This winter I went on a cruise to the Western Caribbean aboard the Disney Magic. The ports of call were Key West Florida,Cozumel Mexico, Grand Cayman,and Disney’s private island. The rooms are very large which is great for a wheelchair. The rooms on Disney cruise ships are larger than most other cruise ships. There are not that many rooms that are wheelchair accessible so it is important to book early I got one of the last rooms available.

The first place that we went to was Key West Florida. The ship lets you off right in Mallory Square which is easy to get around, I didn’t spend very much time here because it was a very windy day. We decided to try to walk down Duval Street. Getting there was not as easy as I thought; some of the curb cuts are not very good. On the way walking to Duval Street we saw that Key West was having an art festival and they closed the road which made it easier because I could walk on the road. The art festival, which is held the last weekend in January, was very nice; I would highly recommend it. When we finally made it to Duval Street it was very crowded and many stores have steps. On the way back to the ship we decided to take a tour of the Island. The next day we arrived in Cozumel, Mexico.

Donkey on Street 

The streets in Cozumel can be very crowded and the sidewalks are narrow in some places. But in my opinion it was still worth going down some of the streets to get the feel of what Mexico is like. When getting off the ship you are very close to an outside shopping mall which is very easy to get around and I would definitely recommend looking at some of the stores. The prices are probably higher here but it’s much easier than going to some of the stores if you have a very low endurance level.Cozumel is a very pretty place. I wish I could have seen more of it.I was unable to find an accessible van to travel to other parts of Cozumel.The next day the ship went to Grand Cayman. I decided to stay on the ship and relax that day since you have to use a tender in order to get to the island. The final destination that we went to was Disney’s private island Castaway Cay which does not require a tender. There are paved walkways which make it easy for a wheelchair to get around. They have sand wheelchairs which allow you to go on the beach. They don’t have headrests which are very important for someone with limited neck strength. They serve a great lunch on the island and you can enjoy a fabulous day there.

Castaway Cay Island

Castaway Cay is a highlight of the Disney Cruise. Going back to the ship, we stopped at the Post Office and mailed some postcards to friends with the beautiful Bahama stamps.

The Disney Cruise ship is fantastic. There are many dining options, including room service. The staff is more than willing to help you. The food is good and the portions are huge; the desserts are absolutely delicious! The shows have Disney themes and are great. All in all, there is always something to do - a great vacation experience!

Plantronics DSP-400.

It adds more features than the one that is included with Windows. Some of the features are word completion, macros, auto click, keyboard customization, and many other features. If you want to see a full list of all the features please go to this webpage. The best part is that it is free. Many other on-screen keyboards with the same features costs hundreds of dollars. Why spend all this money when you can find a great free on-screen keyboard like Click-N-Type.

You need to have a canon rebel XT for this to work. I needed to make a custom remote for my new camera. I wanted to use buttons that were easier to push. The Canon RS60-E3 Remote has two functions focus and shutter (but you don’t really need both for most shots). When you press the shutter, the camera focuses first anyway. The remote uses a 2.5-mm stereo jack.

We had an adaptive switch that I was also using to answer my phone (it is plugged into a wireless phone transmitter when not used for my camera - more on the phone project later.

We tried to use a splitter to separate the two functions but were unable to achieve that. We only really cared about the shutter so the other function may or may not be necessary, depending on what you want to do. If you really want to use both functions with your remote, you should see this article for example.

Hooking it all up

Basically, we had a 3.5-mm mono jack on the end of our switch. We didn’t want to cut the end off of our switch so instead we cut the end off of a random audio female cable we had laying around and used that as our 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter. So, basically, we built an adapter because we didn’t feel like going to radio shack. If we didn’t care about the switch, we would have just wired the switch to the one side (seemed like either channel worked the same) of the mini 2.5 mm stereo audio jack (the small size like the cellphone jack size).

Parts need

• 1 Cable with 2.5 mm audio jack

• 1 Y-adapter that will fit your switch.
• 1 Adaptive switch - example TASH (or any switch with an audio style jack end (or else put one on and switch).

Resources

Where to get a switch:

Enabling Devices
TASH - Switchs
Adaptivation

Remote help:

MAKE - Make your own remote
Canon RS60-E3 Remote Pin-Out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_plug

The new van is a Town and Country Touring, with a rear entrance lowered-floor ramp which was done by Viewpoint Mobility. In the old van the wheelchair had to be strapped in, which was hard and time consuming. The new van has the EZ-Lock System which a plate attached to the floor and a pin is attached to the wheelchair. All you do you is drive your chair over the plate and the pin locks the chair in automatically, no more straps. Making life a little easier. If anyone else has a rear-entry or any other type of van, please tell us how you like it.

I just got back from a wonderful vacation. I went on a Geek Cruise on Holland America to the Eastern Caribbean. I had a great time meeting some cool people including David Pogue, Eddie Tapp. and others. I also got to spend some time with some people from previous Geek Cruises such as Neil Bauman who runs Geek Cruises (Insight Cruises), Randall Schwartz, and others. I will add more pictures soon. I am trying to get back to normal as I came home to a blizzard!! I really miss being in paradise!

For reading books, I use a GEWA Book Reader. I’ve tried lots of different machines. Many of the others rely on a sticky thing that sticks to the page. It works better than a lot of other ones because the things don’t have to stick to the page. The GEWA is different. Instead it uses a creative roller mechanism to turn pages. In addition to turning pages one by one, it has the capability to roll through any number of pages before flipping them all over at once. This allows faster movement through the book. It also allows backward movement as well. To control the page turner machine, I simply use a switch that is mounted on the desk.

More info can be found here http://www.zygo-usa.com/blv6.htm .