Latest news with #Longmire
Boston Globe
16 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Are cruises accessible? A wheelchair user with 40-plus cruises under her belt weighs in.
Is that cruise ship friendly to mobility-challenged guests? Sylvia Longmire is happy to share her opinions on the good and bad features she's discovered onboard. Courtesy photo Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Love me tender? Not so much. Notice she says, 'If you get lucky.' Tendering (where passengers are transported from the cruise ship to the shore using smaller 'tender' boats, when the ship cannot dock directly at the port) can be a challenge, the cruise veteran says. 'I cruise a lot with Celebrity Cruises, and all of their Edge class ships have accessible tendering with the magic carpet,' a cantilevered, floating platform that extends from the side of the ship, making it easier for guests to embark and disembark. 'But I've had nightmare scenarios with other cruise lines when I've been picked up and carried in my chair from the ship's platform to the tender while the boat was bobbing up and down due to choppy seas. I thought I'd have a heart attack!' Advertisement Thus, Longmire recommends that wheelchair users choose itineraries where ships are docked at ports of call, or simply be OK with skipping a tender port. 'I've done this plenty of times. I always hit the spa while the ship is empty!' You've got the ship to yourself while everyone else is in port — not a bad thing. How accessible is it? As for the ships themselves: Modern cruise ships on major cruise lines follow the guidelines from the Americans with Disabilities Act. Accessible staterooms are typically oversize, with wider doors, lower counters, roll-in showers, and grab bars alongside toilets, Longmire notes. Balconies are usually accessible too. Public spaces, including dining rooms and theaters, have room to accommodate wheelchair and scooter users. The larger, newer ships are the best option when it comes to accessibility, but the cruise line you choose is also important. 'You're going to get a fairly standard accessibility situation with US-based cruise lines like Royal Caribbean, Carnival, NCL, Princess, Disney, and so on,' Longmire says, but 'my worst cruise-ship nightmares have been aboard the newer MSC ships.' Very few of the doors in the MSC Seascape's public areas are automatic, she notes, and the elevator system was unreliable. In addition, she discovered that MSC's private island, Ocean Cay, was not accessible. 'There are no beach mats for wheelchairs, and no access to food or beverages because it's all in the middle of the sand (and thus not navigable for wheelchairs). The shuttle is not accessible, so you have to rely on your own battery power or manual power to get around the island,' Longmire says. Advertisement Sylvia Longmire is a full-time wheelchair user and accessible travel expert at Courtesy photo Also disappointing from an accessibility standpoint: Princess Cruises' Sun Princess. 'The medallion system was great for unlocking my stateroom door, but there was no automatic door opener,' she says. On some decks, there was a double-door system to reach outdoor spaces. 'One door would be touchless/automatic to open, but the next set of doors were manual and heavy. It made no sense at all,' Longmire says. 'They also didn't have one single lowered table in the casino (to accommodate a wheelchair), and I really wanted to give them my money for blackjack.' Longmire has shared her concerns with the cruise companies. The Globe reached out to both cruise lines, but neither responded by press time. That said, a few cruise lines have won her heart. 'My absolute favorite is Virgin Voyages, with Celebrity Cruises a close second,' Longmire says. They both have all of the standard ADA accessibility features, but there's this: 'a general sense that they've thought of you and want to include you.' It's not surprising that Celebrity embraces this group, since their demographic skews older, so they have plenty of passengers who rely on mobility devices, she says. 'Virgin has a younger demographic, but an extremely inclusive business culture, so they want everyone to have fun.' Examples include accessible karaoke spaces, pool lifts on their ships and on their private beaches, lower tables in the casinos, and designated spaces for wheelchair users all over the ships, she notes. Disney was also great for accessibility, 'but I only cruised with them once when my sons were younger,' Longmire says. Advertisement Take me to the river We suspected that river cruises would be a no-go for this group, given that many lines are European-owned, and therefore not subject to ADA requirements. Plus, river boats are often stacked up next to each other, so you need to walk through one vessel to get to another, and so on, before you finally hit pavement. But if you're pining for a river trip, Longmire has a recommendation: the Vakantieschip Prins Willem Alexander ( Accessible travel blogger/expert Sylvia Longmire has been a full-time wheelchair user for 10 years. She travels extensively, and shares the ins and outs of accessible travel online and in her travel guidebooks. Courtesy photo The kindness of strangers Forty cruises! That's a lot of safety drills and champagne toasts. What has surprised Longmire the most on these journeys? The kindness and grace she's received from local people. 'I'm astonished at the length locals will go to make sure you can experience as much as possible with a disability,' she says. 'Given that tour operators and residents deal with thousands of cruise passengers being dumped in their neighborhood every day, they're all about hospitality,' she says, and proudly share their culture and history with a stranger who might not otherwise be able to enjoy it. 