PVSA Violation?

[Cruise Junky]

That list is fairly useless as it would be dependent on the whole voyage not just linking two together. If this is the instruction the call centre people have no wonder they're clueless.

 

 

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[thinfool]

Your cruise may NOT be OK. They may look at it as your actual transport being from FLL to Alaska, starting in one American port and ending in another. It's possible that the stop in Victoria makes it OK, but I'd get on the phone with Princess and ask to talk to a supervisor. If they assure you that it is OK, I'd ask for confirmation in writing.

Good luck!

 

Intrinsic in the post about an itinerary from FLL to Alaska are port stops in Cartagena, Colombia and/or Aruba and Curacao. These are 'distant' foreign ports in the eye of the PVSA.

 

There are NO foreign flagged cruiselines that do not make one or more of these ports on their way to the Panama Canal and on to the West Coast of the US.

 

An itinerary from FLL to Alaska will always include these ports and will therefore satisfy the PVSA.

[Corfe Mixture]

I wonder what would happen if the EU introduced their own version of PVSA, and, in the same way as the US includes the Northern Caribbean, they included the Northern Mediterranean.

 

It would mean no cruises from Athens to Rome or from Venice to Barcelona etc. unless the ship also included a North African port in its itinerary.

 

Seems amazing to us Europeans that a country like the US, which trades extensively with the rest of the world, finds the need to still have such archaic protectionist legislation.

[chengkp75]

Both laws are outdated and I feel that US ports could strongly benefit from the repeal/amendment of the PVSA to allow for leisure cruise travelers.

 

 

You do realize that 68 nations have maritime cabotage laws very similar to the US Jones Act and PVSA, including most of Europe, Japan, Philippines, and Canada?

 

The major problem with repealing the PVSA, while of some benefit to the cruising public, would be subject to the law of unexpected consequences. By removing the requirement that coastal carriage of passengers or cargo must be on a US flag ship, you would allow foreign flagged ships to take over all traffic on the rivers of the US (Mississippi basin), all dinner cruises and ferries everywhere in the US. That would remove the USCG's jurisdiction to enforce stricter safety and training requirements than foreign flag ships are required to meet under IMO.

[chengkp75]

Yes, you're still fine. After all, when they nail people for creating PVSA violations they do not accept the excuse that each individual segment is compliant and they were all booked separately… So they are also not allowed to split your trip up and say "Gotcha! This sub-portion of your itinerary is illegal!" All that matters is your complete itinerary as a passenger on that vessel.

 

One other thing to remember, it is the cruise line itself, not the passenger, who violates the PVSA, and the cruise line is the entity fined by CBP. It is only your ticket contract that allows the cruise line to pass the fine on to the passenger.

[hawkeyetlse]

The major problem with repealing the PVSA, while of some benefit to the cruising public, would be subject to the law of unexpected consequences.

To be fair, scottamiller said "repeal/amendment of the PVSA" and it is not unreasonable to suggest revisiting a law passed 130 years ago to see if changes could be made to better serve the country today. It's not an all or nothing question, and in particular passenger transport and cargo do not have be lumped together, nor do inland waterway services and ocean travel. And I would point out that pragmatic exceptions have already been made to the law, for example, allowing Canadian vessels to offer non-PVSA compliant services in border regions.

 

However, there have also been proposals in the opposite direction, trying to reinforce the PVSA and make it harder for cruise lines to get away with just a quick foreign stop. No one is under any illusion why so many cruise ships stop at Ensenada, for example, and there are those who see this as a violation of the spirit of the PVSA and would like to put an end to it (see here for an attempt by Homeland Security/CBP).

[IECalCruiser]

IMHO, despite the issues with the PVSA, it is much better to leave it as is rather than risk some special interest driven act that could be much more onerous than the PVSA.

