have great difficulty trying to open the slider to get outside myself, though. Other accessibility features in our room included the bed height which was perfectly even with my wheelchair seat height. So that was a big relief!
All light switches in this room were toggle-type which makes easy to access without needing much hand dexterity.
The main door of the cabin is controlled by an automatic door opener. The problem with these doors is that they open all the way and are on a timer to close almost a minute later…not cool when in a hurry, but helpful to those that have difficulty opening and closing heavy doors independently.
The lack of elevators on the Bliss was really apparent when it came time to exit out of the mandatory Muster drill in the afternoon of our first day on board. Part of this could be because of the staff running the meeting. Typically, on all other cruises I have sailed, the crews allows those guests with mobility challenges to get a head start towards the elevators by leaving a little early, thus beating the crowd to the elevators, but not on the Bliss.
As far as common areas throughout the ship…there are automatic doors throughout the ship, however they require that you push a button on the door to open it. Not motion detected…sometimes this was inconvenient as you had to be right on top of the door to access the button. Most other ships have a motion detector which opens the doors prior to needing them. All doorways I encountered had flat transitions which made it easy to enter or exit most doorways alone.
One thing I found odd was that there weren’t any pool lifts to the two, very small pools on the pool deck for someone in a wheelchair. I was told that there was a lift to the thermal spa pools in the spa, but I never made it inside the spa to verify this.
Some of the common areas weren’t easy to navigate on the ship. The Bliss Lounge had two Ramps to enter the theater, which required me to seek assistance to enter each time as they were fairly steep, Inside the Bliss Theater, there were two designated areas where disabled guests could sit, in the way back, top of the theater. Even though they were clearly marked for the disabled, I had to ask people to move out of the way to make a space for myself.
Overall, the ship, being brand new, did not strike me as being designed with the mobility-challenged in mind, but rather as an afterthought. The overall layout of the ship was choppy and took several days to get my bearings as to direction.
–Dawn O’Brien, Dream Vacations Travel Specialist
