Must cancel first leg of B2B due to Jones Act/Passenger Services Act ... Options?

[chengkp75]

So my question is a B2B starting in Quebec to NYC first leg, and from NYC to Quebec 2nd leg, legal?

 

Legal for a couple of reasons. If treated as one cruise, it starts and ends in Canada, so the PVSA has no bearing. If treated as two cruises, the first one starts in Canada, so PVSA has no bearing, and second one ends in Canada, so PVSA has no bearing. The PVSA only affects a cruise (or combination of cruises on the same ship) that begins in one US port and ends in a different US port. Any cruise, or combination of cruises that begins or ends in a non-US port is not subject to the PVSA.

[J&Bcruisers]

Legal for a couple of reasons. If treated as one cruise, it starts and ends in Canada, so the PVSA has no bearing. If treated as two cruises, the first one starts in Canada, so PVSA has no bearing, and second one ends in Canada, so PVSA has no bearing. The PVSA only affects a cruise (or combination of cruises on the same ship) that begins in one US port and ends in a different US port. Any cruise, or combination of cruises that begins or ends in a non-US port is not subject to the PVSA.

 

Thank you!

[Royal Crown Cruiser]

There is another thread that was discussed in depth about PVSA/Jones Act. It's worth reading plus their educational feedbacks to this discussion. I learned some new things that I didn't know before.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1960023

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[actuarian]

Whoever wrote the law decided that Canada isn't a foreign port ... makes no sense ...

 

If Canada isn't a foreign port for this purpose, then why is it considered a foreign port for Alaska cruises? There are plenty of Alaska cruises (both one way and closed loop) that have no stops outside of the USA except for Vancouver.

[chengkp75]

If Canada isn't a foreign port for this purpose, then why is it considered a foreign port for Alaska cruises? There are plenty of Alaska cruises (both one way and closed loop) that have no stops outside of the USA except for Vancouver.

 

That poster has learned, from the many previous posts in this thread, the difference between a "foreign" port and a "distant foreign" port, and the different requirements for a "closed loop" cruise and an "open jaw" cruise. Please read all of the posts, and it should become clear. And, yes, Canada is considered a "foreign" port, just not a "distant foreign" port.

[thinfool]

If Canada isn't a foreign port for this purpose, then why is it considered a foreign port for Alaska cruises? There are plenty of Alaska cruises (both one way and closed loop) that have no stops outside of the USA except for Vancouver.

 

 

 

The statement you quoted has long since been corrected.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[actuarian]

If Canada isn't a foreign port for this purpose, then why is it considered a foreign port for Alaska cruises? There are plenty of Alaska cruises (both one way and closed loop) that have no stops outside of the USA except for Vancouver.

 

My mistake; the Alaska cruises that start in US ports all seem to terminate in Canada. I guess someone imagined that forcing the cruises to end in Canada somehow benefited the US economy.

[chengkp75]

My mistake; the Alaska cruises that start in US ports all seem to terminate in Canada. I guess someone imagined that forcing the cruises to end in Canada somehow benefited the US economy.

 

Well, a couple of problems with your statements. First, there are quite a lot of round trip Alaska cruises that start in Seattle and end in Seattle. There are some round trips out of Vancouver, but a lot of the cruises that start or end in Vancouver are one way, ending or starting in Alaska, so these could not end in Seattle, or anywhere in the US.

 

Secondly, while I understand that this is a cruise forum, and there tends to be a certain amount of parochialism towards cruising, there are a couple of things to know about the PVSA:

 

1. It is the Passenger Vessel Services Act, not the Cruise Vessel Services Act, and

2. The international definition of a Passenger vessel: "any ship that carries more than 12 passengers for hire".

 

These two facts mean that contrary to most CC members' view, the cruise industry is only a small part of the PVSA trade. This law requires the same construction, ownership, flagging, and crewing requirements for every water taxi, commuter boat, ferry, duck tour, whale watching excursion boat, dinner cruise, casino boat, and many larger charter fishing boats.

