I am hearing impaired. My husband and I have been on numerous cruises and find all to be quite deficient in what they have available for hearing impaired passengers. I cannot understand the announcements made over the public address systems, the speakers at any of the lectures or the movies because they are done w/o captioning. My husband hears so he keeps me informed as best he can, but obviously I miss out on a great deal. I went to an afternoon trivia game on my last cruise with a friend and couldn't understand the questions because the young lady had the megaphone directly in front of her mouth so I couldn't lipread...my friend was trying her best to write out the questions for me, but that didn't work too well.
On my last cruise prior to a tour departure many passengers were gathered in one of the theaters and a crew member was making announcements which, of course, I couldn't understand. What I noticed, however, was that among the many people on the three rows around me there were NUMEROUS people wearing hearing aids so it's obvious that the passenger demographic is older people with hearing loss. That brings up the question "Why aren't the cruise lines addressing this issue?" I list my hearing loss on my passenger profile and it gets me little or nothing in the way of benefits.
Also, on tours, I always find myself at the back of the tour bus in spite of when I arrive. I've asked ship's personnel about being able to be seated up front and they refuse to take responsibility for that...they tell me I must ask each individual tour guide. The cruise lines are most likely receiving part of the tour receipts so I feel they should make this part of their service, especially when they have been made aware they have passengers on the tour with hearing loss.
Sharon McGinnis
Grand Prairie, TX