Carnival Sensory Inclusive Bags

On our recent Carnival Pride cruise, we noticed a huge effort by Carnival to make the ship more inclusive and one of those efforts was that they kept touting the sensory bags.

So we decided to try one of them out!

Carnival’s Sensory Inclusive Bags

The sensory bags are produced by KultureCity and contain several things designed to help those who might be overwhelmed by the cruise environment.

You can check the bags out at Guest Services. You will have to give them your room number and they will have you sign them out. Just don’t forget to return them at the end of the cruise!

The goodies come in a small draw-string bag for easy carrying.

The largest and probably one of the most significant things inside Carnival’s Sensory Bag is the noise canceling headphones. Cruises can be loud and overwhelming and these would help to mitigate the noise.

Also included in Carnival’s Sensory Bag are several fidget toys. Honestly, the idea of these is why we picked the bag up in the first place. They were fun to play with for a while, but if you are one of those people who always needs a fidget toy, you probably brought your own with you. But it was nice to have a couple of different types of them.

The last thing in the bag was a couple of different cards. One of them was a feelings card. One side allowed you to describe your emotions without speaking. The other allows you to point to what you need at that particular moment. These would be good for kids or teens who have gotten completely overwhelmed by the cruise.

And then there was a set of QR codes that allowed you to get to the Kulture City website so you could find out more information.

For the record, the QR codes do NOT work if you do not have an internet package on the cruise. If you want to take a look at the website in advance it is: www.kulturecity.org.

What else is Carnival doing to be more inclusive?

Also a shift geared towards inclusivity, there are more handicapped bathrooms than there used to be. Almost all of the restrooms include a button to open the door automatically. All sensors to open doors are placed low enough for those in a wheelchair to use them. Multiples of the hand washing stations in the buffet are wheelchair accessible. There is even a lift to raise a wheelchair onto the stage!

I love that Carnival has really been making an effort to be more inclusive in the past few years. When they first started rolling out this information about trying to be sensory inclusive, I was not sure what it would mean, but with the bags and the warnings they give on events, someone would be able to avoid noise and bright lights. The increased wheelchair accessibility is also an important step for Carnival towards making the seas a space for everyone.