Suspension of Partial Cruises by RCI

[GTJ]

Late last year Royal Caribbean Blog reported that “Royal Caribbean won't let you embark the ship at a different port of call or leave the ship earlier during your cruise.” The blog repeated the cruise line’s reason for this decision as being made “in an abundance of caution for the safety and security of our guests.” (It should be noted that Royal Caribbean Blog is not affiliated with Royal Caribbean International, but is instead an independent blog operated by Royal Sea Media LLC and controlled by Royal Caribbean International cruise enthusiast Matt Hochberg.)

 

Royal Caribbean International had long acknowledged passengers traveling on so-called “partial cruises,” embarking at, and/or disembarking from, cruises at other than the scheduled embarkation and disembarkation ports for their full cruise itinerary. Other cruise lines have nor directly acknowledged such passenger travel, but have also generally accommodated such passengers. The practice is important, and perhaps residual from the prior era of ocean liners providing regular point-to-point transportation by sea, because there are many persons seeking transportation for which there are no other practicable alternatives. Included within that group are persons who cannot fly and for which reasonable or safe overland travel does not exist. Indeed, most of my travel by cruise vessel has involved one-way point-to-point transportation.

 

On its website, as an FAQ within its Healthy Sail Center, Royal Caribbean International states: “Q If I'm denied boarding at the pier or arrive late, can I board the ship at the next port? A No, due to the specific boarding day processes required to evaluate the health of everyone onboard, we cannot have guests join the cruise downline once the sailing has embarked.”

 

The wording of the FAQ suggests that this change by Royal Caribbean International may be just temporary, for the duration of the current pandemic travel restrictions, at least when viewed and considered in the most positive light. Yet, I imagine that some of us may have a concern that this could evolve into a permanent retrenchment by Royal Caribbean International from its provision of point-to-point transportation and evolvement into being exclusively as a excursion provider. Such would be detrimental to those who rely on cruise vessel operators for their transportation needs.

 

This is not an issue controlled by the Passenger Vessel Services Act, which imposes legal restraints against domestic transportation solely between United States ports (for which there generally exists reasonable and safe overland transportation). Rather, the issue is international transportation where cabotage laws do not apply. (Nonetheless, many individuals, and even some cruise lines, seem to get worked up over these domestic constraints, and incorrectly assume or conclude that international transportation cannot be provided by foreign flag vessels.)

 

What concerns or insights do others have over the present refusal of Royal Caribbean International to provide point-to-point transportation, and the likelihood of this refusal being either temporary or becoming permanent? Are there reports of other cruise lines having imposed similar restraints against providing point-to-point transportation, either on a temporary or permanent basis?

[mil76]

Rode on an elevator last week on Ovation with two guests who had their suitcases and were disembarking in Victoria (cruise ended in Seattle the next morning).  Someone from guest services gave them their receipt for the closed-out folio as they got on the elevator.  So it looks like they may still allow it for disembarking.  Don't know the circumstances, but the the blog post was the first thing I thought of when they got on the elevator. 

[Ashland]

36 minutes ago, mil76 said:

Rode on an elevator last week on Ovation with two guests who had their suitcases and were disembarking in Victoria (cruise ended in Seattle the next morning).  Someone from guest services gave them their receipt for the closed-out folio as they got on the elevator.  So it looks like they may still allow it for disembarking.  Don't know the circumstances, but the the blog post was the first thing I thought of when they got on the elevator. 

Perhaps an emergency required them to disembark early.  We've seen this on occasion. 

[reallyitsmema]

47 minutes ago, mil76 said:

Rode on an elevator last week on Ovation with two guests who had their suitcases and were disembarking in Victoria (cruise ended in Seattle the next morning).  Someone from guest services gave them their receipt for the closed-out folio as they got on the elevator.  So it looks like they may still allow it for disembarking.  Don't know the circumstances, but the the blog post was the first thing I thought of when they got on the elevator. 

 

My Quantum cruise had people get off in Victoria because of covid, could have been that.

