Cruise Warning for Disabled Travelers Voyages of Discovery

Cruise Warning!!!

Syd & June Burns, of Penrith, England, sent the following warning for disabled travelers. Syd writes:

We have been waiting for an outcome to our "planned" cruise through the Adriatic It was scheduled for Oct. 5th by a company called Voyages of Discovery. This company and ship splits its cruises between the USA and Europe, half a year each. We first saw the cruise advert in the prestigious Radio Times and thought it was for us. We booked a wheelchair friendly cabin and told the representative our needs and that appeared no problem. The deposit was paid and then the full amount. So far so good. Everything was completed in a most professional manner. A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that there was no mention of my requested lift on lift off the aircraft for June. We were flying from Manchester to Venice.

I spoke to a very competent customer relation’s man about our request and he suddenly said, "You do realise that because of health and safety regulations no member of the crew can assist you in any way". Balls, said I. what is the use of having disabled people onboard if you can't help them on or off the ship?" There are quite a lot of stops with this cruise, so that meant June would have been totally ship bound for the whole voyage. He said rules and regulations forbid it and then offered us our money back. We were totally outraged but never said anything until we got our hands on our money, in case we were the victims of some sort of a scam.

The money came in last week to our relief. We are now making the necessary complaints and put a word of warning out to possible travellers with this company.

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