By Joe Kelsey

As a disabled traveler I am often amazed at the various interpretations of the term "accessibility" when I'm away from home. In the interest of full disclosure, for the past ten years I have been completely blind and paralyzed below the waist, so finding new obstacles is admittedly pretty easy for me. Over those ten years, I have stayed in a number of different hotels in a dozen different states, and I have actually heard the claim, "Yes sir, we have wheelchair accessible rooms…well, except for the door width." And another one of my personal favorites, "Yes sir, we have accessible rooms on the second floor…but, um, we have no elevator."

So in planning for my first cruise ship adventure with my lovely fiancé, I was intrigued to discover the following claim on the cruise line's website:
"Princess is pleased to have available JAWS Professional software with a KOSS-TD/80 headset available on one terminal in each Internet Café on every Princess cruise ship."

For those who may not be aware, JAWS is one of a handful of text-to-speech software applications that allows blind individuals like myself to use a computer - and coincidently, JAWS just happens to be the program I use with my home computer.

On one hand, I must admit I was rather inspired to realize they had even considered such a provision for blind passengers. On the other hand though, the more skeptical hand of course, my truthness meter was going haywire at the believability of such a unique accommodation. Now, I am not one of those people who can't go a week without my internet or email fix, but we all know of many whose online avatar would begin trembling at the mere thought of such web withdrawal. For those internet addicts, and for the sake of my own curiosity, I decided to add a little tour of the internet café to my vacation itinerary.

The onboard Internet Café Manager, unsurprisingly, was not familiar with any blind-friendly accommodations, but admitted he had only been the Manager for ten days. What did surprise me though was rather than checking the dozen computers or so for the JAWS program, he directed me to the Passenger Services area for more information. Instead, we chose to make a quick dessert run to the buffet and were easily distracted by all the food. The next day though a most friendly Passenger Services Agent also admitted she wasn't familiar with the JAWS program, but agreed to look into it for me. That evening, the friendly agent informed me that she had checked with her manager, and with several other ships in their fleet, all to no avail, but would check with the Main Office the next morning. The following day, she politely explained that they had apparently upgraded their operating system and hadn't yet installed any text-to-speech software, so we just went back to the buffet for another snack.

Now, before any internet addicted blind passengers rush to cancel their upcoming cruise, keep in mind that wireless internet is also available just about everywhere on the ship, and for the same rates as the cafe. So if you must, you could bring your own wireless laptop aboard, with whatever screen reader you prefer, and simply feed your addiction that way.

Of course, as with any good addiction, it's not a cheap fix. With rates ranging from $0.75 per minute to a package of 500 minutes for $175, plus $3.95 to activate your account on a satellite connection that their website admits is probably slower than your home broadband connection, expect the charges to run up faster than the meter on a New York City taxi cab.

My official recommendation is that if you go on a cruise like this, just let the email pile up in your inbox, enjoy another glass of wine in one of the bars, a massage in the spa, a show in one of the theaters, or if more than twelve minutes have passed, then why not head to one of the restaurants to get a bite to eat -- again.

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