Posted on 08/19/2023 9:11:32 AM PDT by Saije
(I work in a politically related organization; I see our opposition use feigned ignorance in opinion pieces all the time.)
The intent of the law is reasonable: these ships are using a loophole to avoid U.S. legal oversight; the question is whether the law is so constantly side-stepped as to be worthless. My guess is that this is a deliberate loophole: a seemingly obvious fix would be to cover any ship that departs from and returns to a U.S. port.
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
—Samuel Johnson
thinking about a cruise to Alaska...however, we’ve been to Alaska and rented a car to see the sights....but nothing beats driving to Alaska....I like a boots on the ground experience.
Thank you for the reference.
I read the code referenced 46 USC 55103 and it talks about what the vessel may not do. It does not say that the passenger will be fined.
As an parallel, imagine a city cop ticketing a tax passenger for getting out in a bus zone. But the law say that the taxi company shall not net out passengers in a bus zone.
To me, this feels like the company is trying to make the passenger pay for their fine.
Something close to that would be my move. If one books the ticket port to port, one would expect the "fine" to be included in the price and not presented as a "oh, by the way" when walking down the gangplank.
She writes that she knew about this because she's a journalist who wrote about it during the pandemic when the Canadian ports were closed.
She also wrote that, for some reason, she thought the law didn't apply to her.
-PJ
A friend and his family who live in the UK took a US-based cruise ship to the Mediterranean. Their baggage was lost and after four days wearing the same clothes and unable to buy any onboard the ship, and receiving no word from the cruise line about when or if their baggage would arrive, they got off and returned home. The cruise line magnanimously offered a 20% discount on a future cruise! He informed them there would be no future cruise and that he intended to sue, which eventually resulted in refunding 50% of the cruise price but none of his airfare home or other costs. It seems that cruise companies cannot be counted on to do what is right or fair, are primarily out to screw people!
Well, that places a whole different perspective on the issue doesn’t it. 🤣
Only time to go on a cruise if you want an intestinal illness, or a Somalian kidnapping or your spouse to throw you overboard.
She made it sound like she couldn't afford the time of the last few days of the cruise because she had to get her son back to school. Why she thought the PVSA didn't apply to her is a mystery.
-PJ
There’s probably fine print in the package contract that says if you do something that incurs a fine to the line they’re passing it off to you plus fees. Because really that’s what they should do. They can keep you from buying a ticket that would break the law, but they can’t really keep you from buying a “round trip” ticket then getting off early, which puts them in violation, and they ain’t gonna eat that.
When you board a foreign flagged vessel you are in a foreign country subject to their rules. Don’t go on a cruise and you won’t run into how other countries adapt to US laws.
Me, too (boots on ground). The entertainment on the ship we were on was cheesy. Almost seven full days and two shore excursions about 10 hours each. Ugh. Once was more than enough.
This!
Kmk
Are you saying that all those words on the screen between the price and the purchase button may actually mean something?
Reminds me of when Dilbert had to be Bill Gates' pool boy because it was in the terms of a software license he scrolled past before clicking OK.
You lead a cleaner life than me. My thinking was the Human CentiPad episode of South Park which had characters forced to “replicate” the movie by a similar name because they accepted Apple’s terms and conditions for the iPad update.
Now I don’t know for sure the cruise lines do this. But I do know that if I were in charge of one, knowing my ships would sail through a lot of picayune laws, and there’s tons of things passengers could do that could cost me money, I’d DEFINITELY put a clause like that in the contract.
A cruise can be a magnificent experience or terrible. It’s up to you as most things in life are
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