 

 

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[chengkp75]

To be fair, scottamiller said "repeal/amendment of the PVSA" and it is not unreasonable to suggest revisiting a law passed 130 years ago to see if changes could be made to better serve the country today. It's not an all or nothing question, and in particular passenger transport and cargo do not have be lumped together, nor do inland waterway services and ocean travel. And I would point out that pragmatic exceptions have already been made to the law, for example, allowing Canadian vessels to offer non-PVSA compliant services in border regions. First, the Jones Act is completely separate from the PVSA, and is not an amendment to it. The Jones Act has been revised several times (and is in fact a recodification of cabotage laws going back to the 1700's), as recently as 2006. And the inclusion of the "cruise to nowhere" is an example of a revision of the PVSA. I'm afraid that in today's America, there would not be a chance of separating inland transport from "ocean travel". As soon as Congress tried to do that, some one would sue to overturn the law on the basis of discrimination against their particular trade route. Besides, what the PVSA covers, while to you it may seem to be "ocean travel" is considered in international law to be a "coastwise" voyage.

 

As for Canadian vessels, this and the exemption for Puerto Rico are temporary exemptions, and as soon as someone wants to start a US flag company servicing these areas, all foreign ships would be forced to stop the trade. One US ship in the Puerto Rico trade carrying 50 passengers would stop Carnival's one way cruises to Puerto Rico, under the current wording.

 

However, there have also been proposals in the opposite direction, trying to reinforce the PVSA and make it harder for cruise lines to get away with just a quick foreign stop. No one is under any illusion why so many cruise ships stop at Ensenada, for example, and there are those who see this as a violation of the spirit of the PVSA and would like to put an end to it (see here for an attempt by Homeland Security/CBP). If the cruise line advertises Ensenada as a port call on the ship's itinerary (which they did not do in the past), and if the port call is a true port call, I and most people, including the CBP have no problem with this, it is just the same as using Vancouver as your foreign port. What was a violation of the "intent" or "spirit" of the PVSA was when the cruise line would stop in Ensenada at midnight for just long enough to clear the paperwork, not allow guests to go ashore, and call this a foreign port call.

 

The EU is a unique situation, but they have established cabotage laws that restrict coastwise trade to ships flagged in member states only, which has the same effect as the Jones Act and PVSA.

 

What I find interesting is that with the US ranking 11th in total merchant tonnage (down from #1 after WWII) (and much of that tonnage is inland), and with so many US companies operating foreign flag ships, is that the PVSA and Jones Acts are still around. Since there is no shipbuilding industry interested in building US ships, the majority of US owned transportation companies using foreign ships, and the number of US mariners dwindling, there must be some other powerful lobby that is successfully fighting the farm state senators and the cruise industry. My guess is that it is the military and the USCG who want to be able to control a fleet in times of war, and who don't want poorly regulated foreign ships in the coastwise trade.

[paul929207]

A few years ago there was a effort in the US Congress to modify the PVSA. It was an attempt to strengthen it. Fortunately it failed.

[Corfe Mixture]

You do realize that 68 nations have maritime cabotage laws very similar to the US Jones Act and PVSA, including most of Europe, Japan, Philippines, .

 

No I do not realise that. Nor do I accept that for one moment that one can say that most of Europe has laws very similar to PVSA.

 

Go and search on the Mediterranean on the Princess Cruises website. All the cruises you will find following searching are operated by non-EU flagged vessels owned by US Corporations and virtually all the cruises returned by the search start and finish inside the Scheveningen Zone and very few visit distant foreign (North African) ports.

 

Note: The Scheveningen Zone Agreement is the EU common borders policy which means that, for immigration purposes, all EU ports are ports of entry into the EU. As a result cruises starting and finishing in different ports in different member states of the EU are directly and incontestably analogous to cruises starting and finishing in different ports in different US states.

 

You statement is therefore regrettably nothing more than a distortion of facts in order to justify protectionist activity. I do not dispute that somewhere someone with a vested interest in preserving PVSA has managed to produce an argument that 68 nations have equivalent laws the the US Jones Act. However, I would suggest that, at least in the case of Europe, this data would not stand the test of any detailed assessment on a fair and equitable basis.

Edited October 17, 2014 by Corfe Mixture

[TravelerThom]

...Note: The Scheveningen Zone Agreement is the EU common borders policy which means that, for immigration purposes, all EU ports are ports of entry into the EU...

