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Alaska cruises 'essentially' cancelled till July


travelingla
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On 3/14/2020 at 10:58 AM, Gardyloo said:

I would not be surprised at all if the US government were to suspend enforcement of the PVSA foreign port requirement temporarily.  So far the Port of Seattle hasn't followed the Canadian lead, beyond canceling the first two Alaska sailings of the year next month.

Why should they?  If the cruise lines want to sail directly from Seattle to Alaska they can, all they need to do is a quick change of the ship’s registration and start paying US taxes.

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3 minutes ago, ed01106 said:

Why should they?  If the cruise lines want to sail directly from Seattle to Alaska they can, all they need to do is a quick change of the ship’s registration and start paying US taxes.

I don't think it's that simple.

I believe the ships have to be built in the US too and be staffed with US employees.

Gee, I wish Chengpk75 was here to explain.

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2 hours ago, puppycanducruise said:

I don't think it's that simple.

I believe the ships have to be built in the US too and be staffed with US employees.

Gee, I wish Chengpk75 was here to explain.

The PVSA (19 CFR 4.80a) requires the ships to be built in the US, same as the Jones Act for cargo ships.  The "Hawaii exemption" was facilitated both by waiving the foreign port requirement (prior to which the ships all called at Fanning Island in Kiribati) and by allowing a bit of slight-of-hand in the "US origin" requirement for the ships.  (These were foreign bottoms - French IIRC - which had significant work done on them in US shipyards before being placed in service, thereby allowing them to be classified as "US-built.")  

 

Basically it's a protectionist scheme supported by the shipbuilding industry in the US among others.  

Edited by Gardyloo
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11 hours ago, ed01106 said:

Why should they?  If the cruise lines want to sail directly from Seattle to Alaska they can, all they need to do is a quick change of the ship’s registration and start paying US taxes.

No that would not work. to comply the ship would have had to be built in the US.

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Would love to see some longer West coast cruises, maybe hitting Ensenada for PVSA sake. Is Mexico still open for ships?
Or I wonder if Canada would allow ships to dock, if know one gets off the ship. Would people still sail to Alaska from Seattle, if no disembarking in Canada. Could they even do that?

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It doesn't appear that the cruise lines have taken ANY action on this news from Canada still.  They've shut down operations for 30 days but you can still book Vancouver departure Alaskan sailings starting in mid-April.  Are the cruise lines sitting around going "oh that Canada, they are so funny, they didn't mean it" or have they just not gotten around to dealing with anything after the first 30 days?  I had a rep from Holland email me today asking if I wanted to book something for this May.

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2 minutes ago, Kesstral said:

It doesn't appear that the cruise lines have taken ANY action on this news from Canada still.  They've shut down operations for 30 days but you can still book Vancouver departure Alaskan sailings starting in mid-April.  Are the cruise lines sitting around going "oh that Canada, they are so funny, they didn't mean it" or have they just not gotten around to dealing with anything after the first 30 days?  I had a rep from Holland email me today asking if I wanted to book something for this May.

I think they are hoping for a miracle.  

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On 3/18/2020 at 12:49 PM, ed01106 said:

Why should they?  If the cruise lines want to sail directly from Seattle to Alaska they can, all they need to do is a quick change of the ship’s registration and start paying US taxes.

First they have to find a ship built in the USA. (Spoiler alert; Good luck with that one)

Then, after they change the ship's registration and start paying American taxes, they are required to hire American crew.

They also have to pay American wages, overtime, and payroll taxes. (Second spoiler alert; Your cruise fares will double)

The American Crew must be members of the US Merchant Marine to work on the ship.

The US Merchant Marine currently has very few members with any cruise ship experience.

To join the US Merchant Marine, your criminal background must be investigated by the FBI in all 50 states. This takes about 6-8  months and costs $1200 per crewmember.

So if they start working on this right now, you can expect to book a high-priced Alaska cruise on an American ship in 4 or 5 years.

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18 hours ago, Blizzard54 said:

I wonder if they would consider sailing the ship at about 25% capacity to get past the ban.

