April 2024 Hawaii-Vancouver PVSA

[SapGuy]

I'm hoping someone can get me an answer as it's not super clear - and my travel agent can't get me an answer until Monday.  My fiance and I am booked on the 2024 Quantum realignment cruise from Hawaii to Vancouver, and then the 7 day Vancover-Alaska-Seattle the following week (our honeymoon). We are seeing things on Facebook that seems to indicate this will violate Passenger Vehicle Service Act (PVSA) rules.  I'm struggling to understand if we (a) fully pack our luggage and disembark and (b) change cabins, why couldn't the B2B cruise becaus legal two seperately?

[Linda R]

Not really understanding your question/problem.  Both cruises involve a foreign port, thus would not see a problem with PVSA rules. 

[Ryan79]

Vancouver is in Canada. Canada is a foreign nation to the US. PVSA is satisfied in both cases. Where are you seeing an issue? Both of these itineraries have sailed many many many times before. If there was an issue with PVSA, it would have been ironed out a long long time ago

[FionaMG]

6 hours ago, SapGuy said:

I'm hoping someone can get me an answer as it's not super clear - and my travel agent can't get me an answer until Monday.  My fiance and I am booked on the 2024 Quantum realignment cruise from Hawaii to Vancouver, and then the 7 day Vancover-Alaska-Seattle the following week (our honeymoon). We are seeing things on Facebook that seems to indicate this will violate Passenger Vehicle Service Act (PVSA) rules.  I'm struggling to understand if we (a) fully pack our luggage and disembark and (b) change cabins, why couldn't the B2B cruise becaus legal two seperately?

When you say "the following week", does that mean you're getting off the ship and spending at least one night on land? If so, there's no problem.

However, if you're just switching cabins and are staying on the ship without a break of at least a night on land then in the eyes of the relevant authorities your cruises would be classed as a single voyage from point a (Hawaii) to point b (Seattle) and that does contravene the PVSA.

Pinging @twangster who can explain it much better than I can.

[twangster]

US CBP who is charged with enforcing the PVSA looks at the end to end journey as the ticket.

If you are not getting off the same ship and spending a night somewhere off the ship in between then the end to journey is the city to first embark to the final city where you disembark.  Your cabin on each segment is irrelevant.  

The reason US CBP takes this approach is that it would be very simple for a company to intend to sell passage between two US cities by advertising and selling two separate voyages.  This attempt to evade the intent of the PVSA has been determined to be illegal by CBP.

People who start in Australia, sail to Hawaii, then sail to Vancouver, then sail to Seattle are fine.  Using the same logic their end to end journey is Australia to the US (Seattle) which is not a violation of the PVSA.  

For the same ship embarking in Hawaii and debarking in Seattle as the end to end journey is a violation of the PVSA because the start and end are two different US cities.  

These cabotage laws also apply to airlines.  Air Canada for example, can't fly you from Los Angeles to Calgary and then Calgary to Chicago.  The end to end journey is Los Angeles to Chicago and a foreign carrier can't transport you between US cities.  If you spend a night in a Calgary hotel you have entered Canada.  Flying the next day to Chicago on Air Canada as a carrier is then not a problem. 

Spending the night in Canada (a foreign country) in between breaks the journey into two distinct segments that are unrelated from a cabotage perspective.  Absent of a night spent in a foreign country CBP will view it as a continuing journey.  

[SapGuy]

24 minutes ago, twangster said:

Spending the night in Canada (a foreign country) in between breaks the journey into two distinct segments that are unrelated from a cabotage perspective.  Absent of a night spent in a foreign country CBP will view it as a continuing journey.  

Thank you for the explanation.

To clarify other's questions - yes, our intenerary has us contining immediately continuing on to Alaska on the very next cruise out of Vancouver.

The "interesting" thing is the Hawaii leg is scheduled to arrive in Vancouver on April 29th at 3am.    The ship's departure doesn't occur until the following morning (April 30th) at 3am.  Seems like a reach, but one might wonder if this is RCCL's attempt to legalize the voyage?

The weird thing is our TA booked this over two months ago and it wasn't flagged by RCCL.   Given the fines they would incurr, seems like something computers should report on?

 

[twangster]

I guess we need to step back and start with the fact that no mass market cruise is a US company.  Royal Caribbean is a Liberian corporation.  NCL is Bermudian with the exception of one ship.  Disney Cruise Line is England.  Carnival Corp. is dual listed in Panama and England.