 

Also, CLIA, the cruise industry association, has stated that the cruise lines have no interest in lobbying for changes in the PVSA. They worked with Puerto Rico to get an exemption for PR (which is only valid until a US ship starts passenger service between the island and the mainland US), it took 10 years of lobbying, and only Carnival started having one way cruises, and quit them after a year or two. The industry sees little potential benefit to their bottom line by offering cruises that would be covered by the PVSA, and fear a negative impact if stricter regulations were imposed in response to an exemption. The USCG has far stricter safety, training, and environmental regulations for US flag ships than it can enforce on foreign flag cruise ships when they inspect them. For instance, the USCG inspections of foreign flag cruise ships is targeted to visit every foreign flag cruise ship calling in the US once a year, but budget constraints make this sometimes impossible. US flag cruise ships, like the NCL POA, must have mandatory USCG inspections 4 times a year.

[MauiLvrs]

Whoever wrote the law decided that Canada isn't a foreign port ... makes no sense ...

 

 

 

It. Is a foreign port on an Alaska cruise...

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[actuarian]

Well, a couple of problems with your statements. First, there are quite a lot of round trip Alaska cruises that start in Seattle and end in Seattle.

 

Sorry, I should have included "except closed loop cruises". Of course, those often start and end in Seattle, after making a mandatory stop in Vancouver or Victoria. However, from a strictly economic point of view, it makes no sense to allow foreign flagged ships to do one-way cruises from Vancouver to Anchorage but not from Seattle to Anchorage. All it does is deny a lot of business to the port of Seattle since you can see a lot more of Alaska from a 7-day one way cruise than from a 7-day closed loop cruise. Nevertheless, that is the law.

[chengkp75]

Sorry, I should have included "except closed loop cruises". Of course, those often start and end in Seattle, after making a mandatory stop in Vancouver or Victoria. However, from a strictly economic point of view, it makes no sense to allow foreign flagged ships to do one-way cruises from Vancouver to Anchorage but not from Seattle to Anchorage. All it does is deny a lot of business to the port of Seattle since you can see a lot more of Alaska from a 7-day one way cruise than from a 7-day closed loop cruise. Nevertheless, that is the law.

 

And on the other hand, if you allow a foreign flag cruise ship to carry passengers from Seattle to Anchorage, then the Alaska Marine Highway could flag themselves to Marshall Islands, hire foreign crew instead of 1100 US citizens, not pay US taxes, and bypass USCG regulations. And that would apply as well to the Washington State Ferries' fleet of 22 vessels, the largest ferry service in the world.

[actuarian]

And on the other hand, if you allow a foreign flag cruise ship to carry passengers from Seattle to Anchorage, then the Alaska Marine Highway could flag themselves to Marshall Islands, hire foreign crew instead of 1100 US citizens, not pay US taxes, and bypass USCG regulations. And that would apply as well to the Washington State Ferries' fleet of 22 vessels, the largest ferry service in the world.

 

If you follow that logic, why allow foreign flagged ships to do closed loop cruises out of US ports? The bottom line is that the port of Miami does fine because the Caribbean is amenable to closed loop cruising and the port of Seattle gets the shaft because Alaska is not.

[chengkp75]

If you follow that logic, why allow foreign flagged ships to do closed loop cruises out of US ports? The bottom line is that the port of Miami does fine because the Caribbean is amenable to closed loop cruising and the port of Seattle gets the shaft because Alaska is not.

 

No, the port of Miami does fine because the weather there is good year round, unlike Seattle, and Miami happens to be closer to more destinations than Seattle. Seattle is just as amenable to closed loop cruising as Miami, except the weather limits the days of the year people want to cruise from there, and there is only one destination, Alaska. Neither of these is the fault of the PVSA.

 

Let me ask you, how would you frame a law that would ban foreign flag ships from carrying passengers to a foreign country and then bringing them back to the same US port, as this is a "foreign voyage"? How do you discriminate between human cargo and non-human cargo in this ban? How do you discriminate between Panamanian flag cruise ships and Panamanian flag container ships? And if you don't discriminate between passenger and cargo vessels, you remove the single largest merchant fleet from being able to trade to the US, with the resultant loss of imports and exports and the impact on the US economy.

