Delta Delay Cost Them Their Alaska Cruise — And A 19th-Century US Law Made It Impossible To Catch Up To The Ship

A family’s Alaska cruise was effectively over before it began after a delayed Delta flight out of Detroit caused them to miss the only Minneapolis–Vancouver connection that could reach the ship on time.

Delta rebooked them to try to save the trip, but the replacement flight didn’t pan out, and once the cruise sailed there was no “meet it at the next stop” option, because a 19th-century U.S. maritime law prevents cruise ships from carrying passengers between U.S. ports.

What followed was a scramble to chase eight checked bags in Vancouver, a drive to Seattle, out-of-pocket flights to Alaska, and a months-long fight over what (if anything) Delta will reimburse.

• A passenger bought an Alaska cruise and land tour as a big family trip, including for their elderly parents. They were flying Detroit – Minneapolis – Vancouver on Delta to get there.
  
• That first flight out of Detroit was delayed, and they missed the only flight option to Vancouver that would have gotten them to the ship in time.
  
• Delta rebooked them onto a WestJet flight to get them to Vancouver in time, but when they ran to the gate it was already closed. They report WestJet told them they didn’t have the rebooking in their system, and would have held the gate open if they’d known.

Many cruise passengers give them a lot of buffer traveling to meet their ship, but Delta has promoted itself as ‘the on-time machine’ so I can understand someone thinking they’d make it on the travel day they’d purchased.

Our Detroit→Minneapolis flight was delayed, causing us to miss the ONLY Minneapolis→Vancouver flight that would get us to the ship on time. This delay set off a chain reaction that we had no control over. pic.twitter.com/VpNwa0wamI

— Kelli Young (@KelliYoung1778) January 21, 2026

The passengers were told their eight checked bags were already en route to Vancouver, so they felt forced to go to Vancouver to chase bags and salvage at least the land portion of the trip.

Meanwhile, we were told our 8 checked bags were already on their way to Vancouver. We had no choice but to follow them — and try to salvage the $5,000 land portion of our trip.

— Kelli Young (@KelliYoung1778) January 21, 2026

They wanted to catch up to the ship, Royal Caribbean told them they couldn’t board the cruise at a later U.S. port because of U.S. maritime cabotage rules

The Jones Act! (Or, more likely in this case, the related Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886.)
Customs and Border Protection groups them together in public guidance, and cruise lines structure itineraries around PVSA constraints.

It’s generally illegal for a ship to transport passengers between two “U.S. points.” Cruise ships are foreign-flagged and they’d have to be U.S.-built, U.S.-owned, and U.S.-crewed. That’s nearly impossible with current U.S. infrastructure. So big cruise ships can’t take passengers from one U.S. city to another. They needed to start in Canada.

Royal Caribbean confirmed we could NOT legally board at any later U.S. port due to maritime law. At that moment, our 7‑day Alaska cruise — the centerpiece of this trip for my parents — was gone. pic.twitter.com/dEEoRxlJRg

— Kelli Young (@KelliYoung1778) January 21, 2026

Delta would cover getting them to Vancouver (their ticketed destination) but not onward flights to Alaska, leaving them out-of-pocket with the cruise effectively blown.

We arrived in Vancouver exhausted after traveling since 4am. Only 1 of our 8 bags was there. The rest didn’t show up until around 11pm. A Delta employee instructed us to stay at the airport hotel and assured us we’d be reimbursed. pic.twitter.com/8ahqhA6Mv8

— Kelli Young (@KelliYoung1778) January 21, 2026

To reach Alaska affordably, we had to rent a car, drive from Vancouver to Seattle, and buy our own flights to Anchorage. It was the only way not to lose even more money. pic.twitter.com/hr41z3AmJ8

— Kelli Young (@KelliYoung1778) January 21, 2026

The customers say Delta committed to reimburse their costs, but they got nothing. Delta’s Contract of Carriage is explicit that it disclaims responsibility for “making connections” and for schedule failures and re-routes. That said:

• Since the itinerary includes an international segment to Canada, there’s a plausible Montreal Convention path for provable delay damages (incremental expenses you can document), subject to defenses and a liability cap. The passenger delay cap is 6,303 SDR (US$9,030.72).

• Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulation “inconvenience” compensation could apply to the arrival delay into Vancouver if the disruption was within airline control and not “required for safety.” For a 9-hour delay that would be C$1,000.

Bottom line legally: Delta is very unlikely to be on the hook for missing a cruise, but there may be claims for documented delay expenses under the Montral Convention and cash compensation under Canadian law, depending on the cause of the delay.

But when we got home and submitted everything — the hotel we were told to book, the lost cruise, one car rental, and luggage-related costs — every claim was denied.After six months, we’re still fighting to be made whole. pic.twitter.com/9nNygetofn

— Kelli Young (@KelliYoung1778) January 21, 2026

We don’t know the reason for the delay of that first flight. And the claim is Delta rebooked the family but it didn’t make it into their partner WestJet’s systems. If that’s a Delta error, rather than just the passengers not making it to the WestJet gate in time, that’s a separate matter.

If they’ve exhausted their claims avenue with Delta, I’d go back to them with a Montreal Convention claim, and a claim for Canada APPR cash compensation (something often overlooked by Americans) if that initial delay was within Delta’s control. I’d also file a DOT complaint, which would just get them a real person’s attention in the response.

Trip delay or trip interruption coverage via a premium rewards card or standalone travel insurance is another path to recovering prepaid nonrefundable cruise and tour losses, provided the passengers have it and subject to policy triggers and exclusions. Finally, if nothing else works, a small claims filing could make sense.

But can I point out how terrible the Jones Act (and related Passenger Vessel Services Act) is?

The U.S. doesn’t even have the capacity to build the ships that compliance with these laws reqiures (which shows that the laws have failed even at their protectionist aims).

Cruise mega-ship construction needs enormous dry docks, a mature vendor pipeline, and a stable skilled workforce. For some ship types, the U.S. hasn’t built any in decades. And the Congressional Research Service estimates that on top of higher costs to build the ships (if you could even build them) there’s a $6 million per year per ship increase in operating costs to be U.S.-flagged. And once you create a small captive market with laws like this, you get high prices and low output, which prevents the scale needed to ever become globally competitive in the space.

The Jones Act is a tax on domestic trade dressed up as national security. It forces U.S.-to-U.S. waterborne shipping onto a tiny, high-cost fleet, raising transportation prices, and hasn’t even given us the fleet of U.S. ships. The high capital costs have given us tiny fleets, not a vibrant domestic industry. But a small number of players benefit and lobby hard for it.

Since there are literally no Jones-Act-compliant Liquefied Natural Gas tankers, New England can’t receive U.S.-produced liquefied natural gas by water, because a compliant fleet for that commodity doesn’t exist so it’s all imported there instead. It can even be cheaper to ship U.S. energy overseas than to U.S. consumers. And it pushes freight off ships and onto trucks and rail whiich mean greater emissions.

Disaster response gets harder because the compliant fleet is scarce. When Puerto Rico gets hit by a hurricane, the world’s shipping capacity can’t bring in the needde goods. Everything in Hawaii is more expensive, because a ship can’t travel from Asia to Hawaii and then onto the West Coast (so everyting goes to the West Coast and then gets shipped to Hawaii). There are similar problems for Alaska and Guam.

And the companion Passenger Vessel Services Act means travelers can’t catch up to their cruise ships when their flights misconnect, so everyone has to waste a day flying in earlier just in case.