How the jones law pertains to cruising

[BillB48]

A distant foreign port in the western hemisphere is South America and the ABC islands are also included as distant, I believe, as well. You'll note that on Canal cruises from FL to CA or vice versa the ships include a stop in Cartagena or Aruba.

[njhorseman]

A distant foreign port in the western hemisphere is South America and the ABC islands are also included as distant, I believe, as well. You'll note that on Canal cruises from FL to CA or vice versa the ships include a stop in Cartagena or Aruba.

 

Correct

[smeyer418]

As a Canadian - what am and what am I not allowed to do? Carnival call it the Jones Act for the US rule and Cabotage for Italy, so right or wrong when people come to look up the info on here, they would be looking for the Jone Act. At first reading of the info on their site, it sounds as if I board a cruise in Baltimore, I can't get off in Florida. But by debark I'm not sure if they mean I can't visit, I can visit, but can't miss getting back on or that I can't end my cruise there.

 

http://www.carnival.com/cms/faqs/default.aspx?icid=CC_Footer_88

The Jones Act(aka the Passenger Vessel Services Act) is the name of the US Cabotage law. Italy and many other countries have their own versions of cabotage law.

 

Actually I believe that the term cabotage refers to moving cargo between ports or coastwise trading within the same country

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastwise_shipping_laws

 

 

 

yes you can get off for a visit in any intermediary port as long as the ship takes you back to the same US port, ends in a foreign port or visits a distant foreign port(with some exceptions for US insular possessions)...

 

and your citizenship is irrelevant to the law in US...

[familycruzinnewbie]

Thanks for the clarifications. BTW Carnival has changed their website in the few hours since I posted the link. It used to go to a full page of info on the Jones Act.

[Honey and Cinnamon]

See I am being educated too, I did not know about this at all. I wonder if anyone else did not know about this "Jones Law" I never heard of it, since this is all new to me, please educate me on this, I like to know all I can about cruising, with my dh, gk and ggk's.

thanks for the info All new info should be posted for everyone to view!

[The Big Booper]

See I am being educated too, I did not know about this at all. I wonder if anyone else did not know about this "Jones Law" I never heard of it, since this is all new to me, please educate me on this, I like to know all I can about cruising, with my dh, gk and ggk's.

 

thanks for the info All new info should be posted for everyone to view!

 

The PVSA does not apply to Starfish, dead or alive.

[Buddy604]

The Jones Act(aka the Passenger Vessel Services Act) is the name of the US Cabotage law.

I wrote tons of useless stuff here before realizing everybody above me had already addressed it all.

 

The dry facts are:

 

1) Under the PVSA, round trips out and back to the same US port are allowed as long as the ship makes at least one service call to any foreign port. For example LA - Hawaii - Ensenada - LA, or Seattle - Alaska - Victoria - Seattle. On round trip departures like this, if you miss your ship at embarkation, you cannot join it later, without being subject to a $300 pp fine. Likewise, if you miss your ship while it's in a US port, even if you catch up with it again, you are subject to the same fine.

 

2) Voyages between US port cities are permitted proving the ship touches a "distant foreign port." There are no distant foreign ports in Canada or Mexico, nor most of the Caribbean. Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao are ones, as is, I believe, Fanning Island. Thus we have FLL to LA through the Panama Canal, touching Aruba. I suspect any South American port also qualifies.

 

3)Staying on the same ship for two voyages counts as one voyage for PVSA purposes - putting a kibosh on the 7 day LA to Vancouver followed by the 1 day Vancouver to Seattle on the same ship. For PVSA purposes, this would count as an 8 day LA to Seattle and thus would be a PVSA violation.

 

As the others mentions, one of Hawaii's senators attempted to have the law toughened up about two years ago to protect one of his heavy contributors: NCL America lines. The proposal was to require all round-trip voyages to spend at least 48 hours in foreign ports, putting an effective end to the round trip west coast to Hawaii runs. Unfortunately for NCL, the committee reviewing this proposal stated that if the revise regulation interpretation, it would apply to all US ports, impacting NCL's and other's Alaska traffic out of Seattle. The state governments in California and Washington lobbied hard to have the recommendation scrapped for now, and sent back for review since the impact on state tourism would be catastrophic. The PVSA revision was rejected, send back for more study, and appears, hopefully, to have died.

[smeyer418]

I wrote tons of useless stuff here before realizing everybody above me had already addressed it all.