Unfortunately this is gross over simplification. The Schengen Area currently has 26 member countries, including 4 that are NOT members of the EU (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein) and there are six members of the EU that are NOT part of Schengen (the UK and Ireland by choice, and Croatia, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria not yet admitted to Schengen due to insufficient border controls and/or non-compliance with standardized visa requirements). Also not all EU nor Schengen ports are authorized ports of entry into the EU or Schengen as they do not have border control capabilities (just as many US sea ports and airports are not set up to receive incoming international traffic).

 

Thom

Edited October 17, 2014 by TravelerThom

[RickEk]

From what I understand, the booking software would catch a PVSA violation if trying to book a linked voyage. It's when people try to get tricky and purchase separate voyages and don't link them that violations occur. Obviously they have some kind of checks that find those types of potential violations at a later date...

[chengkp75]

A few years ago there was a effort in the US Congress to modify the PVSA. It was an attempt to strengthen it. Fortunately it failed.

 

This was an example of the "law of unintended consequences" that I mentioned earlier. It was NCL that was petitioning CBP about the midnight Ensenada stop, and they wanted the rule changed so that there would be a real port call required. At this point, CBP came up with the idea that ships would have to spend the "majority" of their port time in foreign ports. This is not what NCL wanted (she does, after all, do the Alaska run), and NCL ended up lobbying CBP against their own petition.

[Corfe Mixture]

Unfortunately this is gross over simplification. The Schengen Area currently has 26 member countries, including 4 that are NOT members of the EU (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein) and there are six members of the EU that are NOT part of Schengen (the UK and Ireland by choice, and Croatia, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria not yet admitted to Schengen due to insufficient border controls and/or non-compliance with standardized visa requirements). Also not all EU nor Schengen ports are authorized ports of entry into the EU or Schengen as they do not have border control capabilities (just as many US sea ports and airports are not set up to receive incoming international traffic).

 

Thom

 

I entirely accept that my analogy was an over simplification, made worse by my error of using Scheveningen instead of Schengen, but I was responding to the grossly over simplified point being made that 68 countries, including most of Europe, have something similar to the Jones Act and PVSA.

 

BUT

 

Consider this:

1. We can all drive from Athens to Barcelona without passing through any border controls as we can if we drive from Fort Lauderdale to LA.

2. The citizens of Fort Lauderdale and LA both vote to send representatives to your central Government in Washington. The citizens of Athens and Barcelona both vote to send representatives to central Government in Brussels.

3. Washington makes laws which apply throughout the US and Brussels makes laws which apply throughout the EU.

4. Current inter-Governmental discussion on free trade are taking place between the US and the EU and not between the US and individual EU states. The results of those discussions will apply throughout the US and the EU.

 

5. People in Fort Lauderdale cannot board a foreign flagged vessel and sail to LA, and vice versa unless the ship visits a distant foreign port on the way

WHEREAS

People in Athens can, and many US citizens travelling as Princess passengers do, board a foreign flagged in Athens and sail to Barcelona without visiting a distant foreign port.

Edited October 17, 2014 by Corfe Mixture

[chengkp75]

No I do not realise that. Nor do I accept that for one moment that one can say that most of Europe has laws very similar to PVSA.

 

Go and search on the Mediterranean on the Princess Cruises website. All the cruises you will find following searching are operated by non-EU flagged vessels owned by US Corporations and virtually all the cruises returned by the search start and finish inside the Scheveningen Zone and very few visit distant foreign (North African) ports.

 

Note: The Scheveningen Zone Agreement is the EU common borders policy which means that, for immigration purposes, all EU ports are ports of entry into the EU. As a result cruises starting and finishing in different ports in different member states of the EU are directly and incontestably analogous to cruises starting and finishing in different ports in different US states.

 

You statement is therefore regrettably nothing more than a distortion of facts in order to justify protectionist activity. I do not dispute that somewhere someone with a vested interest in preserving PVSA has managed to produce an argument that 68 nations have equivalent laws the the US Jones Act. However, I would suggest that, at least in the case of Europe, this data would not stand the test of any detailed assessment on a fair and equitable basis.

 

 

First let me point out that NONE of the cruise lines are "US Corporations" they are all incorporated offshore.

