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Viking Not Coming to United States


djett
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The author obviously wrote this with ideology first and fact-checking second. The law was not protectionist when enacted, and it continues to do a valuable service protecting Americans from the kind of ferry disasters that continue to happen in other places around the world. Another gaffe: there is no exception for Alaska cruises that allows foreign vessels to sail exclusively among US ports -- that's why the cruises either start or end in Vancouver or call on Victoria. [Perhaps the author is unaware that Canada is a foreign country ;p]

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Bummer. Somewhat surprised that Viking did not take this long standing law into account when first speaking about the Mississippi, etc.

Anyone been on one of the current Mississippi Steamboat cruises?

They're not alone. I know of one major cruise line that wasn't aware of the PVSA when they expanded to the Alaska cruise market, and wound up with a whole lot of disappointed passengers when their LA/Vancouver & Vancouver/Seattle B2B cruises were determined to be illegal 2 months before the cruises went. They had to refund and "make good" with a lot of unhappy people.

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I am not convinced that Viking has given up for good on cruising the Mississippi.

 

I suspect at some point they will find a way to do it within the current law.

 

I hope you're correct. On our cruise in September, Viking announced the Mississippi plans and we were looking forward to taking that itinerary with Viking because of the great service we experienced on the Rhine Getaway.

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I hope you're correct. On our cruise in September, Viking announced the Mississippi plans and we were looking forward to taking that itinerary with Viking because of the great service we experienced on the Rhine Getaway.

 

They announced on ours just one week ago. I don't think they've given up.

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Viking said they´ve put their plans on "hold".

 

They have tried to get an exemption but failed. Actually there is no ship yard which has experiences in building river cruise ships (especially the way Viking wants them). The only ship yard which has experiences is owned by American Cruise Lines.

 

Viking thought they can just use size adjusted boats based on the Longships. They did expect the river communities to build landings. They didn´t want to add a stage / gangplank which is sort of required by the US Coast Guard (not specifically for a regular landing but an irregular - high/low water or choking a stomp or an emergency landing along the river).

 

steamboats

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I don't think that this will happen anytime soon. I live by Hannibal, MO and Keokuk, IA and they were very disappointed as they were to be stops for Viking. They were already committed to revamping their docking areas but Viking has said no for now, per our local newspaper.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sweet Tea Two -- There are two different forums on Cruise Critic for Viking: this one for Viking RIVER cruises, and this other one for Viking OCEAN cruises:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=875

 

It may be that the air departments are similar or the same, but otherwise the two lines operate very differently and it only causes confusion to try to offer advice based on one to a query relating to the other.

 

Also do NOT mention Travel Agents or agencies by name -- I had to remove one of your posts in another thread for this reason.

 

Posting in ALL CAPS is shouting and violates netiquette and CC guidelines -- please read the guidelines!

Edited by Host Jazzbeau
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Only way is if they build a new river cruise boat in the US. And flag it in the US.

 

Yep. That’s all possible.

 

While it is possible, it does not meet with Viking's economic model, as stated in the article. I would be surprised if building longboats in the US only cost twice as much as in Europe, particularly for the initial builds, until the shipyard gets experience, and an infrastructure of manufacturing cabin modules gets created.

 

I'm also not sure Viking took into account all the costs involved in operating a US flag vessel, much like when I was hired by NCL for their US flag Hawaiian operations, and their head of HR told me that they had "no clue how to deal with US maritime labor", and their plan after reflagging to keep foreign crew onboard to continue training US crew, which would have been illegal, and all of this after months and months of preparation for US flag operations. The Congressional Budget Office has determined that it costs about $1-1.5 million a year more to operate a container ship with a crew of 20 under US flag as opposed to foreign flag, I would suspect that a longboat would run about the same. So, in addition to increased capital costs, Viking would see increased operating costs, and the river cruises would not be priced anything near what they charge for European cruises.

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  • 3 weeks later...
The author obviously wrote this with ideology first and fact-checking second. The law was not protectionist when enacted, and it continues to do a valuable service........... US ports -- that's why the cruises either start or end in Vancouver or call on Victoria. [Perhaps the author is unaware that Canada is a foreign country ;p]

 

 

 

Other than the minor gaffe regarding the “Alaska” exception, the original article was an excellent discussion describing Viking’s aborted attempt to enter the US market.

