Unintended consequences strike again.
Earlier this month, the line [Royal Caribbean] said that certain venues on the ship would be off-limits to unvaccinated passengers, but it didn’t give specifics. This week’s listing of forbidden venues fleshes out the plan. The newly posted list includes:
The Chef’s Table
Izumi Hibachi & Sushi
R Bar
Schooner Bar
The Pub
Viking Crown Nightclub
Solarium Bar
Solarium Pool
Casino Royale (the ship’s casino)
Casino Bar
Vitality Spa (the ship’s spa)
This is from Gene Sloan, “Royal Caribbean to unvaccinated travelers: No sushi (and a lot of other things) for you,” The Points Guy.
Why is Royal Caribbean doing this? Sloan explains:
The new rules come in the wake of threats from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that any cruise line that requires passengers to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccine will be fined. A new Florida law forbids businesses in the state from requiring customers to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccine.
I wrote about Governor DeSantis’s attack on freedom of association in early April.
The good news is that I didn’t anticipate how clever Royal Caribbean would be in responding to it.
HT to Donald Wittman.
READER COMMENTS
Andrew_FL
Jul 1 2021 at 9:48pm
How does Royal Caribbean expect passengers to prove vaccination status?
David Henderson
Jul 1 2021 at 11:16pm
I strongly suspect that it would be by showing a vaccination card such as the one I got.
BW
Jul 2 2021 at 8:36am
Does that not violate the Florida law which prohibits businesses from requiring customers to show proof of vaccination?
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Jul 2 2021 at 8:42am
Well, they could violate the law on civil disobedience grounds — “Look at the lengths that we go to to protect our passengers from non-vaccinated jerks!” and trust that the reputational benefits outweigh the penalties for violation.
Danno
Jul 2 2021 at 10:25am
It probably does violate Florida’s law. But once the ship is out of Florida’s territorial waters, do Florida’s state laws apply? That’s why (or was why) the casinos on ships only open after they are out of U.S. territory.
David Henderson
Jul 2 2021 at 2:51pm
You wrote:
Good question. The answer is no. That’s why so many things about a ship in international waters are so functional. They can have labor market conditions that work for both the owner and the workers, for example, with no direction from government.
I believe that my co-blogger Bryan Caplan wrote about this on EconLog a year or two ago. Worth looking at.
JK Brown
Jul 2 2021 at 7:44pm
Ships in international waters are subject to the laws and regulations of their flag state. However, the states of the citizens onboard do have some rights over what happens. For example, cruise ships have a rape and sexual assault problem, in such situations, a state can investigate attacks on their citizens.
For instance, years ago, there was a Dutch sailing ship in Norfolk for an event. Once of the crew committed some offense, the ship tried him under Dutch law and then got underway to international waters where the sentence of death by hanging was carried out. Then the ship returned.
However, ships need to enter ports and cruise ships need terminals to handle passenger operations which are local businesses.
BW
Jul 3 2021 at 5:23am
@JK Brown
Can you provide a link to that story?
Comments are closed.