 

From:

THE APPLICATION OF THE EC COMMON RULES ON

COMPETITION TO CABOTAGE, INCLUDING ISLAND

CABOTAGE by Professor Rosa Greaves, Universities of Glasgow and Oslo

 

Maritime transport services provided within a Member State (cabotage) have always been a sensitive area

for the application of EC competition rules. Until the end of the twentieth century the national laws of a

significant number of EU Member States restricted access to this market to ships registered under their own

flag, and, often, to State owned operators. However, since January 1999 when the maritime cabotage

services market became fully liberalised,5 there was no compelling reason as to why the EC competition

rules should not fully apply to this market.

 

To me, and having read EU regulation 3577/92, all the EU does is to modify member nations' existing cabotage laws to allow the service to be provided by any member nation.

 

I think you are misunderstanding cabotage, and I have misunderstood how EU regulations apply to member states.

 

Cabotage protects the carriage of goods within a country, for instance passenger service between Aberdeen and the Shetlands. Let me ask you a question that I don't know the answer to, but have a pretty good idea. Could a Panamanian flag ship take over the ferry route between Aberdeen and Lerwick? My feeling is no. This is cabotage. What my reading of the EU competition regulations does is allow for a French flagged vessel to perform that route (as a previous poster noted, not all European countries are EU members, and not all abide by all the EU rules). Now, would a Panamanian ship be allowed to carry passengers between Aberdeen and Lerwick if it went to Oslo in between? My feeling is yes, because this is a foreign voyage (calls at a foreign port, even though an EU member, I think). This is what the PVSA allows, is the carriage of passengers between two US ports, provided that there is a foreign port call in between.

 

All of those cruises in the Med that you mention. Do any of them allow a passenger to board in one port, say Rome, and get off in the next port, if it is in Italy? Probably not. The cruise calls at foreign ports (even though EU members) and so this is not carriage within the member nation.

 

As far as Schengen rules, that applies to immigration, which has nothing to do with carriage of goods and people at sea, that is customs. And speaking of protectionist activities, look to your domestic air transport. The only way that a non-EU member airline can fly between two British cities (for instance) is by signing a partnership agreement with a British airline, and sharing revenue. Again, nearly all countries have airline cabotage laws.

 

There was a thread just last week about whether or not Japan had an equivalent to the PVSA, since the CC member was doing 3 back to back cruises from Japan, and each one was required to make a foreign port call. Looking this up, I found that Japan's cabotage laws are very similar to the US.

 

I apologize for not being able to present the list of countries with maritime cabotage laws, but the government website where I got it is acting up today. The link is:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCcQFjAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hsdl.org%2F%3Fview%26did%3D455295&ei=hHhBVMn9Ks-1yATzj4G4Cw&usg=AFQjCNEpkPfU01HKpypj_tRn3aJaaX0Wiw&bvm=bv.77648437,d.aWw

 

which takes you to a Transportation Administration document that is a summary of worldwide cabotage practices, not only for maritime, but for air and land transport as well.

 

Here's a specific link about cruise line cabotage:

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCwQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cruiseco.com%2FResources%2Fcabotage.htm&ei=hHhBVMn9Ks-1yATzj4G4Cw&usg=AFQjCNHSllPzk79oOhhJyuawF0dYI4s9uw&bvm=bv.77648437,d.aWw

 

please note the quote from this site;

 

For itineraries in Europe special permission must be requested in advance of the cruise for any inter-country cruising

 

Therefore:

- You may embark in a foreign country and debark in another foreign country

- You may embark in a foreign country and debark in a different port in the same country if in between

 

you have visited another country.

 

 

The following countries require AMPLE notice in advance of any deviation requests:

Norway, Greece, Russia, United Kingdom and Spain

 

My question is why does special permission need to be given, and extra notification time for the UK, if the Schengen immigration rules apply? Because of cabotage, and whether or not the ship is allowed to do this.