[mil76]

22 minutes ago, reallyitsmema said:

 

My Quantum cruise had people get off in Victoria because of covid, could have been that.

I sure hope not.  I was already on the elevator and they got on not wearing masks.

[twangster]

I had to leave a cruise early recently due to a family emergency.  For these situations they will make exceptions.  

 

The new downling policy was announced Dec. 14, 2021.  Air2Sea guests were noted as an exception.  Downlining was never allowed when it would result in a PVSA violation.  This doesn't impact most cruises with exceptions being when Cuba was available to cruise ships and an itinerary stopped in Key West on day one.  The PVSA impacts Seattle based Alaska cruises in terms of being able to join the ship if embarkation is missed in Seattle.  Cape Liberty cruises that stop in Port Canaveral first would also be included.  For this reason, like Cuba cruises, the Air2Sea assured arrival has reduced effects.

 

In terms of temporary or not, only time will tell.  Their ship, their rules.

 

DOWNLINE EMBARKATION UPDATE Royal Caribbean will no longer allow cruise passengers to pre-plan early debark or late embarkation for any of our ships. As many countries continue to enforce travel restrictions, this decision was made in an abundance of caution for the safety and security of our guests.  Should guests who reserved flights through our Air2Sea program experience delays in air travel that result in missed cruise embarkation, downlining to a future port-of-call remains an option as long as the guest is fully vaccinated and able to show proof of required COVID-19 test results prior to boarding.

Edited September 8, 2022 by twangster

[brillohead]

12 hours ago, GTJ said:

What concerns or insights do others have over the present refusal of Royal Caribbean International to provide point-to-point transportation, and the likelihood of this refusal being either temporary or becoming permanent?

Why on earth would anyone have concerns about this?

If there's an emergency, they allow early debarkation.  Otherwise, they don't. 

What is there to discuss or be concerned about?   

[time4u2go]

17 hours ago, GTJ said:

What concerns or insights do others have over the present refusal of Royal Caribbean International to provide point-to-point transportation, and the likelihood of this refusal being either temporary or becoming permanent?

None. 

[Biker19]

17 hours ago, GTJ said:

What concerns or insights do others have over the present refusal of Royal Caribbean International to provide point-to-point transportation, and the likelihood of this refusal being either temporary or becoming permanent?

You are a very small minority who would advocate for such an allowance - RCI will cater to the masses and can't be bothered to reinstate it.

[GTJ]

9 hours ago, brillohead said:

Why on earth would anyone have concerns about this?

Because people want or need to travel from point A to point B.

 

5 hours ago, Biker19 said:

You are a very small minority who would advocate for such an allowance - RCI will cater to the masses and can't be bothered to reinstate it.

That sort of indifference may well be the case. Yet, it does not make sense, either economically or policy-wise. If someone is willing to pay for a service, but not consume all of the service that is offered, why would the service provider refuse to accept that business? Are there substantial costs for the cruise line when not providing all of the transportation, food , and entertainment to a passenger for the full duration of the itinerary? As to policy, do we really want cruise lines being able to deny service to minorities? There is a social history in this country with respect to the protection of the rights of minorities.

 

Several years ago we traveled aboard a Norwegian Cruise Line vessel for which the full itinerary was New York to New Orleans, a one-way repositioning. We were destined for southern Mexico, and after a delightful Caribbean cruise, we alighted at the penultimate stop, San Miguel de Cozumel in the southern state of Quintana Roo (from which we continued onward by ferry to the mainland and then overland by bus). NCL had requested that we meet up in an onboard conference room at the time of arrival in Cozumel for the purpose of clearing Mexican immigration and customs. There we met up with a handful of other travelers who were also alighting at Cozumel, and provided our passports to NCL staff. They provided our passports to the Mexican officials, who stamped them and provided tourist cards (without even interviewing us personally), and NCL staff then returned the documents to us. Thereafter we all alighted alongside everyone else who was departing the vessel for their day excursions on the island. It is difficult to pick out any substantial expense incurred by NCL.

