PVSA definition of Round Trip

[rafinmd]

I expect there is some safety in numbers and Crystal will either need to find a solution or offer a lot of unhappy customers some great compensation.  This will be a very interesting one to follow.

 

 Roy 

[LHT28]

14 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

I expect there is some safety in numbers and Crystal will either need to find a solution or offer a lot of unhappy customers some great compensation.  This will be a very interesting one to follow.

 

 Roy 

You could have asked  someone  before you disembarked today since you opened the can of worms  😁

 

[chengkp75]

3 hours ago, Shmoo here said:

There's a thread running regarding this B2B situation on the Crystal forum.  And, apparently, they've all received a letter telling them the procedure.

And, (quoting here from another post) "Crystal has a good system in place to prevent illegal back-to-backs.  I know first hand because over the years I tried to book two different ones which would not work."

Doesn't convince me.  Nearly every B2B is advertised as two separate cruises, and CBP doesn't give a hoot how the cruises are advertised or sold, it's where you get on and where you get off.  As far as "getting off and clearing customs", again the wording of the PVSA says you must "permanently disembark" for the voyage to end, so everyone would need to take all their luggage off the ship and check in again, as if it were a new cruise.

[LHT28]

20 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Doesn't convince me.  Nearly every B2B is advertised as two separate cruises, and CBP doesn't give a hoot how the cruises are advertised or sold, it's where you get on and where you get off.  As far as "getting off and clearing customs", again the wording of the PVSA says you must "permanently disembark" for the voyage to end, so everyone would need to take all their luggage off the ship and check in again, as if it were a new cruise.

I would not think  that would  help you are still on on the same ship

 

[njhorseman]

58 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Doesn't convince me.  Nearly every B2B is advertised as two separate cruises, and CBP doesn't give a hoot how the cruises are advertised or sold, it's where you get on and where you get off.  As far as "getting off and clearing customs", again the wording of the PVSA says you must "permanently disembark" for the voyage to end, so everyone would need to take all their luggage off the ship and check in again, as if it were a new cruise.

I agree.  As you know the procedure in San Juan they're referring to is just the standard procedure required by CPB for any back-to-back cruise turning around at a US port. I've done it several times. CBP requires all passengers to disembark, go through immigration formalities and after all passengers are off (what's called a zero count) the b2b passengers are permitted to reboard. Going through this procedure in no way negates the PVSA violation that this particular b2b causes. 

I have the feeling that Crystal is going to be put in the position of having to eat the PVSA fine for all the b2b passengers lest this develop into a really negative public relations issue.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by njhorseman

[Shmoo here]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

Doesn't convince me. 

Nor me.  

[LHT28]

so back to my question in post #6

What would  a distant foreign port in the Caribbean be  other than the ABCs ??

 

 

[Shmoo here]

1 minute ago, LHT28 said:

so back to my question in post #6

What would  a distant foreign port in the Caribbean be  other than the ABCs ??

 

 

I can't specifically say what would be, but the PVSA does describe a "nearby foreign port".  That might help:

A “nearby foreign port” is defined as "any port in North America, Central America, the Bermuda Islands, or the West Indies (including the Bahama Islands, but not including the Leeward Islands of the Netherlands Antilles, i.e., Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao)." 19 CFR § 4.80a(a)(2).

[chengkp75]

55 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

so back to my question in post #6

What would  a distant foreign port in the Caribbean be  other than the ABCs ??

 

 

None.  A "distant" foreign port is defined as any port outside North or Central America, the Caribbean, Bahamas, and Bermuda.  As stated, the ABC's are geographically considered part of South America, so they are "distant".  Ports like Cartagena, Colombia are also "distant".

[LHT28]

19 minutes ago, Shmoo here said:

I can't specifically say what would be, but the PVSA does describe a "nearby foreign port".  That might help:

A “nearby foreign port” is defined as "any port in North America, Central America, the Bermuda Islands, or the West Indies (including the Bahama Islands, but not including the Leeward Islands of the Netherlands Antilles, i.e., Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao)." 19 CFR § 4.80a(a)(2).

So  it states not including the Netherlands Antilles   that may be part of the clue

 

Found this

The Island Regulation had divided the Netherlands Antilles into four island territories: Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao (ABC), and the islands in the Leeward Islands. In 1983, the island territory of the Leeward was split up to form the new island territories of Sint Maarten, Saba, and Sint Eustatius (SSS).

 

Looks like Sint Maarten  is the key  as to why the B2B is legal

Time will tell if we are kicked off  on Dec14th or not

 

[Shmoo here]

2 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

So  it states not including the Netherlands Antilles   that may be part of the clue

 

Found this

The Island Regulation had divided the Netherlands Antilles into four island territories: Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao (ABC), and the islands in the Leeward Islands. In 1983, the island territory of the Leeward was split up to form the new island territories of Sint Maarten, Saba, and Sint Eustatius (SSS).

 

Looks like Sint Maarten  is the key  as to why the B2B is legal

Time will tell if we are kicked off  on Dec14th or not

 

Read it again "not including the Leeward Islands of the Netherlands Antilles, i.e., Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao"

 

St. Maarten is not one of the Leeward Islands.  It was split off from the Leeward Islands.  

[LHT28]

21 minutes ago, Shmoo here said:

Read it again "not including the Leeward Islands of the Netherlands Antilles, i.e., Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao"

 

St. Maarten is not one of the Leeward Islands.  It was split off from the Leeward Islands.  

