NETSCo’s Phase II of the Mississippi River Cruise project was the design of docking facilities at locations that currently have infrastructure with varying degrees of efficiency and comfort for getting cruise passengers ashore. Our job was to conceive the mooring and embarkation arrangements, and new dock structure for the Viking Mississippi, keeping in mind that the annual water level fluctuations at some of the dock locations can be in excess of 35 ft. The rise and fall of water levels presents a real challenge to providing ADA compliant embarkation, so the innovative design approach uses floating docks and pontoons to provide flexible, ADA compliant embarkation access.
