Wheelchairs not welcome?

In my experience I’ve found cruise holidays sailing from the UK a particular attraction for passengers who are confined to a wheelchair or at least require use of a wheelchair whilst on holiday, due in part to the relative ease of not having to negotiate stringent airport security protocol and the ‘less than spacious’ environment which is economy air travel.

It was only recently when trying to organise a trip for a very good client of mine that I realised the limitations imparted onto those looking to book wheelchair accessible cabins, in particular on the Queen Mary 2.

My client was looking for a Balcony cabin on one of two sailings next September or October (2014) only to find no availability on either. This far in advance I assumed this was just an oversight on the part of Cunard, until I investigated further.

The reason my client couldn’t book a Balcony cabin for next October was indeed as they had all sold out.

When I say all…I mean all 3 of the wheelchair accessible Balcony cabins on the Queen Mary 2.

That’s right, aside from Queens and Princess Suites (which are generally over budget for many travellers) Inside and Outside cabins, the Queen Mary 2 has 3 standard wheelchair accessible Balcony cabins.

3!……that’s less than a quarter of one percent of available cabins. – Hardly provides much of an opportunity does it.

In total, of the 1310 cabins on the Queen Mary 2, 30 are wheelchair accessible, that’s just over 2% of all cabins.  Now while that’s in line with statistics among the general population I would have thought a product as conducive to wheelchair users as ex UK cruising would offer more.

We hear more and more these days of how cruise lines just want to get you on board and get you spending, well on that basis surely the wheelchair user is the perfect passenger. It would be fair to say they may spend more time on board than their able bodies counterparts due to the fact they may do less excursions and possibly less shore visits due to the physical challenges involved.

So why, if in their eyes they have such a potential gold-mine do Cunard offer such little opportunity to get them on board in the first place?

Any thoughts or comments would be much appreciated.