 

We returned to the United States about one month later, this time using a Carnival Cruise Line vessel that was doing a round-trip excursion from New Orleans and stopping at Cozumel. We headed to the vessel in Cozumel, a Carnival staff person accompanied us to the vessel reception desk, where we checked-in and were assigned a stateroom (which was actually an upgrade). No formalities at all, and again seemingly no meaningful expense to the carrier.

 

Previously we had sailed with Coopérative de Transport Maritime et Aérien on a round-trip cruise from Montréal, where we were destined for the French territorial collectivity of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon. Upon arrival at the island, CTMA staff called for us over the vessel's public address system to come to the reception desk. There we met up with the purser, who closed out our account, and met up with the French immigration and customs official, who examined our passports (no stamps or tourist cards this time). Thereafter we alighted with all others who would only remain on the island for the day. Again, seemingly no substantial expense for the cruise line. (For the return to Canada, we simply used a ferry vessel to Fortune, Newfoundland, aboard which all other passengers were also traveling one-way.)

 

Clearly we are a minority. But if profits can be made, without significant added expense to the carrier, why not do so? Why would a cruise line desire to deny service to a minority?

18 hours ago, twangster said:

In terms of temporary or not, only time will tell. Their ship, their rules.

I am hopeful for it being temporary, if only because the reasoning given for the suspension is related to the health concerns brought on the pandemic. Are there are any signs that the suspension is, indeed, temporary . . . or permanent?

 

The "rules" are specified in the ticket contract. Yet those rules appear not address the issue. Section 8 of the contract is entitled "Cancellation by Passenger; Early Disembarkation." It reads, in relevant part, "Cancellation by the Passenger after the Cruise or CruiseTour has begun, early disembarkation of the Passenger for any reason, including pursuant to any provision of this Ticket Contract, or 'no-shows,' shall be without refund, compensation, or liability on the part of the Carrier whatsoever." There is no reduction in fare for early disembarkation, but no prohibition of early disembarkation. Additionally, there appears to be no provision permitting the carrier to refuse transportation to a passenger seeking to embark at a downline port. The failure of Royal Caribbean International to have amended its rules makes me hopeful that this may in fact just be a temporary measure and not a permanent change.

[Ourusualbeach]

22 minutes ago, GTJ said:

Because people want or need to travel from point A to point B.

This is a cruise ship not a passenger ferry.  I suggest you look into alternatives.

[Biker19]

24 minutes ago, GTJ said:

Yet, it does not make sense, either economically or policy-wise. If someone is willing to pay for a service, but not consume all of the service that is offered, why would the service provider refuse to accept that business?

The line loses the opportunity to sell the profitable on board items when someone leaves early and they have quite a bit of logistics to set up to properly disembark someone early. The savings from someone leaving early are probably negligible. 

[Merion_Mom]

14 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

The line loses the opportunity to sell the profitable on board items when someone leaves early and they have quite a bit of logistics to set up to properly disembark someone early. The savings from someone leaving early are probably negligible. 

I would say "nonexistent".  In what way would the company save?  They have to have the same amount of staff on board, they have to order the same amount of food.  

 

And now they have to tie up staff arranging/escorting/making space & facilities for immigration officials.  

 

It may well be that the company has to pay the foreign country for this special consideration and staffing.

 

For emergencies, yes.  For taxi service, no.

Edited September 9, 2022 by Merion_Mom

[brillohead]

1 hour ago, GTJ said:

Because people want or need to travel from point A to point B.

So I should tell Delta that they have to stop and pick me up at the local regional airstrip a mile from my house when they're on a Chicago-to-Miami route because they're discriminating against a minority if they don't????

This may be the most asinine argument I've ever seen here... and that's saying quite a lot for a forum that is literally made up of nothing but First World Problems.

 

[islandchick]

51 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

This is a cruise ship not a passenger ferry.  I suggest you look into alternatives.

Why do you care???  If it doesn't affect you why are you chiming in.

I have done a med cruise on Celebrity where my DH and I got off one day early in Naples instead of the Rome stop because we wanted to stay in the Amalfi coastal area and it was much closer to do that. When we retire I think we will be doing it more often. So, it does matter to some of us that are enjoying cruises as well as land travel.  I certainly hope that they continue the practice at some point. 

