Q – We are interested in spring or fall of 2016. My husband has health limitations, requiring extra rest. He may need to bring a Travel Scooter for taking city walks, or we’ll need to plan for a taxi. We need help in understanding which lines, trips, cabins would best suit us. We have not taken a river cruise previously, and found your website most helpful. We have both traveled in Europe many times.
A – Thank you for your question. Given liability issues, you will want to work with a firm that specializes in handling cruises for those with some form of mobility issues. This is a very specialized field and river boats are not particularly well-suited to accommodating motor scooters. Crew is not usually allowed to help with lifting wheelchairs or scooters on or off the boat.
We are not experts in this field and we would direct you to the experts at either Sage Traveling or Flying Wheels Travel. Generally speaking, we would suggest you look first at Scenic. Each of their boats has elevators and handicapped equipped cabins. Several of the AMA Waterways boats also have handicap access cabins. Despite the availability of these cabins, your request would still need to be presented to the legal department at each line to see if they are willing to assume liability. This may all seem rather harsh, but we want to be honest with you. River boats are not constructed to meet the same accessibility rules as hotels or cruise ships.