 

The dry facts are:

 

1) Under the PVSA, round trips out and back to the same US port are allowed as long as the ship makes at least one service call to any foreign port. For example LA - Hawaii - Ensenada - LA, or Seattle - Alaska - Victoria - Seattle. On round trip departures like this, if you miss your ship at embarkation, you cannot join it later, without being subject to a $300 pp fine. Likewise, if you miss your ship while it's in a US port, even if you catch up with it again, you are subject to the same fine.

not accurate you can join at any foreign port without a fine

 

2) Voyages between US port cities are permitted proving the ship touches a "distant foreign port." There are no distant foreign ports in Canada or Mexico, nor most of the Caribbean. Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao are ones, as is, I believe, Fanning Island. Thus we have FLL to LA through the Panama Canal, touching Aruba. I suspect any South American port also qualifies.

 

Yes any South American Port Qualifies.

 

3)Staying on the same ship for two voyages counts as one voyage for PVSA purposes - putting a kibosh on the 7 day LA to Vancouver followed by the 1 day Vancouver to Seattle on the same ship. For PVSA purposes, this would count as an 8 day LA to Seattle and thus would be a PVSA violation.

 

As the others mentions, one of Hawaii's senators attempted to have the law toughened up about two years ago to protect one of his heavy contributors: NCL America lines. The proposal was to require all round-trip voyages to spend at least 48 hours in foreign ports, putting an effective end to the round trip west coast to Hawaii runs. Unfortunately for NCL, the committee reviewing this proposal stated that if the revise regulation interpretation, it would apply to all US ports, impacting NCL's and other's Alaska traffic out of Seattle. The state governments in California and Washington lobbied hard to have the recommendation scrapped for now, and sent back for review since the impact on state tourism would be catastrophic. The PVSA revision was rejected, send back for more study, and appears, hopefully, to have died.

 

 

its dead for now no one is pushing for a change.

[DanJ]

1) Under the PVSA, round trips out and back to the same US port are allowed as long as the ship makes at least one service call to any foreign port. For example LA - Hawaii - Ensenada - LA, or Seattle - Alaska - Victoria - Seattle. On round trip departures like this, if you miss your ship at embarkation, you cannot join it later, without being subject to a $300 pp fine. Likewise, if you miss your ship while it's in a US port, even if you catch up with it again, you are subject to the same fine.

 

not accurate you can join at any foreign port without a fine

 

 

I think Buddy was referring to the particular itineraries in that post above. Basically, there are no foreign ports until the last day of the cruise on most of those type of itineraries.

 

If you miss the ship in Seattle, you can't join it in Alaska and still sail back to Seattle, legally. Not sure if they would let you join in Victoria on the last day to sail one night, but I rather doubt anybody would sit around and wait that long anyway. Same thing with LA-Hawaii-LA. Ensenada is the only port you could join the ship and that is on day 13 of the 14 day cruise in most cases.

[Buddy604]

I think Buddy was referring to the particular itineraries in that post above. Basically, there are no foreign ports until the last day of the cruise on most of those type of itineraries.

 

If you miss the ship in Seattle, you can't join it in Alaska and still sail back to Seattle, legally. Not sure if they would let you join in Victoria on the last day to sail one night, but I rather doubt anybody would sit around and wait that long anyway. Same thing with LA-Hawaii-LA. Ensenada is the only port you could join the ship and that is on day 13 of the 14 day cruise in most cases.

Exactly, in those cases the foreign port is usually only an extended service stop near the end of the cruise.

 

And, yes, I should have clarified that you can join at a foreign stop - this happens from time-to-time on the Mexican Riviera cruises where folks who miss their ship in LA catch up in Puerto Vallarta or, I believe, Cabo.

[jmcdon7230]

.....For example LA - Hawaii - Ensenada - LA, or Seattle - Alaska - Victoria - Seattle. On round trip departures like this, if you miss your ship at embarkation, you cannot join it later, without being subject to a $300 pp fine...../quote]

 

A few years ago we missed the Pearl out of Seattle, flew to Alaska and boarded in Juneau (the Pearl's first stop) without being fined.

 

Does anyone recall someone being fined and reporting it on these boards?

[JLC@SD]

Let's stop the confusion.

 

Ignorance of a law' date=' act or rule, is no excuse, whether you agree with it or not, it must have been implemented for a reason, even you can't understand the reason for it. After researching the Jones Law Act and Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (46 U.S.C. 883; 19 CFR 4.80 and 4.80b). And understanding it as it pertains to goods and livestock, I can't understand why it pertains to people, by restricting the free movement of law abiding people.

 

I have therefor decided to cancel my one night hop, and only think about all the nice people, I will not be able to meet, and I apologize to everyone for the stir I caused, but then a lot of us learned something we didn't know before, especially someone like me, from north of the 49th.

 

With that I hope, that someday, I'll meet some of you on another cruise.

 

Cato :) :D

catolga28@shaw.ca

 

Actually....all of our laws are intended to be confusing....including this....because they are written by politicians........and politicians are mostly...........Laywers........;)

 

So the confusing laws have to be interpeted......and guess who you need to understand all these laws, and what they mean.......Lawyers.....:rolleyes::D