Cruising Christmas Time – Jamie’s Journey to New Zealand

Jamie Larsen is 19 years old and lives with Bridget (mum), Carsten (dad) and Colonel (an affectionate Golden Retriever). When not occupied with work, school, power chair soccer, basketball and running an accessible AirBNB, the Larsens enjoy flying drones, eating spicy food, tinkering with technology and travelling. Their travels have taken them through Scandinavia, Europe, Japan, South East Asia, the Pacific and most recently, a 14 day Christmas cruise around New Zealand. Jamie has DMD, the rest of the family have genetically indicated stubbornness. The Larsens enjoy living in Canberra surrounded by bush and roos.

After another busy year, we couldn’t face all the Christmas hoopla and decided to spend it at sea, again. In many ways, 2 weeks on the Majestic Princess clockwise around New Zealand, was our best cruise yet. 

We travelled up to Sydney the night prior to departure, taking in Wicked at the Lyric. A fun way to kick off Christmas.

Then it was go time. Boarding can be hectic, but wheelchair users are effectively given a fast pass to cut through 4000 or so excited passengers. Previously, we’d hired a hoist and crossed our fingers that everything turned up in the cabin before departure. Lessons learned. This time, we came prepared with a Shower Buddy travel commode, Molift hoist and various other items including bed raisers, adaptors and “kerb jumpers”. We now have a travel list to the reduce sleep lost wondering whether we packed everything. And this time, we marked key items as medical equipment so we could take them onboard ourselves, knowing that they were in the right place when we needed them. The multi adapter was confiscated at security, which could have meant no charging, but fortunately, we had a back up and were able to retrieve the adapter from the “naughty table” on disembarkation.

Our accessible cabin (B433) was perfect for the 3 of us. Ample room for the wheelchair and hoist, lots of storage, a workable open plan bathroom and a clever built in ramp out onto the balcony. The bed raisers were handy – there was space under the main bed, but not under the spare fold out – with raisers, Jamie had the fold out in his own curtained off space with a sea view.

Like most large ships, it was busy but there were plenty of quiet spaces to enjoy. The Majestic has a newer fit out with some thoughtful accessible features including ramped access throughout the smaller theatres, stage front access in the main theatre, accessible bathrooms around the ship and a clever “medallion” that remotely senses and unlocks the cabin door, amongst other things etc. While the “deli” area was sometimes extremely crowded, staff were very helpful in the seated dining areas and we enjoyed some amazing meals.

There was plenty to do on board – great shows, enrichment lectures, learning how to do the haka (!) – but the highlights were onshore. One of the great things about NZ is that every stop was a port (rather than tenders), so we could get off and explore each destination.

In Auckland, we ambled up through the CBD, past the art gallery, through the lovely Domain and spent many happy hours immersed in the Museum.

In Tauranga, we took the local (accessible) bus into town (home of Hairy McLairy), interacted with street art, enjoyed the framed views from the railway bridge across the harbour, found the best fish and chips ever hidden under the bridge, then circumnavigated the beautiful Mt Maunganui. Accessible track, accessible bathrooms, tick, tick. Beach access mat, beach wheelchairs. Tick, tick.

The weather in Wellington was predictably windy and wet – perfect for a spot of shopping and immersing ourselves in the lovely Te Papa Museum on the harbour. Again, we just used local accessible buses to get from the port to the “Beehive”.

Picton, at the northern tip of the South Island, is gorgeous – a smaller town in the Queen Charlotte Sound nestled amongst inlets and mountain peaks. Again, accessible bus from port to town, then a happy day spent exploring the town, the local markets, a local brew, then over to the marina where we found the Picton Harbour View track. Beautiful – well, until it became a bit narrow and slippery for wheelchairs.

The ship docks in Port Chalmers for Dunedin – again, fortunately, some accessible local buses that zipped us into Dunedin along the edge of Otago Harbour, opposite the albatross colony. Jamie decided it would be fun to tackle Baldwin Street (officially, the World’s Steepest Street) in a wheelchair. He got two thirds of the way up and had to back down, raising a few heart rates and local eyebrows. Here, we could have and should have taken the local bus back to the Octagon (city centre) but found ourselves some e-scooters, so ended up having a scooter/wheelchair convoy through downtown Dunedin. The Toitu Otago Settlers Museum was a fascinating way to round out a 20 000 step day before bussing back to the Port Chalmers markets and ship.

The highlight of the trip was undoubtedly the scenic cruising through the Fjordland National Park – a day slowly drifting in and out of Dusky, Doubtful and Milford Sounds, taking in the awesome wild beauty of this area – not otherwise easily accessible by foot, let alone, by wheelchair. We were able enjoy this from the peace of our balcony (with pizza and beer delivered). A very knowledgeable Parks and Conservation officer provided interesting commentary as we passed through each Sound, enriching the experience with local insights. A must for nature enthusiasts – or Lord of the Rings fans.

Overall, 5 stars, highly recommended. The Kiwis have put loads of useful accessible travel resources online. Our next adventure is already booked.