Solstice B2B problem with Jones Act?

[TXranchgal]

I read about this on June 15th on the Blog for the Solstice.  Another cruiser had posted about their notification.

We have still not had any notification from Celebrity that there is even a problem......  It's now June 20th...   Surely they could have notified us of this problem before we made final payment!!

 

[cruisestitch]

Did you book through a travel agent?  The first notification should go to him/her.  

[Jim_Iain]

I'm definitely not an expert on this but when I looked at the itinerary those that clame to be in expert may or may have not missed what may be important. 

 

Cruise 1 Originates Seattle and ends in Vancouver

Cruise 2 Originates Seattle and ends in Los Angeles

 

What I would do is contact:  Emergency Travel Team they also handle down-line embarkations and disembarkations.    That's who I had to contact to arrange 3 days off the ship to visit the Taj.   They had to check the regulations and then after paying a fee approved our side trip.

 

They can be reached 7 days a week, 24 hours a day at:  Domestic: 1-800-256-6649 (prompt #1) or International: 305-539-4107.  (unless numbers have changed).  

 

 

[Turtles06]

16 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

I'm definitely not an expert on this but when I looked at the itinerary those that clame to be in expert may or may have not missed what may be important. 

 

Cruise 1 Originates Seattle and ends in Vancouver

Cruise 2 Originates Seattle and ends in Los Angeles

 

Jim, according to X's web site, the second cruise [Sept. 16] starts in Vancouver.  The problem is that the OP has booked those 2 cruises B2B, which means that Celebrity is transporting them from one U.S. city (Seattle) to a different U.S. city (Los Angeles), which violates the PVSA because there's no stop at a distant foreign port. 

[Denny01]

This has happened w other Lines. We booked a Viking Great Lakes from Thunder Bay OT to Milwaukee. We then added the Milwaukee to Toronto. That made the entire run through the Great Lakes. Months later, I read on CC a woman was doing the same and was told she couldn’t.
 

i called Viking and got the Oh Yes that’s not allowed. Wow. Celebrity and Viking treat their B2Bs as separate contracting but the PVSA and the Canadian rules don’t. My arguments and my view of  ‘common sense’ was to no avail. 
 

later, Viking moved the departure from Thunder Bay to Duluth so people could make the entire run. Too late for us. Canceled it all and doing a full Mississippi run. 
 

good they moved from Thunder Bay, flying into there was interesting. 
 

den

[WestLakeGirl]

1 hour ago, Jim_Iain said:

I'm definitely not an expert on this but when I looked at the itinerary those that clame to be in expert may or may have not missed what may be important. 

 

Cruise 1 Originates Seattle and ends in Vancouver

Cruise 2 Originates Seattle and ends in Los Angeles

 

What I would do is contact:  Emergency Travel Team they also handle down-line embarkations and disembarkations.    That's who I had to contact to arrange 3 days off the ship to visit the Taj.   They had to check the regulations and then after paying a fee approved our side trip.

 

They can be reached 7 days a week, 24 hours a day at:  Domestic: 1-800-256-6649 (prompt #1) or International: 305-539-4107.  (unless numbers have changed).  

 

 

You have looked at something wrong.  Cruise 2 can’t originate Seattle and end in Los Angeles,  that in and of itself would violate the rules for all passengers (unless it went all the way to South America in between

[Arizona Wildcat]

The letter posted tells you how to solve the problem.  Celebrity cannot solve except by cancelling a leg of your cruise unless you leave the ship as stated.

Where did you book?  When are you cruising?

Thus call Celebrity or your TA.  They will likely not know as much as is posted here.  A copy of the booking for the other poster can explain.

Again it is PVSA.  And the confusion is that there WAS an exemption to PVSA in place for 2021.

[WestLakeGirl]

But that exemption was very narrow in scope in order to allow cruises to Alaska without the required foreighn port visit.  It has expired.

[Arizona Wildcat]

2 hours ago, WestLakeGirl said:

But that exemption was very narrow in scope in order to allow cruises to Alaska without the required foreighn port visit.  

