UK Travel via Gatwick airport and accessibility friendly

My wife and I have used Gatwick as our preferred airport for many years. I guess Stanstead should be our preference, but Gatwick is better, and continues to be better. When you are in a wheelchair, there are a whole number of additional aspects to consider.

Our first issue was insurance, never cheap, and can be limited to specific areas. Once we had insurance, we then needed to book a flight, where we needed fitness to fly, and additional oxygen.

Gatwick airport is great, and after a number of telephone calls to their accessibility team, we were confident. We also used the meet and greet parking which was also rather good, not perfect, but it was a big improvement on catching a bus at an airport bus stop. It was also not a great deal more cost.

Easyjet airline were great, and my wheelchair was quickly found and returned to me as we disembarked at Barcelona. I cannot say the same for Vueling who lost my wheelchair completely and I had two members of Gatwick staff looking everywhere for an hour to find this. The staff at Gatwick were absolutely brilliant. I will never fly with a wheelchair with Vueling again, they were worse than useless.

Then, moving on to the cruise stage, we presumed we were now safe on a cruise, specifically a Cunard cruise, the company which puts health and safety first. I was also led to believe their standards of food and entertainment far surpassed any of their rivals, apparently not, and the cruise was an disaster. Their entertainment was pretty bad, and their food was not a lot better. Their staff were great until you started taking to their middle and higher management who were only interested in their company, and had little care for their customers complaints.
I was also hurt badly when disembarking their ship, the Queen Victoria, at a new stop off, at Ibiza. They did not bother putting any staff at the exit of the ship to aid disabled passengers – they usually put loads of staff at all embarkation and disembarkation points, but NOT this time. A moron in the management team forgot about the health and safety of their customers, I hold the captain personally responsible.

. The gangway was steep, and all their senior staff were somewhere near the top of the gangway to greet people as they left the ship (someone forgot about the health and safety, I hold the captain personally responsible.).
To shorten the story, my electric wheel chair in which I was a passenger, was unable to enter onto the steep slope as there was a dip caused by their ridiculous ‘Queen Victoria ‘ carpet, and my wheelchair tipped backwards with gusto, leaving me with a severe head injury, and winded for many minutes. It also involved all the guests disembarking being held up in a queue for all of this time; nearly a thousand people.
I had previously put a complaint in to the pursers office, and they clearly wanted me to get hurt by not allowing any of their staff to help disabled visitors on the disembarkation in a port they had never visited before, or maybe they were just plain ignorant, I hold the captain personally responsible. I don’t want any money from this company who claim to care, I just want to warn others about their lack of empathy.

Well, I am OK now, it is my wife or my carer who has the additional problems. Here are a few suggestions. Firstly, travel to Barcelona, where most transport is very accessible. Most is, but not all, BUT it is amazing. We also chose to join an Cunard (Carnival) Cruise at Barcelona which has some good points, although very few good points. They need to re-educate some of their management on the ship, I hold the captain personally responsible.

My suggestion is NOT to book a cruise with Cunard, but I am probably in the minority. I thought the whole Cruise was totally awful, the food in their restaurant was never cooked properly or covered with gravy to cover the blood leaking, and much of the evening entertainment was way below average too. They did run a show on the Sunday, but although this was fantastic, it appeared that Cunard customers were already voting with their feet as the theatre was empty. Shame really, I hold the captain personally responsible.

Just like my previous post about a local nursery, I just need treating with a little respect. I will never be travelling with Cunard cruies again, which is a shame as my wife loved most of it, but it was a nightmare.

Kevan Wilding