 

There are international definitions of "foreign trade" and "coastwise trade", and while any nation can make cabotage laws to protect its own coastwise trade, limiting foreign trade becomes another whole ball of wax.

[nealstuber]

And on the other hand, if you allow a foreign flag cruise ship to carry passengers from Seattle to Anchorage, then the Alaska Marine Highway could flag themselves to Marshall Islands, hire foreign crew instead of 1100 US citizens, not pay US taxes, and bypass USCG regulations. And that would apply as well to the Washington State Ferries' fleet of 22 vessels, the largest ferry service in the world.

 

 

 

Hate to tangle with you again in this subject KP, but you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth. Earlier in this thread you explained that the PVSA was about safety on steam boats, not protecting US jobs.

Can we please agree that the PVSA may have been originally enacted for many reasons, but it’s primary purpose at this point is to protect US jobs?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[chengkp75]

Hate to tangle with you again in this subject KP, but you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth. Earlier in this thread you explained that the PVSA was about safety on steam boats, not protecting US jobs.

Can we please agree that the PVSA may have been originally enacted for many reasons, but it’s primary purpose at this point is to protect US jobs?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

While it does protect US jobs, it still protects the safety of the public by requiring that the vessels meet USCG regulations, which are stricter than the SOLAS regulations the USCG can inspect for on foreign flag cargo and cruise ships. And it protects those jobs because the USCG requires stricter training and licensing requirements for those jobs than other nations. Without requiring US citizens, they could not impose their training requirements. It also levels the playing field, since over 80 nations world-wide have some form of maritime cabotage laws, including Russia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, China, and the EU.

[CruisinCons]

Wow - this is all so interesting. I've been cruising since 1992 and have never even heard of this. I'm curious about one sailing from 1997. It started in San Juan, and repo'd to New York City via 3 days in Bermuda. Technically, is San Juan a US or foreign port? Puerto Rico is part of the United States.

 

This was one leg of a very long repo from Hawaii or someplace in the Pacific I found out tonight (from some one who was a crew member on that ship) but my sailing just was from San Juan to NYC. So since we didn't visit a DISTANT port, it's not legal, right?

 

I guess all this explains why my repo in 2018 from Boston to Ft Lauderdale has to go all the way to Aruba, LOL.

[whitshel]

I just don't get it, this is 5 pages long with plenty of explanation on what the laws are and why they are in place. Everyone wants to just argue on why its an outdated law, why its stupid or it doesn't make sense. Like ck said if this was a big deal to the cruise lines they would ban together and try and get it changed, but in reality it's such a minutia part of the cruise industry that they don't give a sh*t about it.

 

Think about the airlines, you cant take British Airways jet from LA to NY, Kansas city to Seattle or Miami to Boston or any 2 US destination, and I'm sure most of you get why, it's basically the same with the cruise lines, these are foreign flagged vessels that don't comply with US labor laws. If the cruise lines wanted this they would build these ships in the US and flag them US, my guess, other than the 1 NCL, this isn't going to happen

 

And yes, I've taken 2 Ensenada to Hawaii cruises that I had to drive from home in San Diego, get on a bus at the port of San Diego (where my ship just dropped off 2500 pax and left empty to go to Ensenada) and take a 4 hour bus ride to get on my ship in Ensenada to go to Hawaii. Was it a PITA, hell yes it was, but it's the law.

[Ourusualbeach]

Wow - this is all so interesting. I've been cruising since 1992 and have never even heard of this. I'm curious about one sailing from 1997. It started in San Juan, and repo'd to New York City via 3 days in Bermuda. Technically, is San Juan a US or foreign port? Puerto Rico is part of the United States.

 

This was one leg of a very long repo from Hawaii or someplace in the Pacific I found out tonight (from some one who was a crew member on that ship) but my sailing just was from San Juan to NYC. So since we didn't visit a DISTANT port, it's not legal, right?

 

I guess all this explains why my repo in 2018 from Boston to Ft Lauderdale has to go all the way to Aruba, LOL.

 

If the cruise begins or ends in San Juan the requirement for a distant foreign port is waived.