How frequently are ships inspected?
Cruise ships under VSP’s jurisdiction are subject to two inspections each year. If a ship sails outside of the United States for an extended period of time, it may not be inspected twice a year but will be inspected again when it returns to the United States. Do ships know when the inspection will occur? The twice-yearly inspections are unannounced. How are cruise ships scored? Cruise ships are scored on a 100-point scale. Inspection criteria, defined in the VSP Operations Manual [PDF – 1.74 MB], are assigned a point value (the major areas are listed above); when the criteria are violated, inspection points are deducted from the score. Points are deducted from that score based on significance. An 85 or below is considered a failing score. All scores are posted on the VSP Web site. Are ships required to correct violations from the inspection? Yes. Some of the violations are corrected during the inspection while others may take longer to correct. Although ships are responsible for correc
