In this video, I'm going to show you how to set up the joy on the beach wheelchair.
This one was provided for us by special needs group.
As we go through the process.
We'll talk about the setting it up, but also share a little bit of our
thoughts on this beach wheelchair.
Cause we did use it for awhile on this is on CocoCay.
And the setup process is fairly simple.
It would have been easier if I'd read the instructions, but that's not my style.
So I started taking it out and putting it together.
First thing I'll comment on is that this is a big device.
When you put it in your cabin it takes up some floor space.
It is a little bit challenging to pull, and if you're also pushing a wheelchair.
So in my case, my wife used a manual wheelchair.
And I was pushing her wheelchair with one hand and pulling this with the other.
And that was a little bit of a challenge.
It is better if you have either somebody with a scooter and somebody pulling
it, or if you have three people just to pull it separately, it's not undoable.
It's just a little bit of a challenge.
And in particular since on CocoCay, where we were as quite a ways to get
after getting the first few pieces out of the way I get the tires and
the tires just slide onto the shaft.
There's only the two tires.
They slide onto the shaft.
There's a clip that holds them in place.
So that piece of it is nice and easy.
If you do the follow the instructions, you'd put some of the other pieces
together before you put the tires on.
But it worked okay.
This way.
One thing I would like to comment on with this wheelchair, we have tried
three different beach wheelchair types and the last few cruises.
This one is far and away, the easiest to use.
This is also the only one that I would consider at least semi portable.
So it doesn't matter whether or not the place you're visiting
has beach wheelchairs available.
If you rent the joy on the beach, you can take it with you and you can get
to pretty much any beach anywhere.
And you can see me.
I'm starting to put the pieces together there.
Just that snapped up around it.
I will say this about the assembly process.
It is very easy because there's about four major pieces.
Plus the two tires, you just slide the pieces in where they go.
I'm trying to figure out which piece goes in there.
And as I'll slide this in, I'll put the the pins in it that hold it together.
I'm still just trying to figure it out here.
It would've been a lot easier to read the instructions, but you put
the pins in and it's put together.
You think you have one, it looks like you have five pieces and the two tires.
All of that.
Again, very simple to do what made this chair very easy to maneuver.
Is that it only has two wheels.
I get some help here because somebody's looking at me and watching me and he's
okay, you don't know what you're doing.
And he was right.
But anyway, I said, there were instructions in there.
I just didn't dig them out.
I should've done that.
They're going back to what made easy to maneuvers the
fact that it's just two wheels.
It's very easy then to take the device and steer it on the island
and you just pivot the person that's in it back so that they're balanced.
And then it moves in and steers and turns very easy.
There were some things about this that were a challenge.
And as we see my wife get in a little while, you'll start to
understand what it was that made that a little bit of a challenge.
When we visited the private island for carnival, what we found was, is
they had a beach wheelchairs or sand wheelchairs that were made out of PVC.
And those were easier for my wife to get in and out of, but they, one thing about
them was they were a challenge to drive, especially the four wheeled version of it.
There was a three-wheel, that was a little either.
Again, obviously not portable, nothing you can do to take that with you.
And I said they did not steer easily.
It was hard to maneuver them.
Here on Coco Cay, which is where we're, where we were filmed this piece of it.
What I can say is that the beach wheelchairs they had were better than
the PVC ones in general, but they still weren't to easy to maneuver.
They were taller.
So it was easier for my wife to get in and out of, but it was not nearly
as maneuverable and nearly as easy to push as this one was, this is far and
away, the easiest of them to maneuver.
And I thought to push with my wife.
Now, I say, I found the instructions now starting to read them, but okay.
And provide it started there.
It might've made more sense..
And what that does prove is that even if you don't read the instructions,
you can get it put together if you do it the way it is suggested in
the directions, what you find is it goes to better together, faster and
easier I did it the most awkward way possible, but it still worked..
The one overwhelming advantage that the joy on the beach wheelchair has is
that it lets you take a wheelchair with you when you go places that don't have
wheelchairs available beach, wheelchair, Sand wheelchairs available, you see
how easily that pivoted up right there.
And so that extent it's not small, it's not something that, that you're going to.
You're going to need some space in the cabin you're in to pack it.
Now, even in an inside cabin, that was a standard cabin on Royal Caribbean.
