Town and Cruise Line Come To An Agreement

Cruise Ship Scheduling Site, PortCall, Explained; APPLL vs Bar Harbor Documents Update

Jun 26, 2023

BAR HARBOR—American Cruise Lines has been fined $885, which is the passenger fee of $5.21 per person for a berth capacity of 170, and the company agreed to not anchor its ships in Bar Harbor waters again without a confirmed reservation, and accepted service of a notice of violation after the town alleged that the cruise line had violated town rules and a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the town and the cruise line and anchored the 170-person vessel, the American Constitution, within Bar Harbor waters without a confirmed reservation on June 15. The Quietside Journal originally reported the port fee payment and agreement in its June 23 article.

The alleged violation would be covered under the Town of Bar Harbor Municipal Code, Chapter 153 Port and Harbor.

The MOAs are the town’s agreements with cruise lines about when they can visit and other details. These documents are currently being used as the town waits for a decision in a federal court case concerning visitation caps of 1,000 passengers a day, a cap voted in last November. Prior to that cap, in August, a split Town Council (5-2) finalized those MOAs with cruise ships, shortening the season by no longer allowing visits in November and April, and lowering passenger caps. That November, town voters decreased the disembarkations to 1,000 a day and used a different mechanism that is not MOAs. That change is currently being contested in federal court with a court date in July and expected decision in late August or early September.

According to Interim Town Manager and Finance Director Sarah Gilbert, American Cruise Line’s reservation requests for the American Constitution were denied because the business applied for the reservation after the cut-off date of January 15, 2023. They came to an understanding late last week over a video conferencing call.

American Cruise Lines sent out this statement today,

“American Cruise Lines strongly values our longstanding relationship with Bar Harbor, so regardless of any misunderstanding or differing interpretation of the MOA’s exceptions for US-flagged ships under 200, we will make the requested reservations for all visits moving forward.”

This is the American Cruise Line specific MOA.

The town’s MOA has language stating that cruise ships with less than 200 passengers are exempt from both the daily and monthly lower berth capacity caps. It does not mention within the language of that specific paragraph as to whether or not the harbormaster must approve cruise ships with that exemption or if the harbormaster has to approve those bookings.

The town has taken the position that those 200 passengers or less cruise ships are still bound by the town’s January 15 cutoff date for schedule alterations. Per their statement from today, American Cruise Lines did not interpret the MOA language the same.

HOW PORTCALL WORKS

The schedule for reservations can be seen on a website called Portcall. Portcall has a public showing face as well as a backend that the public doesn’t see.

According to Special Services Lt. and Harbormaster Chris Wharff, agents for cruise lines or staff have accounts and they can request a reservation via the system. When they do that, the public initially sees the ships as if their requests have been approved even if they have not yet been granted. But on the backend, under “booking status,” the site will say “requested,” but that requested status isn’t apparent to the public.

Wharff then goes into the sites and changes the ships status to “booked” once he’s certain that the ship meets all the criteria to visit the town or he eventually removes the ship from Portcall if they do not.

Requests that are not confirmed still show up on the public page until he goes in and manually cancels or “hides” them. The request for the American Constitution, Wharff believes, came in early March, and he said that he denied that request shortly thereafter.

After the initial reservation denial by Wharff in March there were then ongoing conversations between himself and American Cruise Lines prior to him removing the ships from the public-facing portion of the website, however, on the town’s backend of the site, many of the ship’s newly requested reservations were never confirmed. This accounts for the American Constitution’s showing up on Portcall later.

According to the 2022 Cruise Ship Standard Operating Procedures, “All reservations made in Portcall will remain in requested status until further notice and should not be considered booked or confirmed.”

The MOA between American Cruise Lines and Bar Harbor is below.

COURT DOCUMENT UPDATE

Multiple parties in the federal court case, Association to Preserve and Protect Local Livelihoods (APPLL) et al vs. Town of Bar Harbor continue to file cases in the lead up to the scheduled court dates. The case deals with whether or not the 1000 per day cruise ship disembarkation limits are constitutional.

That limit stemmed from a citizens’ referendum that was led by Sidman and passed 1,780 to 1,273 in November, 2022.

Since May, there have been numerous documents filed in APPLL’s federal lawsuit

APPLL has also been joined by other businesses that work with cruise ships such as B.H. Piers, L.L.C.; Golden Anchor L.C.; B.H.W.W., L.L.C.; Delray Explorer Hull 495 LLC; Delray Explorer Hull 493 LLC; and Acadia Explorer 492, LLC. It was also joined by the Penobscot Bay and River Pilots Association. The suit was filed in late December, 2022. An early case summary is here.

We hope to have an article summarizing recently released documents soon, but wanted them to be available for your perusal now.