Anyone do this back to back?

[tigger2002]

In January we plan to fly from Orlando to San Juan, do the 7 night southern cruise, and then do the 4 night back to port Canaveral. Has anyone else done this? Much cheaper than doing the 11 night southern cruise from port Canaveral. What should we expect? Same menus? Back to back process?

 

[Dug720]

I'm not positive this is allowed under the US maritime laws.

 

[Mediaavid]

I can confirm you cannot do a back to back to United States when the ships destination is Puerto Rico. I tried when the Wonder departed Gavelston and finished in Puerto Rico. Figured I’d then take it for 3 days to Port Canaveral. Booked trip on phone and they actually booked me on both cruises. A short time later I received a call from same person who said she’d have to remove one of the cruises. I kept the one way to San Juan. Spent a few more days in Puerto Rico and then flew home.

Disney ships are technically not ships from the USA. They are Bahamian.

From Wikipedia.
“The Jones Act prevents foreign-flagged ships from carrying cargo between the US mainland and certain noncontiguous parts of the US, such as Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska, and Guam.[13] Foreign ships inbound with goods cannot stop at any of these four locations, offload goods, load mainland-bound goods, and continue to US mainland ports, although ships can offload cargo and proceed to the US mainland without picking up any additional cargo intended for delivery to another US location. Usually, they proceed directly to US mainland ports, where distributors break bulk and then send goods to US places off the mainland by US-flagged ships.[13]”

 

[tigger2002]

DCL may not transport you between two different U.S. ports without a stop in a "distant" foreign port. They do not have a right of cabotage between Galveston to Port Canaveral, even though there are two separate cruises involved. This is because DCLs ships are are not a US Flagged vessels. San Juan is a special case and is not considered a U.S. Port under the laws.

The PVSA is the "antiquated" law you are referring to. It states that a foreign flagged ship may not transport passengers from one US port to a different US port without a stop in a distant foreign port. A distant foreign port is described as any port NOT 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)

The law views back to back cruises as one cruise. The cruises you want to take would transport you from Galveston to Port Canaveral with no distant foreign port visited. So is, therefore, illegal.

Cruises from Puerto Rico are exempt from the law, so a back to back from San Juan to Port Canaveral doesn't have the distant foreign port requirement. And the B2B San Juan round trip with San Juan/Port Canaveral is legal.

 

[tigger2002]

The Jones Act actually refers to cargo. The PVSA relates to carriage of passengers.

 

[Ralph&Pam]

I can confirm you cannot do a back to back to United States when the ships destination is Puerto Rico. I tried when the Wonder departed Gavelston and finished in Puerto Rico. Figured I’d then take it for 3 days to Port Canaveral. Booked trip on phone and they actually booked me on both cruises. A short time later I received a call from same person who said she’d have to remove one of the cruises. I kept the one way to San Juan. Spent a few more days in Puerto Rico and then flew home.

Disney ships are technically not ships from the USA. They are Bahamian.

From Wikipedia.
“The Jones Act prevents foreign-flagged ships from carrying cargo between the US mainland and certain noncontiguous parts of the US, such as Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska, and Guam.[13] Foreign ships inbound with goods cannot stop at any of these four locations, offload goods, load mainland-bound goods, and continue to US mainland ports, although ships can offload cargo and proceed to the US mainland without picking up any additional cargo intended for delivery to another US location. Usually, they proceed directly to US mainland ports, where distributors break bulk and then send goods to US places off the mainland by US-flagged ships.[13]”

It’s not really the Jones Act, since that applies to freight cargo shipments. The relevant law is the Passenger Vessel Service Act (PVSA), an even older law that applies to passenger movement. The result is much the same, however, in that a foreign-flagged, foreign-built, and foreign-crewed passenger vessel cannot carry passengers between two different US ports (closed-loop cruises are permitted). There is an exception that permits travel from a US port to Puerto Rico or the reverse. Thus the Wonder can go Galveston to San Juan or San Juan to Port Canaveral. But a Galveston to San Juan cruise b2b with a San Juan to Port Canaveral cruise would not be allowed, since it would permit a passenger to sail from Galveston to Port Canaveral on what looks like a single transit. However, the cruise described by the OP does NOT involve such an itinerary. They propose to do a closed-loop cruise out of San Juan, followed b2b by a repositioning cruise from San Juan to Port Canaveral. I don’t see a PVSA violation here, since the San Juan to Port Canaveral cruise is a permitted exception to the PVSA and the closed-loop cruise is always permitted. If DCL allowed the OP to book both cruises b2b, then I would think that is allowed. Cruise lines exercise great care to avoid PVSA violations. The fines are $300 per person, and a cruise line does not want to be identified as a chronic violator.

ETA: I see tigger2002 has commented much the same regarding the PVSA and this permitted itinerary.