 

 

You are incorrect in your assertion that the PVSA & the Jones Act are an attempt to ensure safety. You can talk to anyone in the US Maritime Administration, the Federal Maritime Commission or any maritime historian and they will point out that the goal of the cabotage laws are to provide an industrial shipbuilding infrastructure & to make sure that there is a pool of qualified US seamen in case of war.

 

We have lost both the industrial base & the qualified seamen but the restrictions continue.

 

A more effective approach would be to allow foreign-built vessels to flag in the US but require US officers & operating crew.

 

 

But I ramble on too much.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

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The thing that many don't realize is that the "US built" restrictions allow for a large percentage of the ship to be of foreign origin. Aker shipyard in Philadelphia builds Jones Act compliant tankers that have only the hull steel built in the US. Everything else, all the machinery, all the piping, electrical, and accommodation fixtures, even catwalks, stairs and handrails, are all fabricated in Korea, assembled into manageable sections, and shipped to the US for assembly.

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All longships are built in Rostock, Germany, to a model which is used again again, i.e. all longships are the same in their basic structure: http://www.neptunwerft.de/en/neptunwerft_de/schiffe/flusskreuzfahrtschiffe/flusskreuzfahrtschiffe_2.jsp For the Elbe the model was adapted which gave us the purpose-built Viking Beyla and Viking Astrild. Having used the old KD ships on that route before they were well aware of the rivers problems but the infrastructure was already there. It appears then that on the Mississippi this is not the case. Getting requirements of the local authorities sorted will naturally slow down the process of getting a river cruise ship on that river. It seems to me that Viking made too big a leap publicising their plans. With "putting their plans on hold" I hope it does not mean that they are going to apply a tactics of "mürbe machen" as we call it - making someone give in (in this case the authorities and the laws for that river) by continuing to utter one's wishes for a looong time.

 

Talks with the authorities in Paris failed and the longships moved out to LePecq where all ships with more than 125m dock. Arosa has decided to "grin and bear" it and send a 135m ship from the Rhine to be able to offer cruises on the Seine. Uniworld must have been aware of this in some way and made the unusual but logical decision to built a ship with a hull of 125m, the S.S. Joie de Vivre. The discussion between Viking and the French authorities are publsished online, by the way, in French.

 

While the Viking ships are built in Germany and the old ships where registered in Germany too, registration for the longships is in Switzerland. Many companies like Malta, too, for tax reasons.

 

American hull, Swiss registration, Eastern European crew, I expect is not a good model for the US, i.e. is not something the authorities like? Please regard this as a real question, not rhetorical. In Europe there is no (or very few) problems with this business structure.

 

notamermaid

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No, to be PVSA compliant, the ship must be built in the US (within the foreign content limits mentioned above), US flag (registration), US crewed (all US citizens or up to 25% of unlicensed crew being US resident aliens (green card)), and US owned (so Viking would need a US subsidiary).

 

You may be right in their intention to try and wait out the legal problems, but given the history of challenges to the PVSA, this won't work.

 

Since there are really no port facilities for these kinds of ships on the Mississippi, it will really require new infrastructure, and this can be suited to the needs of the ships, rather than the other way around.

 

To compare to Europe, a river cruise flagged in a EU country is allowed to carry passengers between EU ports, but one flagged in Panama would not be allowed. This is the EU equivalent of the PVSA. Though its a bit different due to the EU being a collection of independent nations and the US being a collection of states.

Edited by chengkp75
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notamermaid, the Mississippi river system is not really comparable to the European rivers. You hardly find any floating docking areas (Steiger) or any docking areas where you can dock alongside. Most of the river banks are sloping into the river. So usually the river boats "run" their nose into the river bank and you disembark using a stage/gangplank which covers the distance between the boat and the dry land. Some river towns do have a docking area where you can dock alongside like New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Memphis, Alton, Hannibal, La Crosse and I think St. Paul and Louisville and Pittsburgh. But St. Louis, Cincinnati and many smaller towns don´t. They were trying to convince the towns to build a docking area which fitted their needs.

 

And I remember they didn´t want to use a stage. But US Coast Guard wanted it. In some cases you need to "choke a stump" (tie up the boat on a tree), some times for emergencies. That´s when you need a stage.

 

Locks have completely different sizes than the ones in Europe. Rivers have a 9 ft channel guaranteed. But a flat bottom hull is needed.

 

Cheng, I remember that Viking had a Calfornian investment company which would have acted as owner of the ships. Not sure if that would have been enough to be PVSA compliant. They tried to get an exemption especially from the "US built" rule.

 

steamboats

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