Thread by @DWUhlfelderLaw

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Is Crafting An Exemption For Cruise Lines To His ‘Vaccine Passport’ Ban via @forbes forbes.com/sites/suzanner…

"A much bigger eye-opener was the May 20 letter sent from Florida’s health department telling Royal Caribbean and Celebrity they could go directly to the CDC for permission to sail. 'The Department has limited statutory authority with respect to cruise lines, and the Department’s

permission is not required for your company to resume operations,' wrote Dr. Scott A. Rivkees, the Florida Surgeon General. 'To be clear, nothing in state law stands in the way of cruise ship operations.' Hold on, what? Nothing in state law stands in the way?"

"The state of Florida’s lawsuit against the CDC asked the court to declare the agency’s “conditional sail order” — the framework for restarting cruising — to be unlawful on the grounds it is unfair to the cruise industry. “The CDC arbitrarily singled out the cruise industry, and

and their requirements are unlawful,” said Christina Pushaw, the governor’s press secretary, via email. That analysis is “political buffoonery,” says Jim Walker, a maritime attorney whose Cruise Law News blog has accrued nearly 250,000 Facebook followers. Traditionally, it’s the

federal government — not the state government — that has any interaction with cruise ships. “The CDC ultimately has the power to shut down a cruise ship,” he said. “To suggest that it doesn't have jurisdiction to regulate cruise lines is just utterly preposterous to me.”

And it’s hard to imagine that cruise lines are hearing much complaining about vaccine mandates from customers. In a February survey of nearly 3,000 Cruise Critic readers, more than eight in 10 (81%) respondents said they would cruise if a vaccine were mandated prior to setting

sail, and only 5% said that a vaccine requirement would deter them from cruising. “If the cruise lines, as private businesses, want to require a vaccine verification, I think that is something they should be allowed to do,” said Castrucci. “There is no inalienable constitutional

right to cruise, so it should be within the cruise lines’ purview to make this decision.” “You know, it's an unusual political stand for a Republican governor to limit what businesses can do,” Castrucci said. “Clearly, the governor has painted himself into a corner on this one.”