It certainly was. It was an exemption for only 2021.  Some think it is still in place.  That is the confusion.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Arizona Wildcat

[Guest ldtr]

6 hours ago, TXranchgal said:

I read about this on June 15th on the Blog for the Solstice.  Another cruiser had posted about their notification.

We have still not had any notification from Celebrity that there is even a problem......  It's now June 20th...   Surely they could have notified us of this problem before we made final payment!!

 

Quite often these violations, if they are not caught at time of booking, are not identified by the cruise lines until a couple of weeks before the cruise line when they are doing their checks.

 

Not unusual to get past final payment and then get notified 2-3 weeks before the first cruise date.

[Mark_K]

12 hours ago, Denny01 said:

This has happened w other Lines. We booked a Viking Great Lakes from Thunder Bay OT to Milwaukee. We then added the Milwaukee to Toronto. That made the entire run through the Great Lakes. Months later, I read on CC a woman was doing the same and was told she couldn’t.
 

i called Viking and got the Oh Yes that’s not allowed. Wow. Celebrity and Viking treat their B2Bs as separate contracting but the PVSA and the Canadian rules don’t. My arguments and my view of  ‘common sense’ was to no avail. 
 

later, Viking moved the departure from Thunder Bay to Duluth so people could make the entire run. Too late for us. Canceled it all and doing a full Mississippi run. 
 

good they moved from Thunder Bay, flying into there was interesting. 
 

den

That cruise, Thunder Bay to Toronto, would not be a problem from the US perspective.  Maybe there’s a problem from the Canadian side.

[Denny01]

27 minutes ago, Mark_K said:

That cruise, Thunder Bay to Toronto, would not be a problem from the US perspective.  Maybe there’s a problem from the Canadian side.

That’s what is was. Had a Canadian who was very knowledgeable of the rules explain it.
 

And of course being Canadian , apologized. 
 

den

[TXranchgal]

Well - We booked onboard for the 1st cruise and through Celebrity for the B2B.  

 

After talking to Consumer Outreach and they conferred with Emergency Travel - we were offered 4 choices with no extra compensation for any of them.

1 Cancel first Cruise     

2 Cancel 2nd Cruise

3 Cancel both cruises and start over

4 Move one or both cruises to another date but pay CURRENT prices.

 

We chose #3 and cancelled both cruises...... 

Now just hope to get the money back in a timely manner.

 

We have not yet rec'd ANY notification from Celebrity that there is a problem.   

The only way we found out about this fiasco is through this forum and the "Solstice" forum on Cruise Critic.   

 

Not happy about the way this was handled by Celebrity. 

We are Elite Plus but it seems that loyalty is no longer valued if there is an issue. 

We love sailing with Celebrity and plan to continue - but not right away - gotta simmer for a while I guess.....

[JRG]

20 hours ago, TXranchgal said:

Not happy about the way this was handled by Celebrity. 

We are Elite Plus but it seems that loyalty is no longer valued if there is an issue. 

We love sailing with Celebrity and plan to continue - but not right away - gotta simmer for a while I guess.....

 

You are perfectly okay and have stumbled upon the "Biggest Snafu on the Seven Seas"

 

There is so much "mass confusion" on the subject of PVSA violations,  especially as it relates to back to back cruises and your itinerary is very common and is one of the worse offenders of this 'snafu'.

 

To me,  it seems like the problem originated with the travel agent not being able to identify this as a PVSA issue and fell for the common "Jones Act"  excuse.   This is a industry wide mis-conception and they will take our lunch money first and let you deal with the issue when it arises.

 

Maybe someday,   the talking heads will get smart and 'parse-out' the silliness of the PVSA language so that cruise passengers don't have to suffer the obsolescence of an outdated steamboat era protectionist law.

 

 

[cruisestitch]

In this situation, there was no travel agent. Both bookings were made by Celebrity 

Edited June 22, 2022 by cruisestitch

[JRG]

19 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

In this situation, there was no travel agent. Both bookings were made by Celebrity 

 

Thank you for pointing this out.   There was a similar high-level mis-communication by NCL in their forum that was basically the same thing,   the higher ups couldn't differentiate and apparently have used or were using Mrs. Jones instead of Mrs. P.