[Corfe Mixture]

 

Cabotage protects the carriage of goods within a country, for instance passenger service between Aberdeen and the Shetlands. Let me ask you a question that I don't know the answer to, but have a pretty good idea. Could a Panamanian flag ship take over the ferry route between Aberdeen and Lerwick? My feeling is no. This is cabotage. What my reading of the EU competition regulations does is allow for a French flagged vessel to perform that route (as a previous poster noted, not all European countries are EU members, and not all abide by all the EU rules). Now, would a Panamanian ship be allowed to carry passengers between Aberdeen and Lerwick if it went to Oslo in between? My feeling is yes, because this is a foreign voyage (calls at a foreign port, even though an EU member, I think). This is what the PVSA allows, is the carriage of passengers between two US ports, provided that there is a foreign port call in between.

 

Many thanks for all that information and the trouble you have gone to. Sadly I do not know the answer regarding the Shetlands ferry as I do not live in that area and any response I made would be no better and probably much less well informed than yours.

 

What I can say is that the ferry from Plymouth to Spain is registered in France, but, as I read your post, for the purposes we have been discussing, the UK and Spain are not regarded collectively and in any event, if they were, then France would not be regarded as another country, so I guess that us not a good example.

 

I probably can answer your question about ferries passing through Oslo, as the ferry from Poole to St Malo via Guernsey is registered in Nassau and although Guernsey is a Crown Possession it is not part of the UK or the EU, so Guernsey is analogous to Oslo, though Guernsey is hardly "a distant port", and almost certainly would not qualify as such under the criteria the US , but that would be splitting hairs.

 

I am also aware that Isle of Wight ferries are registered in either Portsmouth or London, which tends to support your assertion.

 

Similarly, the Scilly Island ferries are all UK registered are at least one of them had it's port of registry changed to the UK on acquisition.

 

So that is about it. Again many thanks for you lengthy response.

 

Kindest regards

 

CM

[chengkp75]

I entirely accept that my analogy was an over simplification, made worse by my error of using Scheveningen instead of Schengen, but I was responding to the grossly over simplified point being made that 68 countries, including most of Europe, have something similar to the Jones Act and PVSA.

 

BUT

 

Consider this:

1. We can all drive from Athens to Barcelona without passing through any border controls as we can if we drive from Fort Lauderdale to LA.

2. The citizens of Fort Lauderdale and LA both vote to send representatives to your central Government in Washington. The citizens of Athens and Barcelona both vote to send representatives to central Government in Brussels.

3. Washington makes laws which apply throughout the US and Brussels makes laws which apply throughout the EU.

4. Current inter-Governmental discussion on free trade are taking place between the US and the EU and not between the US and individual EU states. The results of those discussions will apply throughout the US and the EU.

 

5. People in Fort Lauderdale cannot board a foreign flagged vessel and sail to LA, and vice versa unless the ship visits a distant foreign port on the way

WHEREAS

People in Athens can, and many US citizens travelling as Princess passengers do, board a foreign flagged in Athens and sail to Barcelona without visiting a distant foreign port.

 

Talk about an over simplification, comparing the EU (a union of sovereign nations with the guaranteed right to leave the union at any time) to the US, which fought a war to prove that it was one nation, not a union of sovereign states (apologies to my southern brethren). When was the last time you saw a Texas dollar? When was the last time you saw a ship flying the flag of Minnesota? EU law, by definition, has equal force to national law. US law, in many instances, takes precedence over state law.

 

1. While you can drive from Athens to Barcelona without passing through any border controls, if you decided to route your trip through Romania (an EU member), you would. Arkansas cannot require you to present identification at the border with Oklahoma. And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Thom mention that the UK, by choice, opted out of the Schengen immigration rules? No state in the US can do that.

 

3. While Brussels makes laws that apply throughout the EU, I believe that most of these laws have to do with interaction between member nations, and that member nations can and do make their own laws about maritime transportation (or why else are there French ships and British ships, and German ships) and their own internal economy.

 

4. That is a decision that the EU makes, and if a nation doesn't like what is being talked about, they can withdraw from the EU.

 

5. Again, you are comparing going from Suffolk to Devon (Florida to California) to travel between sovereign nations.

 

I'm not willing to invest the time to try and search for UK law regarding cabotage, as I'm not familiar with how government documents are found online, but the fact that there are cabotage laws protecting the Shetland Island ferries, I have no doubt.

