Thread: Does the flag a cruise ships flies matter to you?

There has been quite a bit of fuss lately because Cunard have re-flagged their ships (Cunard flag change?) from Southampton in UK to the Hamilton, Bermuda.

Does it matter to you where a ship is flagged?

This is a poll, please vote.

No, not one bit.

But for anyone wanting to file a lawsuit against a cruise line it sure would.

No .... Honestly, I don't care ... but it does matter so some others.

as long as it is not a flag of a combatant of the USA i have no problem

Originally Posted by JoeyandDavid

as long as it is not a flag of a combatant of the USA i have no problem

I think you'll be safe as long as you don't book a state-government sponsored North Korea cruise

If memory serves me .. and i don't always have the best memory... it seems to me at one time one of the cruise lines were flying flags under the Libyan government at a time when things were a bit shall I say strained.
That was my reference..

Joey, you're right! Some well known mass market cruise ships had the Libyan flag. Unfortunately, my memory "ain't what it use to be" and can't tell you which ones.

Originally Posted by timwilloughby

I think you'll be safe as long as you don't book a state-government sponsored North Korea cruise

After reading that post/link I don't think we will be booking that "cruise ship" Tim!

It really should matter where a ship is flagged. The reason why Cunard is reflagging from England to Bermuda is for one reason and one reason only; money!

I don't remember the exact amount, but the U.S. looses hundreds of millions of dollars every year in taxes because the ships doing all the business in the U.S. are flagged elsewhere. There's a big controversy over this because for all practical purposes, here's a U.S. company conducting business in the U.S. but does not have to abide by U.S. maritime laws or pay certain U.S. taxes because their ships are flagged in another country.

But our laws encourage this type of action because they are not very friendly to the cruise industry based on archaic reasons from World War II.

Bottom line is, if the U.S. got their act together, made the laws more amenable, worked with the cruise line industry, and figured out a way to make this happen in the best interest of the American taxpayer, the country could gain tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars to help our economy.

But it's always about the money in other areas such as the law, safety, environmental issues, and other reasons why cruise lines fly foreign flags.

Read these four very interesting articles about it here, which will provide alot of great information about this very issue (make sure to read all four articles on the page);

Flags of Convenience : Cruise Law News

And another article here;

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/op...=2&ref=opinion

Once you read this information, you'll begin to understand why everyone should be VERY concerned about which flag a cruise ship flies because it could have a major impact on you should you have something happen where you need the law to support you.

Pete

Originally Posted by JoeyandDavid

If memory serves me .. and i don't always have the best memory... it seems to me at one time one of the cruise lines were flying flags under the Libyan government at a time when things were a bit shall I say strained.
That was my reference..

I've dated myself and shown some historical ignorance - I hate that. I'm off the Wikipedia to determine the list of ships that flew the Libyan flag.