Probably would not be profitable. 

Let's do the math with HAL's smaller ships (1200 passengers)

25% capacity would be 300 passengers

Minimum safe manning on those ships would be over 300 crew.

That puts the total souls at 600.

Vancouver's limit is 500.

No deal.

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8 hours ago, BruceMuzz said:

Let's do the math with HAL's smaller ships (1200 passengers)

25% capacity would be 300 passengers

Minimum safe manning on those ships would be over 300 crew.

That puts the total souls at 600.

Vancouver's limit is 500.

No deal.

Although I doubt they would sail under those conditions, they could.

The limit was put at 500 passengers, the crew was not mentioned.

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23 minutes ago, Blizzard54 said:

Although I doubt they would sail under those conditions, they could.

The limit was put at 500 passengers, the crew was not mentioned.

I read the limit was 500 people. 

I think that is the total of passengers and crew, not just passengers.

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48 minutes ago, puppycanducruise said:

I read the limit was 500 people. 

I think that is the total of passengers and crew, not just passengers.

Canada: All Canadian ports are closed to cruise ships with more than 500 passengers through July 1, 2020.

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57 minutes ago, Blizzard54 said:

Canada: All Canadian ports are closed to cruise ships with more than 500 passengers through July 1, 2020.

That's an incorrect quote that keeps being mentioned, which literally seconds of Googling refutes. Original press release clearly stated 500 people on board, and the official documentation found here even has '500 persons' in the title - while the speil about the reasons for implementing it contain multiple mentions of the phrase 'passengers and crew.' 

 

Further, simple common sense dictates that since crew are not magically immune to anything and a limit that just mentioned passengers would obviously have a big variable in the number of crew to support those passengers depending how luxurious accommodations were onboard, ANY limit that refers to a number of people must logically include all souls on board.

 

Given the amount of nonsense being posted around COVID, please don't continue to promulgate incorrect information even when speculating about future cruising...

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The port of Seattle has suspended cruise ships until the public health emergency ends and it is deemed safe.

 

https://www.adn.com/business-economy/2020/03/25/normally-a-bright-spot-in-the-alaska-recession-tourism-outlook-dims-with-coronavirus-uncertainty/

 

https://www.portseattle.org/news/port-seattle-expects-delay-start-2020-cruise-season

 

The start of Seattle’s cruise season will depend on the status of the public health emergency and the advice of local, state and federal public health officials. The CDC has issued a nonessential travel warning and a temporary no sail order for cruise ships, and the State and King County have imposed a number of strict limitations to limit the spread of COVID-19.

In conjunction with public health officials and our cruise line partners, the Port will regularly reevaluate this situation as the nature of this crisis evolves. Once the public health emergency ends and it is deemed safe, we believe that the launch of cruise in Seattle will provide critical economic relief to many struggling businesses in our region and beyond. Even when cruise season resumes, the Port will be working with public health officials, cruise lines and others to ensure that strong protective measures are in place to prevent future health issues on cruises that would impact travelers and local residents, such as pre-screening before boarding and stronger quarantine measures for on-board illness. 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just got an email from HAL.  Cruises to Alaska on the following ships are cancelled for 2020: Maasdam, Volendam, Oosterdam, Noordam and Westerdam.  We were supposed to go late August, so we are out!

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3 hours ago, kcdd said:

Just got an email from HAL.  Cruises to Alaska on the following ships are cancelled for 2020: Maasdam, Volendam, Oosterdam, Noordam and Westerdam.  We were supposed to go late August, so we are out!

It looks like that leaves them with one ship out of Seattle and one out of Vancouver.

If they can work thing out with the CDC and local authorities. 

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HAL has not yet cancelled our early August cruise out of Vancouver (inside passage) yet on the Koningsdam, but we pulled this plug on that cruise before our final payment date (this next week) anyway. Neither of us wants to be on a cruise ship, nor fly on a commercial airline, that soon...we both suspect that it will be cancelled in the future. We won't get all of our deposit back, but that is not worth risking our lives.

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