 

It is comical to me that so many at high levels have displayed this from the postings of the forum members who have been stymied in one way or another.

 

Comical to watch the reactions (at times) but still an unfortunate bummer for a lot of cruisers who simply want to go 'there and back again' without pain.

 

So many instances like this one.

[SusieV]

I'm confused; Why not just book the one day of hotel in Vancouver to satisfy the requirements and still do the cruises?
If I had know it was that simple I might have done that myself instead of just skipping Alaska.

[helen haywood]

I don’t think the cruise line is allowing down line boarding at this time due to covid protocols.

[cruisestitch]

It would be Victoria, not Vancouver. It would require disembark in the ship a day early, and making your way from Victorianto The ship and then starting the next cruise. As noted, right now the cruise lines are not allowing disembiaring downline, the fancy term for leaving the ship before the end of the cruise

Edited June 22, 2022 by cruisestitch

[TXranchgal]

We tried to disembark in Victoria the day before the 1st cruise ended.  We wanted to stay in Victoria until day 2 of the 2nd cruise and pick up the ship again there. 

 

We were told NO!!!  because nowhere in Canada is considered a "DISTANT" port from California or Washington.  

 

We rebooked with another cruise line and are doing the East Coast instead...

 

 

[cruisestitch]

7 minutes ago, TXranchgal said:

We tried to disembark in Victoria the day before the 1st cruise ended.  We wanted to stay in Victoria until day 2 of the 2nd cruise and pick up the ship again there. 

 

We were told NO!!!  because nowhere in Canada is considered a "DISTANT" port from California or Washington.  

 

We rebooked with another cruise line and are doing the East Coast instead...

 

 

Actually your plan if have workedActually your plan if the cruise line was allowing downline disembark and embarkation whic they are not at this time.  that’s the issue with that solution, not the distant port requirement.

Edited June 22, 2022 by cruisestitch

[Boytjie]

On 6/20/2022 at 2:04 PM, verizon said:

I think it"s not a violation of Jones Act.

I remember years ago there was a B2B from Hawaii to Vancouver and end up in Seattle.

 

No, but it is a potential violation of the PSVA; Jones Act is only about cargo, not passengers,

[Boytjie]

On 6/20/2022 at 3:01 PM, Mark_K said:

Maybe it’s both.  PVSA for transporting the people and Jones for transporting their baggage. 😏

 

Jones Act is for cargo, not (accompanied)  baggage. 😉 

[Guest ldtr]

On 6/21/2022 at 10:41 AM, TXranchgal said:

Well - We booked onboard for the 1st cruise and through Celebrity for the B2B.  

 

After talking to Consumer Outreach and they conferred with Emergency Travel - we were offered 4 choices with no extra compensation for any of them.

1 Cancel first Cruise     

2 Cancel 2nd Cruise

3 Cancel both cruises and start over

4 Move one or both cruises to another date but pay CURRENT prices.

 

We chose #3 and cancelled both cruises...... 

Now just hope to get the money back in a timely manner.

 

We have not yet rec'd ANY notification from Celebrity that there is a problem.   

The only way we found out about this fiasco is through this forum and the "Solstice" forum on Cruise Critic.   

 

Not happy about the way this was handled by Celebrity. 

We are Elite Plus but it seems that loyalty is no longer valued if there is an issue. 

We love sailing with Celebrity and plan to continue - but not right away - gotta simmer for a while I guess.....

There is usually not any form of compensation by any cruise line when the problem is due to a PVSA issue.  Sooner or later the problem is identified and action taken, but not compensated, does not matter how many times you have sailed with the line.

[bjahil47]

On 6/20/2022 at 1:01 PM, gerelmx said:

 

You start and end in a USA port, that violates the PVSA. You have one option to avoid it ; disembark in Vancouver at the end of the 1st cruise and embark  for the 2nd cruise in Victoria (next day), you will need to talk with Celebrity to make this possible.

Just curious as to why disembarking in Vancouver at end of 1 st cruise and embarking in Victoria the next day satisfies the requirements. Thanks for explaining