I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: Traveling Tips and Stories => Topic started by: partj on December 21, 2010, 10:04:06 AM
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I will be travelling to barcelona Jan 20 to spend 2 nights and then boarding a cruise ship for 11 nights. I started home hemo Dec 20th and this will be my first trip! I am having a difficult time getting my dialysate shipped to the port as the ship leaves on a sunday and they want any supplies delivered on the day of departure. Any of you have any suggestions? Right now fed-ex has quoted me a price of $1300.00 to air freight a pallet of my supplies to the port. The cruise line is trying to find me a place to store the pallet from friday to sunday. Bit of a mess but hopefully it will work out. I have to ship by Jan 10 to guarantee delivery on time!
Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated!
Turner
Started dialysis 05/2010
Home hemo 12/2010
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If I were in your pickle, I would try to see of a D Clinic would store your supplies. You can get a list of nearby clinics on Globaldialysis.com. Then I would see if they could help with arrangements to get the supplies to port or give you any ideas of how to get them there. Maybe there is a list of couriers in Barcelona that can also help.
I travel w/Dialysis at Sea to avoid this stress - BUT it is very expensive as you pay cruise price and part of the volunteers (Doctors/Nurses) room & board.
Good luck and let us know what you come up with.
Cindy
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Wow I loved Barcelona. I got to visit in 1997. Definately a place I would like to revisit.
One option is to use a hotel. In general a business hotel is use to receiving a lot of stuff for people traveling to conventions or just making sales calls. A good hotel can smooth out these logistics.
ADDED: Make sure your cabin number is part of the address on the boxes to make sure the supplies get from the dock to your room. Here is a video I made showing the cabin and my machine set up from last January http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TDEWwBXuyo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TDEWwBXuyo)
I would also suggest that you read up on traveling with the cycler and use one of the checklists people have developed. We were just talking about this on the listsev (http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/NxStageUsers/).
OH AND ANOTHER THING: Here is a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwdrxPlbuMk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwdrxPlbuMk) that covers the whole cruise and shows the machine set up.
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Thanks for the advice. The cruise line has agreed to accept the delivery from fed-ex and store the product for 2 days prior todeparture so I can be assured it is there. Will let you know how it works out!!
Jim :bandance;
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Well, just got back from the trip and cruise!! Had a great time and the dialysis machine and supplies were right on time. Only problem I had was with Iberia airlines on the return flight from Barcelona to London they charged me $155 for an overweight piece of checked luggage (my dialysis machine) the flight was an american airlines codeshare so I am assuming AA will make me whole on it. I am lifetime platinum and as such should never be charged for baggage and especially not for a medical device. Rather than argue and miss my flight I paid the tariff. We ended up spending an extra 2 fays in Istanbul as we were not permitted into Cairo because ot the current unrest there but that was OK as Istanbul is one of my favorite cities. Did Dialysis 9 nights on the ship with no problems. The ship stored my supplies and brought them to my cabin as I requested them. Sure beats Dialysis at sea cruise prices!!!
Well anyway onward and upward!!!!!!
TJ
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yeah!! glad everything went smoothly!
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Wonderful! I am envious of the trip but SO glad it all worked out and things went smoothly for you.
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awesome
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We are planning a cruise around the Briitish Isles for July. The ship leaves from Southampton and then we will spend 5 nights in England after the cruise. My husband uses 25 litres of Dialysate a day, which means we will have to take 900 lbs of dialysate plus the saline bags plus everything else with us! The social worker said that we should look into shipping by cargo container as you pay for weight, not by the pound. Did you explore this?
Thanks for your insights
YL
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I think they're nearly to the point where you'll be able to get your supplies from UK suppliers, and or other places on the continent ... it may be that they are not ready yet to support visitors from the US but someone has to be the first so we should keep trying to get this channel open.
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I emailed the UK company 3 days ago but have not recieved a reply :(
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I think they're nearly to the point where you'll be able to get your supplies from UK suppliers, and or other places on the continent ... it may be that they are not ready yet to support visitors from the US but someone has to be the first so we should keep trying to get this channel open.
Sure would be nice! Even nicer, wouldn't machine rentals overseas - naw, it would make things too easy.