Alaskan Cruise: Counts as Time in US?

[XFed2001]

My S.O. is Canadian and therefore is limited to 180 days in US. If she sails on an Alaskan cruise from Vancouver visiting US ports and the inland waterways, is the time spend cruising and visiting the US ports considered time spent in the US? So, if she departs Vancouver on Aug 26 and returns to Vancouver on Sept 2, are the 5 days in between considered time in the US? I can't seem to find a clear answer to my question. Thanks for any feedback.

[CruiserBruce]

I would be asking ICE. You need the official answer, not somebody's possibly wrong answer from here.

[XFed2001]

I would be asking ICE. You need the official answer, not somebody's possibly wrong answer from here.

 

Thanks. I'll check with them.

[ducklite]

While I would think any time in Alaska and it's waterways would be counted, your best advice is to contact the US Consulate. Reverse the situation, do you think time in Nova Scotia and in the St. Lawrence on a fall foliage cruise would be considered time in Canada?

 

 

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[xlxo]

• If you do US customs at Canada Place.... does that count as your first day in the US?
  
• You are sailing in Canadian waters from Vancouver to Prince Rupert. Does that segment count as the US, Canadian or International?
  
• If you ride the White Pass train in Skagway to Fraser, BC... is that a day in Canada?
  
• do you need to be on US soil? Does scenic cruising in Glacier Bay, Sawyer, or another glacier count?
  

I agree.... you need a real answer from the authorities.

[bUU]

It would be loads of fun to speculate about the answers to these questions (but it won't help the OP). :)

Edited November 21, 2016 by bicker

[Essiesmom]

What are the visa regulations? Is it 180 continuous days in the US, or 180 days within a certain time period? the reason I ask is that I one did a Carnival cruise out of Jacksonville. At my table were two ladies who lived in JAX but were UK citizens. I believe they were limited to 4 months on their visas, so they took the cruise to the Bahamas to be out of the US and reset the clock on their visas. So, would a day or two pre-cruise in Vancouver reset the visa clock for her? EM

[martincath]

^As a Canadian, no Visa required - the 180 day issue (actually 183 - half a year) is when we are required to file US taxes (or do some other paperwork that proves we don't need to)... and it's not just the given year you need to worry about since a proportion of the previous two years count towards the current one. 120 days or less in every single year is the safe threshold that guarantees never going over due to the math involved.

 

Before we acquired our second homes in the US we double- and triple-checked all the issues. I could not find any casefiles about cruising time out there, so the safe assumption is that the clock starts as soon as you 'enter' the US at Canada Place and keeps ticking for the whole of the cruise.

 

While I suspect one could successfully argue that entire days cruising in Canadian waters should be removed from the running total I for one have no desire to be involved in a test case so we are always stay under the 120 day threshold.

 

Based on my own research, the only answers that you will get from US authorities are 'speak to a lawyer specializing in such matters' or 'we will wait for the first case to go before the courts to see which interpretation is valid.'