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Everything posted by njhorseman
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Yes, that was correct 5 years ago when that informed compliance document was published, but the law includes a provision for adjustment of the fine for inflation and the latest value, which is is documented in the regulations...CFR means Code of Federal Regulations...is $971. That's why I cited the regulation, 19 CFR 4.80 (b) (2) , so that anyone would be able to verify the $971 fine. If you enter 19 CFR 4.80 (b) (2) in an internet search engine you'll find it.
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BTW, the PVSA violation fine is now $971 per passenger. Reference: 19 CFR 4.80 (b) (2)
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Huh? A decent gesture since it was the cruise line's screw-up? That makes no sense. The cruise line didn’t know it screwed up until it was too late...the passenger had already changed their plans by canceling the last segment. And no cruise line is going to knowingly violate the PVSA to sooth a passenger's ruffled feathers.
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It would have taken a Disney employee who understood the PVSA less than 30 seconds to determine that the cruise was legal. It took me less than 10 seconds. You can't get a PVSA question that is much easier than this one was.
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Taking a cruise but can't enter the US?
njhorseman replied to Tasinei's topic in Ask a Cruise Question
You're wrong. Per cruisetimetables.com there are 110 cruise ship port calls scheduled for St. Croix in 2025, as well as 25 calls scheduled for St. John. -
They can try all they want. You can't get a refund of something that doesn't exist. You also won't get a refund of port taxes when O misses a port call because O also bakes the port taxes into the base fare. This isn't Holland America.
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Since gratuities will be baked into the base fare and not a separate line item on the bill there will be no way to remove them.
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Correct. A substantial percentage of the daily gratuity charge funds crew wages. Some of the money goes to crew welfare and entertainment funds. Under international maritime law there are minimum wages crew must be paid, and the cruise lines are obligated to satisfy the wage contracts they have with crew if they call for wages higher than the legal minimum. But the actual compensation can be higher than mandated by law or contract if the gratuity pool has sufficient funds. If the gratuity fund is short due to passengers not paying the standard gratuity crew will be paid less than if the fund is fuller. Of course cash gratuities above standard that are paid directly by passengers to crew supplement crew wages. By eliminating the daily gratuity Oceania has eliminated the possibility of the crew wage pool being short funds, which should stabilize crew paychecks.
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I have been told that one reason for the gratuity system that is commonly used in the cruise industry is that in some countries gratuities are considered gifts and not subject to income taxes. As a result crew from those countries who receive gratuities will have a higher after tax income than if the same gross income were paid 100% in salary. As I and others explained in earlier posts, the reason bartenders are not included in the basic daily gratuity charge is that not everyone consumes alcoholic beverages. The daily gratuity charge covers services every passenger receives every day, meal service and cabin cleaning.
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You're wrong. There's nothing new here. The bartenders were never included in in the daily gratuity charge. If you purchased an alcoholic beverage not part of an included or purchased beverage package you were always charged a gratuity. The reason is very simple...not everyone consumes alcoholic beverages. You're also charged a gratuity for spa services. Again, simply because it's something that not everyone takes part in. The daily gratuity charge covers the services every passenger receives every day, meal service and cabin cleaning. This practice is virtually uniform in the cruise industry on cruise lines that are not all inclusive.
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It appears that you've just published many of these "port talks" on Cruise Critic boards . You asked if the "port talk" is useful. Well...no, because even though your intentions are good outdated information is of no use to anyone.
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Here's a very clear example of why NCLH needs higher profits to pay down debt. On September 3 NCLH announced the pricing of $315 million of 6.250% senior notes due in 2030. The proceeds from this offering, plus cash on hand, will be used to redeem $315 million of 3.625% senior notes due 2024. So ...NCLH will be paying a 2.625% higher interest rate in order to kick this $315 million can down the road for six years. It's not a pretty picture. https://www.nclhltd.com/investors/news-events/press-releases/detail/632/ncl-corporation-ltd-announces-pricing-of-315000000-of
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Just giving it a quick glance, you should remove the slide about the free Old San Juan trolley. That hasn't run for many years.
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Bingo. Too bad your friend had already changed their plans on the assumption that Disney was not going to approve the itinerary.
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Once again, and for the last time, how the cruise is booked has absolutely nothing to do with whether it violates the PVSA. The single, and I might add extremely simple criterion for legality is where the passenger embarks and where the passenger disembarks. By embarking in a foreign country, in this case Australia, the cruise automatically complies with the PVSA. The PVSA only comes into play when a passenger both embarks and disembarks in the USA. Further, CBP knows what its rules are. They write the regulations. There is zero chance of CBP ruling the itinerary illegal. This is very simply an error by the cruise line.
