What are the chances Florida gets its way in court today (5/12/21)?

[Ken the cruiser]

Let me rephrase my prediction. All I'm really saying is that we'll be on our B2B2B cruise on the Edge leaving out of Ft Lauderdale the latter part of July AND the Edge will be cruising with at least 95% of its passengers and 98% of the crew vaccinated. How Celebrity, the CDC and Florida all come together to achieve that goal will definitely generate a lot of discussion between now and then, with this court case just being one of the discussion items.  😎

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Ken the cruiser

[chengkp75]

9 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

But Florida is a party to the case, so they are involved in the mediation.  My hope is that this process will be a way for both sides to save face:  CDC agrees to allow 100% vaccinated cruises, Florida agrees to allow the cruise lines to verify compliance – we win but they can both claim that they won...

The thing is, this case has nothing to do with the Florida ban on vaccine verification.  Now, it might be brought in as a bargaining chip, but therein lies the second problem.  If this was still just an executive order by the governor, it could be used as a bargaining chip, but since it has become law, the governor has nothing to bargain with, since he no longer controls the ban.

[harkinmr]

11 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

But Florida is a party to the case, so they are involved in the mediation.  My hope is that this process will be a way for both sides to save face:  CDC agrees to allow 100% vaccinated cruises, Florida agrees to allow the cruise lines to verify compliance – we win but they can both claim that they won...

But vaccinated cruises are not the issue being considered in this case. The state of Florida wants the CSO gone. The CDC does not. The CDC has offered cruise lines a choice. Vaccinated or unvaccinated sailings. They are not demanding vaccines. How does Florida “save face” by agreeing that the CSO stays in place and cruise lines can require vaccines? It doesn’t. This will all be moot in a few weeks because the CDC and the cruise lines are quietly working out a restart, no matter the grandstanding by Florida. 

[TeeRick]

9 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Let me rephrase my prediction. All I'm really saying is that we'll be on our B2B2B cruise on the Edge leaving out of Ft Lauderdale the latter part of July AND the Edge will be cruising with at least 95% of its passengers and 98% of the crew vaccinated. How Celebrity, the CDC and Florida all come together to achieve that goal will definitely generate a lot of discussion between now and then, with this court case just being one of the discussion items.  😎

 

Ken - Carnac the Magnificent!  I hope your prediction is spot on!😀

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, harkinmr said:

But vaccinated cruises are not the issue being considered in this case. The state of Florida wants the CSO gone. The CDC does not. The CDC has offered cruise lines a choice. Vaccinated or unvaccinated sailings. They are not demanding vaccines. How does Florida “save face” by agreeing that the CSO stays in place and cruise lines can require vaccines? It doesn’t. This will all be moot in a few weeks because the CDC and the cruise lines are quietly working out a restart, no matter the grandstanding by Florida. 

Here's an interesting RCCL development I just read on the FB RC Blog that, who knows may give some possible insight that there is something else going on behind the scenes. 🤔

 

The cruise line announced Vision of the Seas' summer season from Bermuda in 2021 is now officially cancelled. This affects Vision of the Seas Bermuda departures between June 26 – August 28, 2021.

In an email, Royal Caribbean said the past few weeks have been, "tumultuous", and that, "recent conversations have led to promising movement for the cruise industry and are the necessary steppingstones to get Royal Caribbean back."

[Aloha 1]

Here's more detail from today's paper:

 

 South Florida Sun Sentinel
Cruise lines, their customers, the state of Florida and the U.S. government will have to wait a little longer to learn whether a federal order keeping ships idled can stand.
A Tampa federal judge overseeing the state’s civil case against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention referred the matter to a mediator Tuesday with instructions to hear the positions of both sides before June 1.
Mediators are typically summoned in the hopes of coaxing both sides into settling their differences outside the court. In the cruise line dispute, Judge Steven Merryday was required to name a mediator under local rules governing civil cases in the Middle District of Florida, said Robert Jarvis, law professor at Nova Southeastern University.
“The idea is to get cases out of the system as fast as possible,” Jarvis said. “In many cases you don’t need a trial. What you need is a neutral to sit down with the parties.”
The state’s lawsuit, filed April 8 in U.S. District Court in Tampa, names as defendants the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the agencies’ appointed leaders. It claims the CDC’s COVID-19 prevention guidelines for cruise ships are “arbitrary and capricious,” unconstitutional, and violate federal laws governing administrative procedures.
Two weeks later, the state asked the court to immediately overturn the CDC’s “conditional sail order” that has kept cruise lines from operating from U.S. ports pending a series of steps by each company to ensure safe voyages for passengers and crew.
Last Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday held a three-hour, 49-minute hearing on the matter.
Lawyers from the Florida attorney general’s office argued the agency overstepped its authority by imposing a multistep process for cruise lines to safely resume operating from U.S. ports after more than year of no service.
The industry shut down in March 2020 after a number of passengers aboard its ships contracted the coronavirus. Since then, the state argued in its lawsuit, the industry and local economies have suffered catastrophic financial losses.
Florida Gov, Ron DeSantis, who for months has advocated the elimination of COVID-related restrictions on businesses and industries around the state, has vigorously opposed the process the CDC established for resuming cruises.
Justice Department lawyers countered that the state has no authority to dictate when and where the companies can resume service. In court papers, government lawyers also said the state had allowed an entire year to pass without taking any action.
Although Merryday told both sides he would try to expedite a decision, he named Tampa attorney Joseph H. Varner III to serve as mediator with another local lawyer, James Percival, serving as his lead attorney.
The judge also allowed the American Society of Travel Advisors, a Washington-based trade group of travel agents, to file a friend of the court brief to support the state’s argument about economic damages suffered by the industry and communities outside Florida. The federal government opposed the filing, arguing in court papers that ASTA’s request came too late under court rules.
But in a separate order Tuesday, Merryday gave the group until Friday to file its papers.
“Plainly, the outcome of this case will affect far more Americans than just the 159,000 Floridians whose livelihoods are tied in one way or another to the cruise industry,” ASTA lawyers wrote in their petition to be heard.. “Indeed, they represent but a small percentage of those impacted by the defendants’ actions when viewed in strictly economic terms.
“That being said, the impact goes well beyond the economic, as this case raises broader and concerns about the freedom of individuals to travel as they see fit and infringes upon their fundamental rights,” ASTA asserted.
“This aspect is particularly worthy of the court’s serious consideration given that the defendants, as administrative agencies, have been largely unchecked and are, for all intents and purposes, unaccountable for the consequences of their actions,” the society’s lawyers added. “Should ASTA be permitted to intervene … it will provide a broader analysis of the situation from the perspective of both the industry outside of Florida as well as the traveling public at large.”