Yes  it says  a nearby foreign port  does not include the Leeward Islands

 

maybe check what Islands are part of the Leeward  island chain

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, LHT28 said:

Yes  it says  a nearby foreign port  does not include the Leeward Islands

 

maybe check what Islands are part of the Leeward  island chain

Yes, and every island up to and including Puerto Rico are in the Leewards, so why do repositioning cruises all go to the ABC's, if they could go to the BVI instead?  The law is referring to the "Leeward Antilles" calling them the "Leeward Islands of the Netherlands Antilles" (the bold part is important.  The Leeward Antilles go along the north coast of South America, stopping just below Grenada.  It does not say "the Leeward Islands", it specifically states the islands are part of the Netherlands Antilles.

[rafinmd]

5 hours ago, LHT28 said:

You could have asked  someone  before you disembarked today since you opened the can of worms  😁

 

I was on the wrong ship.  I'm thinking that Crystal might have 2 options.  One would be to deadhead the ship to Miami after dropping PAx in Ft. Lauderdale (They can work on getting rooms ready while they sail).  A couple of years ago I was on a cruise that had to be shifted from Los Angeles to New York and it had to be shifted at the last minute because Crystal found they were at the limit of LAX visits for a ship without a shore power hookup.  They bused everybody to San Diego so this is possible even on short notice (I don't think they can return to FTL since there are already i ships there December 22.

 

The other thing they could do is hold the ship overnight in San Juan and put all the B2B passengers up in a hotel for that night, which would mean cancelling the port before or after San Juan.

 

Time will tell.  From the roll call response I expect there are a LOT of passengers in that situation.

 

Roy

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, rafinmd said:

The other thing they could do is hold the ship overnight in San Juan and put all the B2B passengers up in a hotel for that night, which would mean cancelling the port before or after San Juan.

This would only work if the cruise was sold as ending one day and starting the next.  And, again, the passengers would all have to remove all of their belongings from the ship for the overnight.

[Shmoo here]

12 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

This would only work if the cruise was sold as ending one day and starting the next.  And, again, the passengers would all have to remove all of their belongings from the ship for the overnight.

And I already looked that up - the Serenity is arriving in San Juan at 8 am and departing at 6 pm the same day.

[LHT28]

2 hours ago, rafinmd said:

I was on the wrong ship.  I'm thinking that Crystal might have 2 options.  One would be to deadhead the ship to Miami after dropping PAx in Ft. Lauderdale (They can work on getting rooms ready while they sail). 

It could have been asked  anyway  as a hypothetical quetion

Anyway I  hope  they  are still stopping at POM   plus  the Dec22 nd cruise is from POM

Have you heard of any changes in embarkation  for that cruise ??

 

[LHT28]

3 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

 It does not say "the Leeward Islands", it specifically states the islands are part of the Netherlands Antilles.

What Islands  are part  of  the Netherlands Antilles?

 

Now I am done

I am not going to stress out over speculation that this  is an illegal  B2B

If it is then Crystal will be paying a lot of  $$

[LHT28]

a tidbit

 

As of 2010, there's technically no such thing as the Netherlands Antilles, although the name is still widely used for its five once-constituent Caribbean islands – Bonaire, Curacao, Sint Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius – and often also for Aruba, which seceded from the group 24 years earlier.

 

So back to square one 😉

 

[chengkp75]

10 hours ago, LHT28 said:

a tidbit

 

As of 2010, there's technically no such thing as the Netherlands Antilles, although the name is still widely used for its five once-constituent Caribbean islands – Bonaire, Curacao, Sint Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius – and often also for Aruba, which seceded from the group 24 years earlier.

 

So back to square one 😉

 

And the verbiage in the PVSA that requires a cruise ship to visit a "distant" foreign port was written well before 2010, when the entity known as the Netherlands Antilles was still in existence.

[*Miss G*]

I am on a Pacific Coastal itinerary starting in Vancouver and ending in Seattle.  I had looked at joining the cruise prior, on the same ship, which went from San Diego to Vancouver, but it departed the day it arrived so I knew that was a no-go.  The day I booked the VAN-SEA itinerary I received an email from the HAL booking department.  I know this doesn’t address the current Crystal issue but I thought it was relevant.

 

[Keith1010]

On 12/1/2019 at 9:37 PM, LHT28 said:

What Islands  are part  of  the Netherlands Antilles?

 

Now I am done

I am not going to stress out over speculation that this  is an illegal  B2B

If it is then Crystal will be paying a lot of  $$

Glad you are not going to get stressed out about this because it is not going to be a problem.

 

Keith

[Charles4515]

On 12/1/2019 at 10:37 PM, LHT28 said:

What Islands  are part  of  the Netherlands Antilles?

 

Now I am done

I am not going to stress out over speculation that this  is an illegal  B2B

If it is then Crystal will be paying a lot of  $$

I wonder how many passengers are doing the B2B? Also if CBP will catch they are in violation? When the passengers do their CBP inspection will the B2B passengers be allowed to continue? Is Crystal allowed to knowingly break the PVSA? Doesn’t seem likely they can decide in advance to break the law in a non emergency situation. 

 

 

 

[LHT28]

9 hours ago, *Miss G* said:

I am on a Pacific Coastal itinerary starting in Vancouver and ending in Seattle.  I had looked at joining the cruise prior, on the same ship, which went from San Diego to Vancouver, but it departed the day it arrived so I knew that was a no-go.  The day I booked the VAN-SEA itinerary I received an email from the HAL booking department.  I know this doesn’t address the current Crystal issue but I thought it was relevant.

 

 

 

Not relevant in any way

[LHT28]

1 hour ago, Charles4515 said:

I wonder how many passengers are doing the B2B? Also if CBP will catch they are in violation? When the passengers do their CBP inspection will the B2B passengers be allowed to continue? Is Crystal allowed to knowingly break the PVSA? Doesn’t seem likely they can decide in advance to break the law in a non emergency situation. 

 

Well I will report back 

 

But  I do not think they are in violation 

JMO