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That is not "my statement" you've put in hold italics at the start of your post, it's a direct quotation from the published regulation. The two examples you've later quoted are PVSA violations because neither cruise has made a port call at a foreign port. In the first example a distant foreign port call would be required because the cruise starts in San Francisco and ends in Seattle. The second example would require a call in any foreign port because it's closed loop from Los Angeles to Los Angeles. The cruise's only port call was in US ports in Hawaii. Neither of the above are relevant for the cruise being discussed in this thread. Based on the original post this thread is not about the cruise line making an arbitrary business decision to not permit the booking...it's about the cruise line refusing the booking by mistakenly claiming it's in violation of the PVSA.
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Yes, and that document cites the applicable laws and regulations. Digging into those cited references you'll find in the regulations at 19 CFR 4.80a that the PVSA is applicable to passengers embarking at a coastwise port...which is defined as "a port in the U.S., its territories, or possession". Further, the words "embark" and "disembark" are defined as : " (4) Embark means a passenger boarding a vessel for the duration of a specific voyage and disembark means a passenger leaving a vessel at the conclusion of a specific voyage. The terms embark and disembark are not applicable to a passenger going ashore temporarily at a coastwise port who reboards the vessel and departs with it on sailing from the port." From the above it is 100% clear that a passenger who embarks in a foreign port such as the passenger in question who is embarking in Australia clearly is not subject to the PVSA rules. The PVSA is only applicable to passengers embarking at a coastwise port.
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One of the businesses I owned and operated was a travel agency agency and I will put my knowledge of the PVSA up against a cruise line employee's, including many of their lawyers, any time. And needless to say based on your reply there is a 100% chance that I know the law better than you. I suggest you do a little background research on the law and its history. When you do perhaps you'll understand why this itinerary is so clearly legal. Let me give you a hint...the PVSA dates back to 1886 when cruising as we know it didn't exist. Ships were used as a form of transportation for people going from Point A to Point B...for example New York to Boston. One of the principle purposes of the law is to regulate travel from one port in the USA to a different port in the USA. Is this passenger being transported from one port in the USA to another port in the USA? Uh...no. The passenger is being transported from Australia to the USA. In any event I doubt Disney's lawyers have even been asked the question yet, given the OP's advice to his friend to push the question up the corporate ladder to a compliance officer. Cruise lines frequently block complicated itineraries from being booked through their computer systems in order to prevent unintentional violations of the PVSA but will override that block when approval of the itinerary is granted by their compliance officer. I've seen cruise lines' crackerjack lawyers screw up interpretations of this law repeatedly, both disallowing itineraries that are legal and allowing itineraries that were in violation. A year or two ago one of the major cruise lines, perhaps Royal Caribbean, allowed passengers to book a B2B itinerary that was in clear violation of the PVSA and realized their error too late. They informed affected passengers when they were checking in for the cruise that they would have to disembark at what was intended to be only a port of call, stay overnight in that port, and be transported the next day to the next port to resume the cruise. That overnight stay converted the cruise from an illegal B2B itinerary to two legal cruises.
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Booking as a single cruise or B2B is irrelevant. The passenger is embarking in Sydney and disembarking in the US, which makes the cruise legal.
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No...you're the one who is wrong. There is one governing principle for the PVSA, and that is where the passenger initially embarks and ultimately disembarks, not how the cruise line sells the segments. There is zero chance that USCBP would rule this itinerary non-compliant. The only problem is the cruise line's failure to understand the law.
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Personally I don't think the passport requirement is fully analogous to this situation, but I understand where you're coming from.
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Passenger requests are refused because the cruise line customer service agents don't understand the law and can't be expected to so they are instructed to reject the booking. Often the case has to be run up the corporate ladder to someone in the corporate legal department who actually understands the law. The types of cruises where customers have gotten refunds are not similar to this one. It typically happens on repositioning cruises at the beginning or end of the Alaska cruise season. B2B cruises such as a first segment from Seattle cruising to Alaskan ports, and ending in Vancouver, followed by a second segment starting in Vancouver visiting Mexico and ending in Los Angeles. Each individual segment is legal but you can't do the B2B which is Seattle to Los Angeles because that would require a distant foreign port.
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No...the cruise is legal and cruise line customer service departments are clueless about such matters. All that matters is where the passenger embarks and where they ultimately disembark, not how the cruise line sells the segments. For PVSA purposes this is very simply a cruise from Sydney to San Diego and thus perfectly legal.
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No...