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Travel Counsellor books £15,000 cruise for client with disability – and then disaster strikes

Luxury cruise
Emma Dooney
30 May 2026

Di Rhodes sprung into action after learning her client, who has cerebral palsy, had been left stranded in Japan. 

Woman smiling with blonde hair and glasses, her background is a modern kitchen
Di Rhodes

Travel Counsellor Di Rhodes went into crisis management mode after receiving a 3am notification about her client's journey 

A Travel Counsellor has revealed how she helped a disabled client after his British Airways flight failed to depart, saving him from a sleepless layover – and some hefty out-of-pocket expenses.

Di Rhodes had booked Tony D from Gloucester on a Regent Seven Seas Cruises sailing around Japan last October, after receiving his enquiry through fellow Travel Counsellor Emma Otter.

The luxury cruise was intended as a “nostalgia” trip, reconnecting the 70-year-old with the country where he’d once lived and  met his late wife. It also had to be accessible; Tony has cerebral palsy in his knees, and therefore needed certain adaptations from the start to end.