The original booking was made through Cruisability and there after direct with P & O

The cabin C136 was excellent particularly after we had the twin beds pushed together to give a king sized double. This left more useful space to manoeuvre. The bed height was right for me at 19/20 inches and there was loads of cupboard/drawer space.  The wardrobe rail was at suitable wheelchair height too.

The bathroom was fine, 20 inch height toilet, grab rails (right transverse transfer) sink with knee space underneath and a roomy shower with drop down seat - this was the only failing as it was too small and too low for most wheelchair users.  We overcame this problem by bringing in a plastic chair from the poolside and with the help of my husband this was much safer.

The ship itself is beautiful, easy to get about and hosted excellent variety shows and entertainment .

The views were magnificent and the weather - well you are heading north beyond the Artic Circle! Two rough days at sea but on such a large ship (63,000 tons) you hardly notice the movement. In the fjords it was mainly calm though sometimes windy, but we also had some beautiful sunny days, blue skies and 4 days of midnight sun - very memorable. The thick fog at the North cape was memorable too, we couldn’t see a thing at first, but when we sailed round the Cape, the fog lifted, skies turned blue and we had some fantastic views that night !

The food and service were good and all dietary needs can be met if they are given notice.

There seemed to be about a dozen wheelchairs on board and I chatted to at least one other SIA member, but there may have been more !

We did go on most shore tours in wheel chair accessible transport, sometimes transferring sometimes not. We shared this with some friends whose wife had MS and was definitely confined to a wheelchair. This kept the cost down. However these tours were only arranged by P &O after a fuss was made about those advertised. P & O realised they had boobed by advertising some tours with a wheelchair symbol when in actual fact the buses used weren’t accessible unless you were ambulant and could climb steps. An exchange of emails by our friends resulted in local accessible transport being found in every port we required it, but only because a fuss was made in the first place !

Due credit to P & O, they were extremely helpful in making sure we could go ashore and tour and wanted to improve the services they could offer to occupants of disabled cabins. Their on board tour representative requested a meeting with us towards the end of the cruise where we had an exchange of views which resulted in some suggestions being reflected to P & O’s Head Office. We hope these ideas will be adopted so that tomorrows disabled passengers can be offered a better service, but note if you don’t ask you won’t get !

We had a great holiday, so did our friends. They have booked a trip next year already,we will wait a while longer but will no doubt go again as it is a enjoyable way for disabled people to holiday in comfort and style. However, it will not be on the Arcadia because this ship has been withdrawn from the P & 0 fleet.