Can you fly in DAY OF?

[martincath]

3 minutes ago, wolfie11 said:

I missed the Royal Princess last summer in Vancouver along with 13 others.  We all flew to Ketchikan and boarded there.  No mention was made of the PVSA, which should have been in effect, because it was a one-way cruise ending in Whittier and we were now traveling between two US ports on  a foreign-flagged carrier, which is what the PVSA addresses.  

It does happen, which is why I made a point to mention the possibility in my reply that you quoted. This would however only be the second time I've heard of it actually happening in a decade. In the prior case it was also Princess, also a large number of pax, and also a one-way cruise.

 

So even though the circumstances of your missed boarding meant Princess were willing to take the risk of flying you on, that in no way means OP would have the same circumstances. In fact since their cruise is a Seattle Closed Loop, it guarantees that the circumstances are different - every single passenger would potentially face additional scrutiny by CBP on return if they were allowed to fly on as the passenger manifests would differ, and different ID would be required for those pax joining downstream. That means more admin, more work, more pushback - whereas on a one-way like yours, everyone aboard already needed to meet the normal WHTI requirements (passports book or card for typical US citizens), therefore no change to expected ID requirements.

 

Heck, it's even possible that it was a simple screwup and you shouldn't have been allowed to fly on, but Princess ate the fine without passing it to you because of their error. Just because a law is not enforced does not mean it won't be in the future. How many times have you driven over the speed limit, but not gotten a ticket? Even if it was hundreds, telling the cop who finally does stop you that they should let you off without a ticket because you've done it before many times... seems more likely to result in extra problems rather than getting away with it 😉