Even if your ship happens to be wheelchair-friendly, Europe may not be. Photo \u00a9 2015 Aaron Saunders<\/p><\/div>\n
Variances in water levels along the rivers can result in steep gangways, and some docking locations are downright unfriendly when it comes to the mobility-impaired. Complicating the issue is that sometimes ships have to berth next to one another in some of the more popular destinations. That means getting off the ship to go into town\u2014and getting back on the ship\u2014sometimes requires climbing stairs to get to the sundeck of one ship, then back down the stairs to get to the lower level, through the lobby of another ship, etc. The photo that leads this post shows our ship, Riviera’s Robert Burns, docked in Budapest.<\/p>\n
AmaPrima and AmaCerto side by side. When ships operated by the same company are docked together, you can almost always walk through the lobby of one to get to the other. Not always the case when ships from different companies are docked side by side. \u00a9 2013 Ralph Grizzle<\/p><\/div>\n
To spare you from having to climb too many stairs onboard, nearly all of the modern river cruise ships do have elevators, but these do not always travel to every deck, and not all ships have accessible staterooms.<\/p>\n
Whether you can take a river cruise or not will ultimately depend on your level of mobility: If you are confined to a wheelchair and cannot leave it for any reason, river cruising likely will not work for you, and we would not recommend it. However, if you are able to stand for short periods of time \u2013 in order to perhaps climb stairs on a motorcoach \u2013 then it puts river cruising within the realm of possibility.<\/p>\n
All of that said, I have seen people in wheelchairs touring Europe by river cruise. They usually have good family support and someone, like me and many others, willing to lend a helping pair of hands. Before making any booking, though, contact the line you\u2019re thinking of and reconfirm whether the line can accommodate wheelchairs in some fashion. While wheelchairs certainly won\u2019t fit through the cabin doors, if one can collapse and the guest can make it into the room with the assistance of a companion, river cruising is possible.<\/p>\n
AmaWaterways rents collapsible wheelchairs for $70 (for the duration of the cruise). Motorized scooters, which can help in navigating the cobblestone streets, also can be rented for $140. Other companies have similar policies.<\/p>\n
If you’re unable to river cruise because of mobility challenges, an overland journey or a cruise aboard a larger cruise ship would likely be a better choice. See our sister site, Avid Cruiser<\/a> for ocean-cruise reviews.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"River cruising is not ideal for those who use wheelchairs or scooters. What are the challenges for the mobility-impaired traveler? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"full-width-content","footnotes":""},"categories":[11924],"tags":[11927,11926,11925],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rivercruiseadvisor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rivercruiseadvisor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rivercruiseadvisor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rivercruiseadvisor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rivercruiseadvisor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rivercruiseadvisor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rivercruiseadvisor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rivercruiseadvisor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rivercruiseadvisor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rivercruiseadvisor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}