'I can't tell you how many times I've been picked up and carried, both in and out of my wheelchair, just so I can experience something awesome in a foreign port.' Advertisement As for the cruise lines, they could do better when it comes to making passengers with mobility challenges feel welcome, Longmire says. 'When was the last time you saw a TV commercial for a cruise line that included a wheelchair user? I've been doing this for a very long time, and I never have. And that makes no sense whatsoever because every time you go on a cruise, you're going to see dozens of people using wheelchairs, scooters, and walkers. 'People with disabilities spend $50 billion on travel in the US, so I don't understand why cruise lines and the rest of the hospitality sector aren't more aggressively marketing directly to us.' They also haven't recognized the powerful peer-to-peer social media groups — many on Facebook — that focus on accessible travel. 'Cruise lines need to tap into the community and make us feel more seen and desired as future passengers.' 'Everything You Need to Know about Wheelchair Accessible Cruising' is available at Connect with Longmire at Diane Bair and Pamela Wright can be reached at
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Actor Lou Diamond Phillips added to Winnipeg Comiccon roster
Actors Lou Diamond Phillips, Ron Perlman and wrestler Sting have been added to the lineup of Winnipeg Comiccon 2025. Phillips and Perlman are both veteran actors with numerous movie and television appearances to their names. Phillips starred in La Bamba, Young Guns and Longmire, among others, while Perlman made his name in series such as Beauty and the Beast and Sons of Anarchy, along with playing the title role in the Hellboy movies. Sting started wrestling in 1985 and officially retired last year. He is best known for his time in the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) leagues and held more than two dozen championship titles during his career. Winnipeg Comiccon's Artist Alley will feature Jim Starlin (Dreadstar, Batman: A Death in the Family), Brianna June (Archie) and John Gallagher (Baldur's Gate series, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic) and more still to be announced. This year's convention is Oct. 24-26 at the RBC Convention Centre. Tickets range from $70 for a three-day pass to $215 for VIP access at Winnipeg Comiccon was launched in 2019 and includes a market, artist appearances, celebrity interviews and autograph sessions. — staff
7NEWS
26-06-2025
- Sport
- 7NEWS
Premiership coaches share new details of AFL's grand final recordings: ‘That's the danger'
Former Sydney coach John Longmire has explained why he has kept the SD card — which he was meant to be returned to the AFL's media team — from the 2024 grand final. 7NEWS chief AFL reporter Mitch Cleary revealed on Monday that Longmire never handed back his audio data from the grand final — where his team was humiliated by Brisbane to the tune of 60 points — which was needed to produce a documentary for the league's website. 'We've seen plenty of the audio come out and it's been fantastic viewing,' Cleary said on The Agenda Setters on Monday night. 'Last year's grand final, John Longmire was mic'd up on the day, had the pre-game address, the half-time address, the in-box — everything that came with it. 'But post-game, when he handed back the equipment to the AFL, he took the SD card and, to this day, the AFL don't have the SD card — he never gave it back.' Now Longmire has addressed the issue, while West Coast premiership coach Adam Simpson has called the recording of the coaches dangerous. 'I thought I'd given up coaching and would be safe from all that speculation,' Longmire said on Fox Footy. 'I suddenly realise someone has thrown up something I thought was no big deal, but apparently a bit of an issue this week. 'It's strange. When you're coaching and you've been in grand finals, your natural assumption is you own the IP.' But Longmire — who retired at the end of last season after his grand final record slumped to one win from five and includes beltings in 2014 (63 points), 2022 (81 points) and 2024 (60 points) — revealed he hadn't listened back to the 2024 audio. 'I've listened to all the grand finals I've been in, some have been pretty tough listening, as you can imagine. I intended to do the same with this one,' Longmire said. 'But I did two things, One: I didn't have a card reader. I had no idea with the technology. But two: I just didn't want to re-live it again. 'I'd done it before, I'd listened and tried to learn something out of those games before. I just didn't want to do it again. Simple as that ... my assumption was it was my IP. ' I don't think I got paid for it. I think over the finals series now you get paid as coaches.' Former West Coast coach Adam Simpson said the audio of the coaches on grand final day could spell 'danger' for the people involved. 'It wasn't a negotiation (with the AFL), in 2015 and 2018. It was, 'Here's the microphone, put it on',' Simpson said. 'But we had right of veto. In 2015 it was my second year and I didn't know it was the way it was done. 'I think Horse (Longmire) was the one who actually brought in a bit of ownership of it and getting rewarded financially. Simpson said the AFL recorded the coaches movements on grand final day from 'literally the second' they walked into the MCG. 'Everywhere — with toilet breaks, in the box, up the stairs,' he said. 'Other than Horse's (audio that he's) decided not to hand in, there's hours of audio probably kept somewhere. 'That's the danger, I suppose — or the positive — that in 15 or 20 years something comes from a game that's been kept in the vault.'
