I fully support the PVAG comments submitted by Janice Schacter of the Hearing Access Program. As an adult with hearing loss who has sailed on several cruises I can definitely attest to the fact that we miss out on a lot of events such as announcements, and entertainment. I don’t use sign language, so providing me with an interpreter is useless. It is also extremely scary that if a problem arose during the cruise, the communication systems are all verbal and even if I were to talk to my cabin steward in advance, people forget in an emergency so I would likely be in a very bad spot. It is not our intent to give undue hardship to the cruise lines but to put in relatively simple and widely available solutions so that all persons can enjoy the cruise whether they are children, adults with hearing loss, or the older population losing hearing through aging.
Christine Anthony
Chair, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Section
Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing