Maui

[chengkp75]

59 minutes ago, dockman said:

personally i would like to see a carve out to allow a work around of the PVSA and open the Hawaii market up to cruise competiton

Until the international definition of "passenger vessel" changes, that's not going to happen.

 

59 minutes ago, dockman said:

many powerful people and lobbyists who do not want that to happen.

Unlike many people's opinion, the maritime labor lobby is not that powerful, but a really powerful lobbyist, CLIA, does not want any change to the PVSA, as they fear that the alternative would require more US regulation like wages and taxes, than would be gained by the addition of domestic routes.

[dockman]

39 minutes ago, JRG said:

 

And the same thing happened in 1998 when the House Sub-Committee on Marine Transportation  met ( and the Administrations mysteriously did not attend) and in the transcripts you can read the pros and cons,  reflected in the language that you would expect and they discussed modifying the PVSA, mostly for purposes of jumpstarting the shipbuilding industry,  The panel was made up of some professionals for opposed change and some professionals who were Advocating Change,  like retired US Coast Guard Admiral Kime,  who was trying to get it changed for the above aforementioned reason.

 

Long story short, it looks like the House passed the Bill and it crashed and burned in the Senate.

I suspect that the political orientation of the Senate knew that the bill would veto'd at the highest level.

 

Damn the Torpedoes.  

 

 

 

I attended some of those hearings....there were some high paid lobbyist there totally against anything that would open any tiny cracks in the entire jones  pvsa acts...between their power and Inouye pushing for the ncl deal there was pretty much zero chance of any carve out.

[JRG]

On 8/15/2023 at 6:09 PM, cr8tiv1 said:

The mayor of Honolulu suspended that, but it doesn't help that there is already a housing shortage.

 

I would welcome your comments on my previous post.  I forgot to mention the housing shortage.

 

I would also welcome @CruiserBruce and his opinion if my suggestion makes sense from the professionals who do this for a living and who,  like us and our families and countless others who have been to Maui many times and driven on that isolated road as it his that treelined coastine and heads to Front steet and LaHaina,  there was no where to run.

 

If residents and locals knew and saw that CruiseShip's were there with LIfeboats,  How many people whould not have perished in their cars because they were hemmed in with nowhere to run but the sea which is meters away.

 

Or those who were in the water and knew they could swim no further with no help in sight.

 

Tell me what you think.  

 

[CruiserBruce]

Had there been a cruise ship in the immediate area...like less than 30 minutes sailing time, could they have made a difference in saving lives? Possibly.  But, given that most cruise ships are in port during the day, probably only ships anchored at Laihina would have been available. 

 

I am very, very far from an expert at cruise line economics, but I seriously doubt the islands could support 10 or 15 cruise ship doing cruises within the islands, even if there was some exceptions made to the PVSA.

 

As to the implied use of cruise ships for housing the burned out, I understand,  between hotels, AirBnB and VRBO, all those who lost their homes will be housed shortly,  if they haven't already.

[JRG]

28 minutes ago, dockman said:

I attended some of those hearings....there were some high paid lobbyist there totally against anything that would open any tiny cracks in the entire jones  pvsa acts...

 

I will pass the microphone back to you and continue to support Maui and Hawaii and continue the thread, having nothing else to add.

 

Thank you for listening to my idea as a contribution,  we own a timeshare in Hawaii.  We will come back to Maui and we want to be as safe as residents.

 

Its not just the money donated that will rebuild a safe Maui,  it will be the ideas that the money is spent on that will make keep everybody safe.

 

 

[dockman]

1 minute ago, JRG said:

 

I will pass the microphone back to you and continue to support Maui and Hawaii and continue the thread, having nothing else to add.

 

Thank you for listening to my idea as a contribution,  we own a timeshare in Hawaii.  We will come back to Maui and we want to be as safe as residents.

 

Its not just the money donated that will rebuild a safe Maui,  it will be the ideas that the money is spent on that will make keep everybody safe.

 

 

Good luck to you.  I can tell you living here and watching story after story and interviews of maui people is enough to bring you to tears almost daily...the big worldwide media of course covers a lot but the local tv stations dig much deeper and it is even worse than most outside of hawaii can imagine....it is hard to watch but the people living it have been through pure hell.

[dockman]

5 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

Had there been a cruise ship in the immediate area...like less than 30 minutes sailing time, could they have made a difference in saving lives? Possibly.  But, given that most cruise ships are in port during the day, probably only ships anchored at Laihina would have been available. 

 

I am very, very far from an expert at cruise line economics, but I seriously doubt the islands could support 10 or 15 cruise ship doing cruises within the islands, even if there was some exceptions made to the PVSA.

 

As to the implied use of cruise ships for housing the burned out, I understand,  between hotels, AirBnB and VRBO, all those who lost their homes will be housed shortly,  if they haven't already.

Most all are being housed in kaanapali hotels as well as airbnb, peoples homes who have welcomed displaced to live for free at their houses etc...from what i have seen i do not think a cruise ship could have in any way rescued people from the burning fires..there was no way they could have brought any tenders etc into lahaina during the fires as boats were on fire in the harbor and the wind was blowing massive amounts of furnace hot embers everywhere..

 

it is /was horrible how fast and how hot that fire was...a lot of lahaina was old wooden buildings that got hit by a blast furnace and were gone in seconds/minutes..

 

.a tiny bit of good news is that the experts have gone over the banyan tree in detail and seem to think that it will survive it all which does give a tiny bit of hope to many who loved that tree as a center point of lahaina for 150 years

[mousefan73]

19 hours ago, dockman said:

As said if NCL doesn't like the deal that they made they should pull out....they obviously did not do a good job of researching the operating costs in Hawaii. 

 

Maybe then Hawaii might take a good hard look at why the NCL model did not work and reconsider the entire cruise situation in the islands.  Hawaii could and should be a major cruise destination but it obviously does not work the way it is currently structured

How can hawaii be a major cruise destination based on the current law ( POA model) and simply the distance ( number of sea days ) from the mainland?

[CruiserBruce]

1 hour ago, mousefan73 said:

How can hawaii be a major cruise destination based on the current law ( POA model) and simply the distance ( number of sea days ) from the mainland?

Guess we need to define what a "major cruise destination " is. How many visits does that require?

[dockman]

3 hours ago, mousefan73 said:

How can hawaii be a major cruise destination based on the current law ( POA model) and simply the distance ( number of sea days ) from the mainland?

The only way Hawaii will ever offer a variety of cruises like 7 day, 3 day, 4 day, 10 day interisland cruises is to have a carve out of the pvsa act that allows foreign built and crewed ships to operate freely instead of having the POA restrictions. 

 

Currently the only way around that is to come all the way from the west coast with a vancouver or mexico stop or go all the way to fanning island and back ...either of those options requires a lot of sea days ....and even with that the sale price of those cruises is less than a basic 7 day interisland cruise on most POA sailings due to the higher cost of the pvsa act. 

 

In my opinion Hawaii without the pvsa restrictions would have several ships based here year round offering affordable 3, 4, 7, and 10 day interisland cruises...especially as hotel prices as well as F & B car rentals interisland air etc would make those cruises extremely popular as the price would be well below a land based Hawaii vacation.  One of these decades it will happen but probably not anytime soon.

[mousefan73]

5 hours ago, dockman said:

The only way Hawaii will ever offer a variety of cruises like 7 day, 3 day, 4 day, 10 day interisland cruises is to have a carve out of the pvsa act that allows foreign built and crewed ships to operate freely instead of having the POA restrictions. 

 

Currently the only way around that is to come all the way from the west coast with a vancouver or mexico stop or go all the way to fanning island and back ...either of those options requires a lot of sea days ....and even with that the sale price of those cruises is less than a basic 7 day interisland cruise on most POA sailings due to the higher cost of the pvsa act. 

 

In my opinion Hawaii without the pvsa restrictions would have several ships based here year round offering affordable 3, 4, 7, and 10 day interisland cruises...especially as hotel prices as well as F & B car rentals interisland air etc would make those cruises extremely popular as the price would be well below a land based Hawaii vacation.  One of these decades it will happen but probably not anytime soon.

What you described would totally change the landscape of the Hawaiian islands. Would the Hawaiian people want this? Would Kaui, Hilo be able to handle let’s say two or three large ships a day, every day?  Even countries like Norway and Croatia, who have towns, depending on tourist money, are starting to say no 

[dockman]

I certainly can't speak for the Hawaiian people but can tell you that many are opposed to more and more hotel/condo developments.  On the other hand a lot of people make their living from tourists so that is always a factor.

 

Part of the thinking is that ships are sort of floating hotels that would come into the ports where  people would get off and take all kind of tours, passengers would go shopping, spend a pile of $$, the ship would likely buy all kinds of supplies from local vendors/suppliers, there would be more jobs at the ports  tour companies shops etc.....and best of all the toursist would get back on the ship and sail away at the end of the day leaving lots of $$ behind.

 

Of course as said there are limits as to how many passengers how many ships in one day etc...i suspect that could be somewhat controlled by local laws or port restrictions...it is a balancing act between more and more concrete and 24 hour a day tourism and possible filling some of the high demand via cruise ships.  
 

 

Many many of the dollars spent in Hawaii hotels do not necessarily stay in hawaii as they are owned by huge corporations and the profits may well flow back to the corporate arm...I would guess that most locals are pretty tired of more and more condos and hotels being built everywhere most of which is controlled/owned by foreign owners willing to pay millions ++ for a condo that sits empty half or more of the time while many locals are piled on top of each other because they have been priced out of the market.  How a young hawaii couple could ever afford to buy a home unless they inherieted something or had a very high paying job is a mystery.  The downpayment alone is likely to be 150 to 200 k plus can u qualify for the rest in a mortgage...condo HOA fees alone are more than many can afford. Hawaii is not a cheap place to live and slowly the locals are being forced to move to vegas or washington or somewhere else to have any hope of buying a home.

 

So maybe just maybe cruise ships are at least a partial answer as to a way to keep the toursit money flowing without building more and more hotels?  One thing is pretty certain and that is if u let the developers build all they want they would want it all.

Edited August 22, 2023 by dockman

[chengkp75]

Most municipalities find that cruise tourists spend about 50% or less than the typical day tourist, let alone one spending multiple days.  With cruise ships, a good bit of the restaurant trade goes to the ship instead of local restaurants.  And, what is the difference between hotel room costs going to "huge corporations", and cabin and dining costs going to "huge foreign corporations"?  Sure, the "footprint" of cruise ships is less than hotels and condos, but I don't see much traction for your argument.

[dockman]

31 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Most municipalities find that cruise tourists spend about 50% or less than the typical day tourist, let alone one spending multiple days.  With cruise ships, a good bit of the restaurant trade goes to the ship instead of local restaurants.  And, what is the difference between hotel room costs going to "huge corporations", and cabin and dining costs going to "huge foreign corporations"?  Sure, the "footprint" of cruise ships is less than hotels and condos, but I don't see much traction for your argument.

Of course lot of $$ goes to corps whether hotels or ships....the point that you seem to miss is that building more and more hotels adds more concrete and highrises ON the islands that  a cruise ship does not add.  I have lived here for 45 years and have seen more and more buildings and many people say enough....there are pros and cons to more cruise ships but they generally do not take more land or involve pouring more concrete.

[KeepCalmBearOn]

44 minutes ago, dockman said:

I certainly can't speak for the Hawaiian people but can tell you that many are opposed to more and more hotel/condo developments.

 

I would guess that most locals are pretty tired of more and more condos and hotels being built everywhere most of which is controlled/owned by foreign owners....

 

Many many of the dollars spent in Hawaii hotels do not necessarily stay in hawaii as they are owned by huge corporations and the profits may well flow back to the corporate arm...

 

Hawaii is not a cheap place to live and slowly the locals are being forced to move to vegas or washington or somewhere else to have any hope of buying a home.

 

Hawaii voters have been putting the same party/same politicians in office for over 50 years and those are the politicians and party that have seemingly never said no to a developer. Maybe if they want a different outcome they should reconsider for whom they are voting. But even a 180 in voting patterns won't removed the overbuilding on Maui and in Waikiki.

 

A FEW of the dollars spent on hotel rooms spent in Hawaii go into corporate coffers off island. The hotel industry has very modest profits in general and Hawaii is an expensive place to operate a hotel.

 

Oahu is not a cheap place to live, but there are affordable areas out Ewa, Wahiawa and Mililani Town and lots of build-able land between Waipahu and Wahiawa.

[dockman]

59 minutes ago, scottca075 said:

 

Hawaii voters have been putting the same party/same politicians in office for over 50 years and those are the politicians and party that have seemingly never said no to a developer. Maybe if they want a different outcome they should reconsider for whom they are voting. But even a 180 in voting patterns won't removed the overbuilding on Maui and in Waikiki.

 

A FEW of the dollars spent on hotel rooms spent in Hawaii go into corporate coffers off island. The hotel industry has very modest profits in general and Hawaii is an expensive place to operate a hotel.

 

Oahu is not a cheap place to live, but there are affordable areas out Ewa, Wahiawa and Mililani Town and lots of build-able land between Waipahu and Wahiawa.

 

 

 

I am not here to argue or try and convince anyone of anything.  Having lived here for 45 years I have seen and heard lots as to tourism, hotels, cruises, cost of living, how much and what kind of toursists would be best, overdevelopment, locals being priced out and on and on.  One person's idea of affordable and what is a modest profit is open to discussion.

 

There are a lot of challenges that will have to be dealt with over the coming years as the can has been kicked down the road for a long time.

 

Having said that all things considered I still think it is the best place on the planet to live. 

And i for one hope that the old Joni Mitchell lyric is still remembered..."They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot" 

 

And back to the original topic I am hoping for the best for Maui as it is one of the worst disasters that I could ever imagine.

 

 

[ronrythm]

22 hours ago, dockman said:

 

And i for one hope that the old Joni Mitchell lyric is still remembered..."They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot" 

 

And back to the original topic I am hoping for the best for Maui as it is one of the worst disasters that I could ever imagine.

 

 

Which of course she wrote about Waikiki and a certain pink hotel. 
my heart breaks for all my friends in Lahaina. Still waiting to see if several are OK. 
with Aloha

[dockman]

Another thing that was reported last night on local news....the car rental companies on maui have all these cars normally out on the road but with no tourists they all got returned...problem is the car rental lots can not even begin to hold them all so they are scrambling to rent parking lots and find places to park them...meantime lahaina residents lost lots of cars that were burned to a crisp...

 

During covid the car rentals had a similar problem and on oahu they rented the parking lot of Aloha Stadium and other lots which was wall to wall rentals...eventually they shipped most of them to the mainland to be sold...problem was they shipped too many and then suddenly tourists started to pour into hawaii again and there was a severe shortage of rental cars and prices shot through the roof...It has only recently returned to some normal balance of car availabity matchind demand..

 

and NOW Maui....it is a fact that many maui people are going to have to buy a car to replace their burned ones....i highly doubt there are enough cars for sale on maui to fill the demand....also apparently a lot of people are having trouble getting claims resolved with insurance companies (imagine that)...

 

I have to wonder if somehow a deal could not be done for a lot of the excess rental cars to be sold to local maui people in need of a car and payment postponed until the insurance settlements are made and then eventually the $$ can be sorted out?

 

I suspect it will be a long time before Maui tourism and rental car demand returns to pre fire levels so I would guess the car rentals may well ship a lot of cars off to the mainland.  It seems at least on the surface this could be a win win for the locals and the car rental companies?  Just yet another in the domino effect caused by the horrific Maui fires.

 

Hopefully some in hawaii leadership positions are at least considering how to potentially solve the car problem as not having a car on maui would be tough as public transport is not very good.

 

 

[dockman]

3 hours ago, ronrythm said:

Which of course she wrote about Waikiki and a certain pink hotel. 
my heart breaks for all my friends in Lahaina. Still waiting to see if several are OK. 
with Aloha

Been here a long time but never thought about that old song til recently and never even thought that the pink hotel was the royal hawaiian....thanks for the tip...she is still a wonderful old hotel...the first night i ever spent in hawaii was at the royal hawaiian in 1972...good place to start my love of hawaii.

[princeton123211]

12 hours ago, dockman said:

I have to wonder if somehow a deal could not be done for a lot of the excess rental cars to be sold to local maui people in need of a car and payment postponed until the insurance settlements are made and then eventually the $$ can be sorted out?

Assuming everyone who lost a car wants a Mustang convertible or Jeep Wrangler... which I doubt. 

 

Also the car rental companies are not banks. Most of the large national car rental companies are struggling financially recovering from the past few years. I would highly doubt they are in a position to give that sort of float. 

[dockman]

4 hours ago, princeton123211 said:

Assuming everyone who lost a car wants a Mustang convertible or Jeep Wrangler... which I doubt. 

 

Also the car rental companies are not banks. Most of the large national car rental companies are struggling financially recovering from the past few years. I would highly doubt they are in a position to give that sort of float. 

 

 

There are going to be billions of $$ of govt $$ flowing into maui....i suspect if they wanted the govt could pay the car rental companies and get reimbursed by insurance.

 

And if you have no car i would think any car would be helpful.  There are lots and lots of rental cars that are not mustangs or jeeps.

 

Easy to criticize every idea but what Maui needs is helpful ideas and they can sort it all out as to what may or may not be helpful or possible.

 

 

[KeepCalmBearOn]

On 8/22/2023 at 6:50 PM, dockman said:

I am not here to argue or try and convince anyone of anything.....

 

Hmmmmm.

[dockman]

6 minutes ago, scottca075 said:

 

Hmmmmm.

Don't think hmmmm will help much?  Got any ideas to share?

[dockman]

https://www.kitv.com/news/lahaina/multiple-insurance-carriers-providing-assistance-on-maui/article_dc29e5c6-42ac-11ee-b8fa-cb5cba585776.html

 

good news insurance companies seem to be trying to move claims along faster.

[KeepCalmBearOn]

On 8/22/2023 at 6:50 PM, dockman said:

I am not here to argue or try and convince anyone of anything......

 

13 minutes ago, scottca075 said:

Hmmmmm.

 

5 minutes ago, dockman said:

Got any ideas to share?

 

It is just an observation.