Need Oxygen For Your Cruise? What You Need to Know
Cruising with an oxygen rental is smooth sailing, once you know the guidelines! SNG is here to help you breathe easy.
The first thing to note is that all major cruise lines welcome oxygen concentrators on cruise ships. However, it’s important to keep in mind that each line has specific guidelines/requirements for traveling with oxygen.
Some lines may require (or strongly suggest) that passengers traveling with oxygen obtain a medical release form, clearing them for travel, before the sail date. Not a bad idea – we think it’s advisable for anyone traveling with oxygen to have medical clearance first!
Note that a medical prescription with the liters per minute (LPM) and hours per day (HPD) is required for SNG to deliver oxygen. It’s a good idea to contact the Special Needs department of your cruise line four weeks (or more) in advance of your voyage to insure that they have everything that they need from you and your doctor with adequate preparation time. Nobody wants to miss out on a vacation because of overlooked paperwork!
Additional considerations: Be sure to bring along enough oxygen for the entire voyage. Assume you will spend 10-12 hours per day outside of your stateroom while onboard; that’s the average based on statistics and feedback from our customers. Be sure to learn everything you need to know about your portable oxygen concentrator on your cruise ship before you leave – and learn it thoroughly.
Lastly, while using an oxygen concentrator on a cruise ship, steer clear of any areas where passengers may be smoking, and refrain from smoking yourself. From our experience, this is the only universal regulation that all cruise lines enforce.
Special Needs Group / Special Needs at Sea makes it simple: we directly deliver oxygen concentrators onto cruise ships at ports all over the world, and we work closely with every major cruise line. We will ship to your home (in the Continental U.S.) a Portable Oxygen Concentrator (POC) so that you may travel with it. We take the hassle out of advanced planning, and the necessary oxygen will be delivered in accordance with all rules and regulations.
If you’ll be flying to your destination post with supplemental oxygen, be sure to check out our previous blog post here.
Happy travels!
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine
Images from Special Needs Group’s personal image library. Taken onboard Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas.
June 16, 2014