 

[Cariboocruisers]

I believe that a lot of people use early disembarkation not to treat the cruise as a ferry but because a port stop is way more convenient to get home instead of the final port.

 

For example, we are going to book a Bahamas cruise with MIL, DS and BIL. The one that seems promising is a seven day Serenade cruise from Tampa in February. The sister and her husband live in Nassau and the MIL will stay with them and visit for a few weeks after the cruise.

 

It would be really nice if the three of them could just disembark on the second to last day in Nassau and go home rather than staying on for essentially one more day and then flying home from Tampa with the attendant costs that will bring. Obviously , they still have to get to Tampa at the start but It would save quite a bit of time and money at the end. It would be well worth it for them to pay a reasonable fee to Royal to be able to do this.

[springgrl]

When we were on the Odyssey in August, there was an announcement that passengers disembarking in Naples should stop by guest services. The cruise was ending in Rome the next morning so it seems like they did allow it.

[GTJ]

22 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

This is a cruise ship not a passenger ferry. I suggest you look into alternatives.

Why would it matter, particularly when there are no alternatives? True, one might want and expect there to exist ferries between, say, Miami and Cozumel, but in fact there are none. Only cruise vessels transport passengers on that route.

 

21 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

The line loses the opportunity to sell the profitable on board items when someone leaves early and they have quite a bit of logistics to set up to properly disembark someone early. The savings from someone leaving early are probably negligible. 

 

14 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

I would say [savings from not carrying passengers for the entire cruise are] "nonexistent." * * * And now they have to tie up staff arranging/escorting/making space & facilities for immigration officials. It may well be that the company has to pay the foreign country for this special consideration and staffing. For emergencies, yes. For taxi service, no.

When we travel by cruise vessel, we never buy anything on the vessel. There is the same non-spending for a partial itinerary: no difference. It is true that any savings from someone not traveling the entire itinerary is negligible, and in fact there is no reduction in fare for passengers who travel only a portion of the entire itinerary.

 

If there were "quite a bit of logistics," then there might be some concern. What are those logistics? Whenever a vessel reaches a new country, it must clear immigration and customs, regardless of passengers whether persons on board the vessel will be ashore only temporarily or not. Being inspected by immigration and customs officials is not "special consideration" but a duty of those officials and an obligation of the cruise line. Immigration and customs officials have the right to board vessels, and may demand of the cruise line the interviewing of any person on the vessel, and if the cruise line does not cooperate with immigration and customs officials then the vessel will not be permitted to remain in that country's waters. I will also note that cruise lines routinely embark and disembark persons who perform entertainment services aboard vessels at intermediate stops, and immigration and customs officials must inspect these persons; that there might be additional fare-paying passengers also boarding or alighting should not entail any substantial additional effort by anyone. If there are any visa or other charges assessed individual passengers, then those amounts are collected from the passengers by the immigration or customs officials. Now if there were extra charges incurred by the cruise line, as a result of having embarked or disembarked persons at intermediate stops, then yes, it would be entirely legitimate for the cruise line to pass along those additional charges to the passengers.

 

The analogy to taxis is inappropriate. A taxi is a for-hire vehicle that transports passengers at the direction of those passengers. Cruise vessels transport passengers as a fixed route scheduled service. The proper analogy is that of a bus: a bus may start its journey at one terminus, departing at a particular time, and while enroute to its destination, passengers might board and alight at bus stops that have been established as intermediate stopping points.

 

10 minutes ago, brillohead said:

So I should tell Delta that they have to stop and pick me up at the local regional airstrip a mile from my house when they're on a Chicago-to-Miami route because they're discriminating against a minority if they don't????

I really don't understand this hypothetical. If, Delta Air Lines is operating a route from Chicago to Miami, with no intermediate stops, then the only location for boarding is Chicago, and the only location for alighting is Miami. I don't understand the relevance of any local airstrip for which the aircraft is not scheduled to make a stop. And I don't understand how this hypothetical could be analogous to a cruise itinerary where the vessel is scheduled to make intermediate stops.