 

[tigger2002]

I have actually booked this b2b and made a deposit on both cruises. There are several examples of people on the message board that have done this. I was just interested in what all to expect with the b2b cruise experience.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

We haven't done this b2b, but we did a b2b on the Magic in Europe in 2015 and it was AWESOME! If you book the same stateroom, it will make your life so much easier. We were not able to do that, but it was still an easy process. We disembarked and re-embarked in Copenhagen and didn't need to be back on the ship until 3:30 pm or so, so we hired a private tour company to drive us to Helsingor for the day. When we got back to the terminal at 3:30 pm, we simply checked in, walked on the ship and all of our luggage was already in our new stateroom. Yes, everything was the same - same menus, shows, etc., - but our second cruise was a little longer so they did have some more entertainers onboard for the longer itinerary. LOVE B2B's!

 

[tigger2002]

One interesting thing about this trip was that we could only use our "on board booking discount" for one leg of the back to back cruise.

 

[tigger2002]

If you book the same stateroom, it will make your life so much easier.

.
Yes we have the same state room.

 

[Ralph&Pam]

In January we plan to fly from Orlando to San Juan, do the 7 night southern cruise, and then do the 4 night back to port Canaveral. Has anyone else done this? Much cheaper than doing the 11 night southern cruise from port Canaveral. What should we expect? Same menus? Back to back process?

Now to some of the original questions before the digression to the PVSA:

Menus will be the same for the 3 MDRs when doing the rotational dining cycle. The fourth night of the 4-night will likely be the Pirate menu. That will also be part of the 7-night. The other 3 nights of the 7-night will be different, so some duplication. You could do Palo on one of the duplicated nights or even do Palo once on each cruise, but it’s hard to avoid seeing some of the same dining options.

Shows will also be duplicated, along with some additional entertainment on the 7-night. When we have cruised b2b, we spread out our show attendance over both cruises and do other things on the nights where the show is a duplicate.

The b2b process is reasonably straightforward. If you are in the same stateroom, you won’t have to pack after the first leg. If you are moving, you will pack and leave everything in your stateroom ready to move. Your stateroom host will take care of moving your luggage. We’ve been in the same room both times we cruised b2b, so we’ve not actually experienced this. On the port day, you might plan to eat breakfast in Cabanas, particularly if you have main (early) dining, since the breakfast time seems really early compared to when you will have to leave the ship. On our first b2b, our head server suggested we come to late breakfast if we wanted to, since he knew he would be able to seat us in our serving team’s section because some other cruisers were doing an early walk-off. On our second, we ate in Cabanas so we could breakfast later than our 7 am time. In both cases, we then hung out in Cove Cafe until a scheduled gathering in the D Lounge of all the b2b cruisers who wanted to return to the ship right away. We sailed out of Miami on the Magic both times, so the exact procedure in San Juan on the Wonder might be different. We gathered at about 9:30, were taken off the ship as a group about 10, and went through immigration/customs and back to check-in for the second cruise as soon as the cast members were ready and the ship was cleared for boarding. We waited in the terminal for 30-45 minutes before reboarding. We were the first passengers on the ship. Our stateroom host had told us he would have our room ready and that we could return there as soon as we reboarded if we wanted to. Otherwise, we would have gone back to Cove Cafe, but that won’t work if you have children along. We don’t do pools, etc., so I don’t know when those opened. We stayed in our stateroom until lunchtime.

 

[IrishEye]

yes, this is the same back to back as this year, several of us did it.

 

[tigger2002]

yes, this is the same back to back as this year, several of us did it.

How did you like it? What would you change if anything?

 

[o&smom]

yes, this is the same back to back as this year, several of us did it.

I have seen it posted here many times how these two cannot be combined as back to back. What gives?

 

[IrishEye]

those who did the Galveston to San Juan also did a B2B with southern. PVSA has exception for Caribbean cruises like this.

 

[o&smom]

those who did the Galveston to San Juan also did a B2B with southern. PVSA has exception for Caribbean cruises like this.

Thank you. I have just not let myself even consider some of these. Nice to know.

 

[IrishEye]

How did you like it? What would you change if anything?

Loved it, very late night in Aruba and got to recover 2 nights in Orlando before flying home.

 

[DCLCrazy64622]

In January we plan to fly from Orlando to San Juan, do the 7 night southern cruise, and then do the 4 night back to port Canaveral. Has anyone else done this? Much cheaper than doing the 11 night southern cruise from port Canaveral. What should we expect? Same menus? Back to back process?

Yes! We did it and it was half the cost as the 11 night southern Caribbean. Such a great experience. The menus do repeat. The shows do repeat. But who cares? You’re on a Disney Cruise! Do your best to get the same room for both legs so you don’t have to pack twice just to move rooms. You can go and explore San Juan the day every has to leave but YOU get to come back around 2. You can also just turn right back around and get back on the ship. You do have to go through customs again no matter what. But there were so many other people doing the same thing that you can do it in one big group with a CM to guide you. Have fun! (No it does not break the PVSA law).

 

[Majik]

Yes, we did the back to back this year and have booked the same for next year.
We had the same stateroom for both cruises so all very easy.

 

[cruiser21]

I have seen it posted here many times how these two cannot be combined as back to back. What gives?

The reason ships go from one US port stop in SJU and then go to another US port is because this is the only way they can do it. The B2b OP described is allowed. You could not do a Galveston/SJU SJU/PC b2b because they would be transporting you from Galveston to PC. There is nothing wrong with doing a round trip SJU cruise and then going back to MIA or PC. They are transporting you from SJU to Florida which is allowed.