[chengkp75]

While trying to find a reference to UK cabotage laws, I found a legal brief about Nigeria's cabotage law (strange how these searches go), and it mentioned that the UK does in fact NOT have a national cabotage law, but has the domestic regulations that effectively ban non-EU shipping from coastwise transport.

[TravelerThom]

One can drive from FLL to LA in a car on roads without border controls (assuming that you do not consider state agricultural stations located at some state borders to be border controls). It is NOT possible to DRIVE from Athens to Barcelona without going through border controls if the definition of "drive" involves cars and roads. Greece touches no other Schengen country, so driving on a road out of Greece involves border controls. It is possible to drive your car from Greece onto a ship to Italy and then drive to Barcelona without border controls, but if you consider driving to allow movement on ships, then you can drive from Denmark to Iceland (and IMO it is pretty ridiculous to consider that "driving").

 

Oslo, Norway is NOT in the EU, but is in Schengen.

 

Thom

[whitshel]

Would Princess allow you to book cruises if there was a violation to the PVSA (I assume this is about the Jones Act?)

 

We have a B2B2B cruise on the same ship next year. FLL - LA, LA - Vancouver (with a stop in Victoria), then Vancouver to Alaska.

 

I'd hate to be told we had to cancel. Does it look OK?

 

 

I know most have said this is ok since you are traveling to a distant foreign port on your 1st leg but the second leg and third leg is going from LA to Alaska(I assume anchorage) so I'm not sure if that's legal since it's a separate cruise and you eventually are going one way from one us port to another. If it ends in yvr your ok either way but if it ends in Alaska, I'm not so sure.....

 

I'm sure we'll find out shortly :)

 

 

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[caribill]

I know most have said this is ok since you are traveling to a distant foreign port on your 1st leg but the second leg and third leg is going from LA to Alaska(I assume anchorage) so I'm not sure if that's legal since it's a separate cruise and you eventually are going one way from one us port to another. If it ends in yvr your ok either way but if it ends in Alaska, I'm not so sure.....

 

 

I am sure.

 

Since the passenger is being transported from FLL, stopping at a distant foreign port and then continuing on to other USA ports, the PVSA requirements have been satisfied.

 

It does not matter how many additional segments the passenger is on once the requirement has been met and the passenger then can end the cruise in any USA port.

[chengkp75]

I know most have said this is ok since you are traveling to a distant foreign port on your 1st leg but the second leg and third leg is going from LA to Alaska(I assume anchorage) so I'm not sure if that's legal since it's a separate cruise and you eventually are going one way from one us port to another. If it ends in yvr your ok either way but if it ends in Alaska, I'm not so sure.....

 

I'm sure we'll find out shortly :)

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Since the trip is continuous, on the same ship, CBP does not care how the trip is advertised (whether one, two, or three cruises), the carriage contract (ticket) for that particular passenger is from FLL to Alaska with a call at a distant foreign port.

[TravelerThom]

...We have a B2B2B cruise on the same ship next year. FLL - LA, LA - Vancouver (with a stop in Victoria), then Vancouver to Alaska. I'd hate to be told we had to cancel. Does it look OK?

...Since the passenger is being transported from FLL, stopping at a distant foreign port and then continuing on to other USA ports, the PVSA requirements have been satisfied.

 

It does not matter how many additional segments the passenger is on once the requirement has been met and the passenger then can end the cruise in any USA port.

I agree with carbill, but remember that while FLL-(distant foreign stop)-LA-Vancouver-Alaska satisfies PVSA, if you took the second two legs by themselves (only LA-Vancouver B2B Vancouver- Alaska) this would violate PVSA since you would be traveling on a foreign flag vessel between two US ports with no distant foreign port .

 

Thom

[Pierlesscruisers]

PVSA (I assume this is about the Jones Act?)

 

PVSA and Jones Act (also known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920) are two separate laws.

 

Tom

[paul929207]

PVSA and Jones Act (also known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920) are two separate laws.

 

Tom

Passenger Vessel Service Act (PVSA) applies to passenger ships. The Jones Act applies to cargo ships