Will Caribbean ports of call stop being ports of call ?

Who cares? I find every Caribbean stop to be the same. A "Disneyland" experience rather than a real look at the country and locals harassing you to buy their crap. Give me Europe any time.

Good luck to that one.

Jones act covers more than just ships.

I'm surprised the Jones Act hasn't been rescinded.

Probably in the minority, but the ship experience is not why I cruise. The ship is (mostly) the way to get from 1 place to another, so I would not be interested in a cruise to nowhere or a cruise to just a private island.

With that said, I do want a certain level of service, clean accommodations, edible food choices...you see where this is going. What I don't need or want, are theme park-esque experiences to "enjoy" in lieu of local culture. And I need a taste of authentic food wherever I go.

So, I would not be cruising if all I could do was get on, play ping pong, get yelled at by the comedian, and get off the ship 7 days later...

Unless it is a new port for us, or somewhere we absolutely love (Key West, St Maarten, CocoCay) we dont bother getting off the ship. Even Mega ships are incredibly empty on sea days, and if everyone hasnt noticed, I hate most people, so it is PERFECT. LOL

While the Jones Act DOES NOT apply to Passenger vessels, the Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886 does. This is where the Foreign Port stop, for foreign flagged vessels comes from.

At Present, there are 18 US-Flagged cruise ships, with a Majority of them being under 175pax, with the exception being NCL's Pride of America, Which NCL formed a separate company to operate - NCL America. When NCL America transferred, and renamed Pride of Hawaii (Norwegian Jade), and Pride of Aloha (Norweigian Sky) back to NCL, the parent company cited Financial Losses, due to higher taxes and costs as US-Flagged ships.

TL;DR:

Probably wont happen, due to the higher costs of Registering Ships in US Ports.

It's an interesting theory all right. But maybe one or two ports of call?

yes, they want us to stay on board and spend our money.

Lynn is beautiful

Well...thats telling you eh!!! hehehehe....You can tell it won't happen by the mass exodus of passengers everytime a ship ports anywhere in the Carib...forget that most of them are in a constant state of rebuild because of storms, or worse, meander an hour or less from the main port and often you're in a 3rd world country...but I digress...I think the lines are going for the best of both worlds...spend more onboard...waaaaaay more...after all, its not money until later right? and then, ashore, spend what you like on mostly junque....unless of course, its their island, then they really do have it both ways. Rebuilding a port to accommodate those behemoths isn't done on a behind the scenes wink and a handshake.

We don't bother getting off the ship anymore on those cruises. It becomes incredibly more pleasant onboard on port days.

Even if some cruise lines create such a thing, there will be others that won't. Those lines will get the traffic of passengers that want the island experience. Please, stop putting these out there for the cruise lines, they are doing plenty on their own without your input.

Well, they would have to make that one call to satisfy the Jones act.

Interesting premise, but I doubt it. Besides, wouldn't that be considered a "cruise to nowhere" which I think were either banned or for some other reason discontinued in the US.

While I'm sure there would be some people who wouldn't mind just staying on the ship for their entire vacation, I believe a large majority (ourselves included) would still like to visit various ports of call to experience the local sights, culture, cuisine, etc......

As far as US ports getting bigger, most of the major lines have already built or are in the process of building ever larger terminals over the last few years to accommodate the behemoth ships.

As I stated on a previous thread, it is my opinion that the ever larger ships are being built to primarily provide the lines with "economies of scale". If you can put 5,000+ passengers on a ship and float them around the Caribbean for comparable costs to having 3,000 onboard, you're way ahead of the game.