These foreign companies have headquarters on US soil but that does not make them US companies.  They are international companies.

Next understand the ships they operate are not US flagged ships.  Royal Caribbean ships are mostly flagged in the Bahamas.

From the perspective of the US they are foreign companies operating foreign flagged ships.  

These companies save billions of dollars in US taxation by being foreign companies operating foreign ships.  They are aware this approach does mean they are subject to the PVSA but generally speaking they are very happy operating within the scope of US laws related to foreign flagged ships.  It does mean they can't do some things such as transport passengers between US cities unless the voyage has a stop in South America as written into the PVSA.   

For Hawaii repositioning cruises adding a stop in South America would not be practical so the cruise lines accept that a handful of cruisers can't sail on the cruises they desire.  In the bigger picture it impacts a very small subset of potential guests but it is US law.  

[steverk]

10 hours ago, SapGuy said:

I'm hoping someone can get me an answer as it's not super clear - and my travel agent can't get me an answer until Monday.  My fiance and I am booked on the 2024 Quantum realignment cruise from Hawaii to Vancouver, and then the 7 day Vancover-Alaska-Seattle the following week (our honeymoon). We are seeing things on Facebook that seems to indicate this will violate Passenger Vehicle Service Act (PVSA) rules.  I'm struggling to understand if we (a) fully pack our luggage and disembark and (b) change cabins, why couldn't the B2B cruise becaus legal two seperately?

I was booked on the same Voyage, except I was starting in Australia.  As @twangster mentions, everything was fine with that since I started in a foreign country.

However, I did receive the email from Royal explaining that this journey would not be possible if I started in Honolulu.  

Based on this, I don't think Royal can accommodate your desired itinerary.  Perhaps you could sail from Honolulu to Vancouver and then change to another ship in Vancouver or Seattle for the Alaska sailing.

Regardless, congratulations and I hope you have a wonderful trip!

[FloatyBoaty]

44 minutes ago, SapGuy said:

The "interesting" thing is the Hawaii leg is scheduled to arrive in Vancouver on April 29th at 3am.    The ship's departure doesn't occur until the following morning (April 30th) at 3am.  Seems like a reach, but one might wonder if this is RCCL's attempt to legalize the voyage?

 

I believe they have to wait to set sail until that time for low tide - to fit under the Lions Gate Bridge. 

[twangster]

44 minutes ago, FloatyBoaty said:

I believe they have to wait to set sail until that time for low tide - to fit under the Lions Gate Bridge. 

You are correct.

Technically they wait for slack tide.  Quantum class barely fit under the Lions Gate bridge.  

[twangster]

1 hour ago, SapGuy said:

The weird thing is our TA booked this over two months ago and it wasn't flagged by RCCL.   Given the fines they would incurr, seems like something computers should report on?

 

Royal seems to audit cruise closer to sail date.  Sometimes people book cruises then move them or cancel.  I'm not aware why they wait until closer but for those who have reported getting the phone call with the bad news they seem to get the call closer to sail date.  

Sometimes people who originate in Australia also get the call but after additional investigation they agree to let them sail.  

[SapGuy]

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback.  From other posts in various online groups, it sounds like there are multiple people who have booked what we did.   Sounds like there is even confusion in the RCCL call center on the policy.  According to a post on a FB group, rumor is RCCL is investigating the option for anyone getting on in Hawaii and wanting to continue on the 7-day Alaska cruise to get off one stop early in Victoria, BC instead of Seattle to make the cruise "legal".    Yeah, I know it's a hail mary - but fingers crossed.

[twangster]

11 hours ago, SapGuy said:

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback.  From other posts in various online groups, it sounds like there are multiple people who have booked what we did.   Sounds like there is even confusion in the RCCL call center on the policy.  According to a post on a FB group, rumor is RCCL is investigating the option for anyone getting on in Hawaii and wanting to continue on the 7-day Alaska cruise to get off one stop early in Victoria, BC instead of Seattle to make the cruise "legal".    Yeah, I know it's a hail mary - but fingers crossed.

That outcome did occur for a handful of folks in 2019 on Ovation's first trip North to Alaska.  It was caught very close to the sail date.  If I'm not mistaken because it was days before the cruise Royal ended up paying for the hotel and ferry ride from Victoria to the mainland.