Wheelchair users cannot visit ~40% of cruise ports because tenders block access

Many cruise itineraries include 'tender ports' where the ship cannot dock and passengers must transfer to small boats. Motorized wheelchairs and scooters cannot be taken onto tenders. Passengers must be able to walk a few steps and use a collapsible manual wheelchair under 100 pounds. This means a passenger with ALS, advanced MS, or any condition requiring a power wheelchair is simply told they cannot visit that port — after paying full fare for the itinerary. Cruise lines disclose this in fine print but do not offer refunds for inaccessible ports. In 2024, American Cruise Lines settled with the DOJ after complaints that it failed to provide accessible embarkation/disembarkation procedures. In 2025, a California resident sued Princess Cruise Lines after suffering a catastrophic fracture on a non-ADA-compliant wheelchair ramp. This persists because building accessible tender platforms is expensive and the ADA's application to foreign-flagged vessels is legally contested. The Americans with Disabilities Act applies to cruise ships departing from U.S. ports, but enforcement is complaint-driven and penalties are small relative to cruise line revenues. Cruise lines calculate that it is cheaper to exclude disabled passengers from tender ports than to retrofit their entire tender fleet.