Our dear friend, Geo recently brought up the "hazards" facing deaf folks who are traveling. Geo was mainly referring to flying, but I myself have bumped into some serious irritations while using other modes of travel!
Several years ago we joined a two-week long escorted train trip across Canada, from Vancouver, BC to Nova Scotia. It was a wonderful "fall foilage" trip, one of those "once in a lifetime" journeys. I am completely deaf and my husband extremely HOH from age. I am assertive, he is not and I'd had the most experience traveling as a deaf person. Many things happened but the worst one was when we missed our dinner call. The porter would go through the train yelling: "Dinner A, Dinner B, Dinner C" and so on. We found out fast enough that my husband could *not* hear the porter, so we arrived late for dinner the first night and were refused service! I fixed the "porter problem" by leaving our stateroom door open when we knew the porter would be coming through. And we had a little chat with the head honcho and tipped him well. Our fellow travelers on the same escorted trip were all "seniors" like us and most were well educated and understanding people, which was a real plus. Post Script: The Chef sent to our room two beautiful plates of fruits and cheeses and crackers to make up for our loss of dinner. (He must have known that my favorite meal is cheese and crackers (and wine!)
I have flown across the United States many, many times all alone. 'Once with my hearing ear dog. During a change of flights, I had a difficult time finding a place for my dog to go potty. I was at the Dallas FortWorth airport and GRASS there is pretty difficult to find!! I finally went to "travelers aide" and they found me some grass. Yes, you guessed right, the dog refused to potty. I didn't blame her!
The airlines have changed gates on me so many times, I have lost count. I always solved that problem by picking out a kind and friendly face and imploring for assistance in case there were any changes coming from the loud speaker. This came particularly handy in Sacramento, where it is ALWAYS FOGGY and they changed gates on us frequently! In Sacramento I made friends with a lovely black college girl with the most fascinating dred locks! She was a major help and made the trip actually fun! I will never forget her kindness.
What is really scary for a deafie is those rapid fire commuter planes!! The desk people are of no help, they are usually too busy and forget about you! So another search for someone "going my way"! It's a good thing I have a huge smile!
I do not mind the lack of captions on the airline movies. I would rather read, anyway, or walk the aisle. I like to plan ahead and take along a really special book that I have been dying to read. And then there is always the Sky Mall catalogue with all of the stuff you cannot possibly live without!
Another little trick I usually use is notifying the head attendant on the plane that I am totally deaf and that I would like to know of any changes. When I am headed to Seattle, I don't want to find out that I landed in Vancouver BC due to weather, or some such!
I won't go into the car rental turmoil this time. Particularly for a woman. That is another booby trap and good for another blog posting!
Ahh, and ohh! There is a certified ASL interpreter working as a flight steward for Hawiian Airlines. His name is Jim and he's a real hunk!
Until next time,
Lantana
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Lantana,
ReplyDeleteWow, How many time you had bad expereinced. I wish I know go through difficult time. I once fly to Hawaii since 1976. I thought airfare is too expensive!
Always been poor and raise my kids without worry about air travel.
My kids fly once time. second time Tara will fly to DC on few week from now.. Tara is too exiciting to go DC for workshop.
I wish I travel alot so I can getting some experince of what I can go anywhere. I think I am very anixiety disorder to travel by myself in airplane. I think Amtrak is easier for me. Quiet different than mine..
Thank you for share. I learn alot from you and SeekGeo's topic is GREAT to share.. I learn from them,too. I wish .. I need to more carefully about travel frequent
I've experienced some of what you described in this post. Very clear picture of the kinds of barriers we face, but with wisdom to share about how to go about solving those challenges in a hearing world. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I like the new look of your blog!
~ LaRonda
Hi Lantana, my dear friend!!
ReplyDeleteLMAO!! I can't get it over with your quote, "His name is Jim and he's a real hunk!" Ha ha!! Such a flirty aren't ya? ;-)
I can imagine many of us at least once struggled being deaf while traveling, no question about it. I can't believe you were refused to let in dining room, that makes no sense. It is common sense that everyone should know, if you can't hear, ok what do they expect then? At least they got you fruits and such, can't beat the wine!!
I remember a story from old deaf friend of mine when I was in high school where he was on the train on way home but the train stopped at one of major stations for whatever reason which I cannot remember for 2 hours at least. Of course, he was last person to find out so all passengers weren't allowed to get off the train, they must remain inside. Hearing passengers can make calls to let people who were supposed to be there to pick them up about the delay.
He needed to use TTY to call his deaf wife to notify about two hours delay or so, so she don't have to drive all way to the station which is an hour and half drive. That station does have TTY available but they refused to let him off to make a call, he insisted for several minutes and no such luck.
Finally, the train left and arrived a few hours later, oh boy his wife was so pissed at him for not letting her know in advance because she had to find out when she arrived at the station.
Guess, it's a good thing to own SK, blackberry, etc after all, eh?
-SG
Someone should write a book and send it to the Goverment and give them a poke in the ribs.
ReplyDeleteDeaf Pixie, the flight to Washington DC was one of my more frightening ones. My deaf friend was not allowed to come and meet me at the gate, unknown to me, so I sat there for a couple of hours wondering what to do! Then I was rescued by Travelers Aid. Now most of the airports do not allow people to greet you at your gate as you disembark, but back then, it was news to me! When I had flown into that area in the past I always used the Newark airport.
I have lots more "travel horrors for the deaf" that I will share later on in my blog.
Geo, I may be OLD but I am not blind to the virtues of hunks!
thanks for responding!
Lantana
LaRonda, I wrote you previous to this one, but it is floating around in cyber space somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the compliment. Variety is the spice of life, but I am still new to this technology! I wish I could be creative. Perhaps I will have my grandson help me sometime when he is here.
One of my "travel bitches" happened when I was coming back on the Greyhound while working for the school and some jerk hit me hard in the back of my head with his guitar as he left the bus! I think he hit every head in the bus with his grand exit! Bang, bang, bang as he staggered down the aisle! "Bus Duty" was one of my major nightmare journeys!
Another time,taking a Greyhound load back to the school on Sunday, a large motorhome came up beside us (obviously intentionally) and 3 young boys MOONED us as they went by! I had a difficult time getting the bus quiet after that one!
Hugs, Lantana
Jim the hunk.....LOL!
ReplyDeleteBoy, you were refused a dinner. I would be upset if I was refused!
I will write my post about my experience on my trip later.
Trains are quite a bit different from traveling by air. The trains have such a tight schedule and so many things can happen to disrupt the schedule and that makes the dining car staff uptight! The Dinner Steward and my husband got into it over this episode and provided the entire dining car with a dinner show! However we were with an escorted tour, all paidfor,including meals,tips, hotels -- everything! Our tour guide had a *few words* with the Dining Steward and fixed everything. Our meals were all prepaid, they could not very well say, "Soree! Thus the fruit, the crackers, the wine and cheese in our parlour car, etc. 'Obviously dealing with deaf clients was something new and a genuine learning experience for them! I made sure of that. Hee, hee.
ReplyDeleteOn a long train trip (ours was two weeks) it pays to get friendly with the "hired help". Many of the porters, etc. are kids working their way through college, we found that out and these kids welcome an extra $20.00 for doing a good job. 'Lots of foreigners, plenty of different accents, dialects, etc. which is extremely difficult for a lipreader like me. My husband brags that I can read lips better than he can hear.
What fun! Not at the time perhaps, but looking back we have plenty of chuckles.
Lantana