NCL Could End Up With Monopoly on Hawaii

I mentioned a 120+ year old law that is causing trouble for Alaska on a previous post. Well it looks like that similar law could cause trouble for cruise ships with Hawaii as a destination as well. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, the new law, would be used to force cruise ships that sail under non U.S. flags to spend a minimum of 2 days in a foreign port when taking tourists between 2 different U.S. ports. Right now, ships like the Carnival Spirit spend a few hours in Ensenada Mexico or Vancouver Canada to comply with the current laws when sailing to Hawaii. Norwegian Cruise Line which sails its ships under U.S. flags would not be forced to make changes thus giving them a monopoly on Hawaii. This is just another thing to think about when booking your vacation. It will be interesting to see what comes of this, because the U.S. ports will lose a lot of money is the ships change itineraries. Another type of cruising that this could affect will be repositioning cruises. Which are almost always between 2 different U.S. ports.