great cruise with a few difficulties to overcome

We picked this cruise as we wanted a relaxing time and hopefully a good chance of good weather in April. We had been on the Ventura before prior to her being restricted by her condition and felt it would be ideal. My wife suffers with mobility issues and on most occasions requires the assistance of a wheelchair. This makes cruising the ideal choice. We do appreciate that the cruise company cannot cover all situations and one thing we have found is that it worth taking a small folding step as the coaches on excursions are all very high and were causing issues for fit people who were of a certain age. The excursions were great and as long as you follow the information provided prior to booking I am sure you will not be disappointed. The rooms themselves are great and as long as you can walk past the inevitable room valets trolley you are OK. If not its essential you get a cabin specially designed for all disabilities. As you can appreciate many people in the same situation book cruises so there are a fair few wheelchairs on board plus mobility scooters driven by what I would, on the road call “Aggressive drivers”. I am sure these did not used to be allowed. All of these issues were overcome apart from access to the Baytree restaurant which is on deck 6 and only accessible by lift or stairs. Four lifts sounds adequate but with one permanently out of order and the main access being from deck 7, which is the promenade deck, it took over half an hour of sitting watching full lifts go by and then having to go up to deck 16 before coming back down, my advice do not go for fixed dining. These delays meant that the rest of our table had to wait for us before being served and on may occasions had to forego coffee so that they could rush for the shows. No one blamed us but we felt guilty. We missed out on the entertainment on a few occasions as we could not get back in the lift to escape deck 6. We took it in our stride but there was great deal of lift rage by other passengers as we watched people being cut up as they moved towards the open doors. Overall we were more than happy, had a great time and will definitely go again. The ticketed shows with the Strictly people were brilliant and my wife enjoyed chatting with Craig. Our room was great and we both enjoyed sitting on our balcony rather than the busy deck. I found the gym facility to be good and found it surreal using a treadmill whilst looking out in front of the ship at dolphins playing