 

* * *

 

I have not yet read any legitimate policy or logistical reasons for Royal Caribbean International permanently suspending its partial cruise practice. Handling health concerns during the pandemic might be legitimate temporarily, but when the health concerns go away, the partial cruise practice should return.

[LXA350]

In Europe, especially in EU and Shengen countries it's not an issue to disembark the ship before the termination port. For other countries where more bureaucracy is involved it could be again another story.

[Biker19]

3 minutes ago, GTJ said:

I have not yet read any legitimate policy or logistical reasons for Royal Caribbean International permanently suspending its partial cruise practice. 

Everyone here is providing a somewhat informed reason - only RCI can give you the real reason and they won't give it to you.

[rudeney]

33 minutes ago, brillohead said:

So I should tell Delta that they have to stop and pick me up at the local regional airstrip a mile from my house when they're on a Chicago-to-Miami route because they're discriminating against a minority if they don't????

This may be the most asinine argument I've ever seen here... and that's saying quite a lot for a forum that is literally made up of nothing but First World Problems.

 

 

 

That's a bit of a different scenario because the plane is not stopping at that airport, but in this case, the cruise ship is stopping at the port(s) where the passenger wants to board or disembark.

 

I will say that with airlines, if you decide to stay in the layover location and not take the continuing leg(s) of your booked flight, you can't get your luggage and the airline won't help get it back to you.  Of course if all you have is a carry-on, then no worries.  Also, you are not able to board a leg of your flight if you did not fly on the prior leg(s).  The airline cancels all of your remaining legs of that reservation if you miss one (I won't get into the weird situations where legs are canceled and you drive or fly another airline to rejoin another leg).  

 

Regardless of all that, it's RCCL's policy to not allow this, so it is what it  is.  Either take the entire cruise or none of it.  

[brillohead]

6 minutes ago, rudeney said:

Regardless of all that, it's RCCL's policy to not allow this, so it is what it  is.  Either take the entire cruise or none of it.  

Exactly.  

They're not in the "transportation" business, they're in the "cruise vacation" business. 

Their vessel, their rules.  

[GTJ]

5 minutes ago, rudeney said:

I will say that with airlines, if you decide to stay in the layover location and not take the continuing leg(s) of your booked flight, you can't get your luggage and the airline won't help get it back to you.  Of course if all you have is a carry-on, then no worries.  Also, you are not able to board a leg of your flight if you did not fly on the prior leg(s).  The airline cancels all of your remaining legs of that reservation if you miss one (I won't get into the weird situations where legs are canceled and you drive or fly another airline to rejoin another leg).

I think that your analogy is right on point.

 

The airlines don't like the passenger who flies only a portion of the full ticket, say, a ticket from point A, through point B, to point C, where only A to B is flown, because the published fare from A to B may be higher than the published fare from A to C! The only recourse available to the airline is to sue the passenger for the additional fare for not having flown the entire ticket, to confiscate frequent flier points, and/or to ban the passenger from future flights. The fare problem is not the case with cruise line transportation.

 

In the airline analogy, the airline does not want passengers to fly only a portion of the journey because of the aforementioned fare problem, but as noted, if you have baggage in hand, the airline cannot really compel a passenger to continue onward absent a kidnapping. And the same would probably be true with Royal Caribbean International, notwithstanding the suspension of its partial cruise practice . . . and the cruise line is not going to kidnap a passenger, intent on departing the cruise itinerary, while on shore and drag him or her back on board the vessel.

[brillohead]

21 minutes ago, GTJ said:

and the cruise line is not going to kidnap a passenger, intent on departing the cruise itinerary, while on shore and drag him or her back on board the vessel.

But they will gladly point out that passenger to the Border Patrol agents (or whatever that country calls them) and allow them to do whatever it is they do with someone who is entering the country illegally...

[craig01020]

57 minutes ago, brillohead said:

They're not in the "transportation" business

Unless you're late coming back from a port of call. Then they have no problem leaving you there. 🤣