We were able to get it in the cabin.
It was just in the way, a little bit.
When we moved to an accessible cabin, then it wasn't a problem at all.
I'm looking for in digging out the package that has the pins and
things in it so that I can start to put it the rest of it together.
And I would say that with this beach wheelchair, the one thing that'll
depend is on why you need one and what's your ability to transfer for.
So for example, if somebody is a full-time wheelchair user and needs to
transfer, there might be a little bit of a challenge you can fold the arm
up out of the way, but the problem is going to be the difference in height
between the standard wheelchair and the joy on the beach wheelchair.
So that makes a little bit of a challenge.
When you're transferring, if it was for a child or a smaller person,
that person could actually lift I'm getting ready to put the clips
on the wheel very quick and easy.
That was all there was to that.
If you are someone that can transfer up and down vertically without too
much trouble this might work for you.
If it's somebody that has someone with them, that can help them make
the transfer, it might work, but for someone who's a full-time wheelchair
user and is not going to be easily transferred, this would be a challenge.
Like I said, primarily because of the height.
And that was what caused the problem.
As you see in a little while when my wife gets in the wheelchair, that is a problem.
It caused my wife is that she's not very flexible and it was a little
bit hard for her to get down.
She has very long legs.
And so it was hard for her to bend and get down to the chair.
Once she was in the chair, it was fine.
It was very easy for us to use this for me to take.
So now I'm going in and putting in all the little clips that
hold the device together.
Know, I think about places we've been that we couldn't, that
she couldn't go to the beach.
I went to the beach when she couldn't go.
So we looked for example, on carnival, we went to Bimini and it would've
been really nice if she could have gone down and got down by the water
and maybe we could have gotten in the water and done something together.
But because there was so much sand to walk across her wheelchair wouldn't work.
And it's very difficult for her to walk a long distance, without her
wheelchair, something to hold on to short distances, she holds onto me.
But for a long distance, it's been quite a challenge.
If you're getting value from the content, do me a favor, hit the like
button that lets YouTube know they should share it with other people.
And I always appreciate your help.
Thanks trying to make sure I get pins in all the holes.
So it doesn't come part of the moving.
I did have one other favor to ask?.
If you haven't subscribed to my channel, please go ahead and do that way you'll get
notified by clicking a little bell icon.
And again, subscriptions help me too.Thank you much.
It does have safety bars, both directions so that it doesn't
go too low in the front.
Or does it tip over backwards when I'm putting the pins
in right there in that rear.
Do me a favor in the comments.
Let me know if you've ever used a beach wheelchair.
While we were on the island, we used it to go all around the shop
area there, the straw market.
And then we went down to the beach with it and, we had zero trouble maneuvering it.
And it was like, it was very comfortable for her really.
Once she got down.
I want to make sure I've got all the pieces together.
There are a couple of considerations to keep in mind when you're using the joy
on the beach, because after you get it put together and you're ready to go down
to the beach, quiet, probably you have a scooter and you'll have this bag that.
Stored somewhere reasonably secure.
Now, in this case, what we would do is we would leave those things over
by the main office there in this CocoCay located near the straw market.
And there's enough people around that, that we weren't
worried about it going anywhere.
But if you're at a beach somewhere else, then you'd have to, again,
keep that in mind that you're there at the beach and now you're going
to have to go off and leave it.
You'll notice I did carry my fins and my stuff to go snorkeling.
We're there and we got it all put together.
Now I'm going to go over and we're going to get Cheryl and we're
going to get in to the wheelchair.
You'll notice that one of the employees there on a CocoCay
was very nice and came over.
Help me get my wife down to the wheelchair and you can start to
see that the top of the wheel doesn't come up even to her knees.
And so trying to bend down as far she has to bend down, came a little
bit of a challenge, just trying to keep her balance and get down.
Now, once she's in the wheelchair, I said, everything worked fine from then on.
That was the only challenge we had with it.
And I would highly recommend it.
If you're going to some place where you don't have a regular beach wheelchair, you
gotta make sure you have the space for it.
Now I've got to load all the luggage on her and off we go.
small corner there, picture with my face on it.
If you click on that, it'll help subscribe you to the channel.
The other box that the arrow's pointing at is a recommended video for your next time.
Thanks for watching today.