Carnival Cruise Line posted a video of President Christine Duffy yesterday stating that (1) it hasn’t made a decision to require vaccines, and (2) it won’t sail from non-U.S. home ports (like Royal Caribbean / Celebrity are going to do in the Bahamas and St. Martin).

(1) My view is that Carnival Cruise Line wants to keep its options open to attract anti-vaxxers as customers. Fully vaccinated passengers and guests are obviously the only way to even think that cruising may safely begin in the future.

(2) Carnival Cruise Line is one of the Carnival Corporation owned cruise lines which is on criminal probation for pollution and disregarding the authority of the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Department of Justice, and U.S. Federal District Court. An ongoing issue in the pending case against Carnival is compliance with the U.S. government’s rules and regulations protecting the health and safety of the U.S. public. Chairman Mickey Arison and CEO Arnold Donald do not want to risk being accused again of ignoring another U.S. federal agency like the U.S. CDC, as Royal Caribbean / Celebrity are doing by planning to sail from non-U.S. home ports in the Bahamas and St. Martin.

Ms. Duffy goes to great length to claim that Carnival is “America’s cruise line” which sails from 14 U.S. ports. A friend of mine commented: “America’s cruise line? A foreign-flagged, foreign-crewed, foreign corporation that avoids US taxes.” She’s right of course, Carnival Cruise Line is a Panamanian corporation which registers its cruise ships in either Panama or the Bahamas in order to avoid not only U.S. taxes, but U.S. wage and labor laws, U.S. occupational health and safety laws, and U.S. environmental laws.

Loyalty to “America” is hardly this corporation’s motivation not to set up home ports in Mexico and throughout the Caribbean. It is just a smart move not to incur the wrath of the Chief Judge of the U.S. federal court here in Miami who has already sanctioned Carnival for lying to the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Video credit: Carnival Cruise Line via Alanna Zingano YouTube page.