San Francisco Chronicle
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Book Review: Sheriff hunts for a missing postal worker and tussles with a cult
The longest mail route in the U.S. runs more than 300 miles through Wyoming's unforgiving Red Desert, and Blair McGowan, the delivery person, has gone missing. Her disappearance is odd, not just because McGowan has always been reliable but because her personal delivery vehicle, a 1968 International Travelall that looks like a hearse and has a quarter of a million miles on it, was left behind. Authorities in Sweetwater County haven't made any progress, so Mike Thurman, the postal inspector, asks Walt Longmire, sheriff of (fictional) Absaroka County, to find her. The desert is way out of Longmire's jurisdiction, but Thurman is family on the sheriff's wife's side, so he agrees. So begins 'Return to Sender,' Craig Johnson's 22nd installment in a series that inspired a TV show that ran for 6 seasons on A&E and Netflix. Given the size of the desert and the length of time McGowan has been missing, Longmire puts his chances as 'not likely.' Going undercover as a postal worker, which fools nobody, he and his dog named Dog head off into the desert in the ancient Travelall and follow the woman's delivery route. Johnson is known for creating memorable characters, and perhaps the most memorable this time is Dog, a German Shepherd-Saint Bernard mix who is as smart and loyal as they come. The Travelall emerges as something of a character in its own right, with its quirks and an odd body shape plastered with Flower Power, Grateful Dead, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Age of Aquarius stickers. Eventually, Longmire discovers McGowan in the clutches of a weird-as-they-come religious cult, shoots it out with its gun-toting members, and commits several remarkable acts of heroism. Near the middle of the story, the author inserts characters and elements from a previous novel that might confuse newcomers to the series. Fortunately, that section, which hints at what may be coming in the next instalment, is short. Johnson's plot is suspenseful and fast-moving, the prose is tight, and the landscape is vividly drawn. ___ Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including 'The Dread Line.' ___
Hamilton Spectator
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Book Review: Sheriff hunts for a missing postal worker and tussles with a cult
The longest mail route in the U.S. runs more than 300 miles through Wyoming's unforgiving Red Desert, and Blair McGowan, the delivery person, has gone missing. Her disappearance is odd, not just because McGowan has always been reliable but because her personal delivery vehicle, a 1968 International Travelall that looks like a hearse and has a quarter of a million miles on it, was left behind. Authorities in Sweetwater County haven't made any progress, so Mike Thurman, the postal inspector, asks Walt Longmire, sheriff of (fictional) Absaroka County, to find her. The desert is way out of Longmire's jurisdiction, but Thurman is family on the sheriff's wife's side, so he agrees. So begins 'Return to Sender,' Craig Johnson's 22nd installment in a series that inspired a TV show that ran for 6 seasons on A&E and Netflix. Given the size of the desert and the length of time McGowan has been missing, Longmire puts his chances as 'not likely.' Going undercover as a postal worker, which fools nobody, he and his dog named Dog head off into the desert in the ancient Travelall and follow the woman's delivery route. Johnson is known for creating memorable characters, and perhaps the most memorable this time is Dog, a German Shepherd-Saint Bernard mix who is as smart and loyal as they come. The Travelall emerges as something of a character in its own right, with its quirks and an odd body shape plastered with Flower Power, Grateful Dead, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Age of Aquarius stickers. Eventually, Longmire discovers McGowan in the clutches of a weird-as-they-come religious cult, shoots it out with its gun-toting members, and commits several remarkable acts of heroism. Near the middle of the story, the author inserts characters and elements from a previous novel that might confuse newcomers to the series. Fortunately, that section, which hints at what may be coming in the next instalment, is short. Johnson's plot is suspenseful and fast-moving, the prose is tight, and the landscape is vividly drawn. ___ Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including 'The Dread Line.' ___ AP book reviews:
