Air carrier arrival into sea experienced confusion with regard to the published altitude restriction...

Narrative:

We were on our descent into seattle on the olympia arrival with a clearance to descend via the arrival. A few minutes later we were taken off the arrival and given 'proceed direct arvad' by approach control without any new altitude restriction. I queried approach control that we were not given a new altitude when taken off the arrival and he said; 'none was required since arvad has 12;000 posted on the STAR.' should we not have been given a new altitude crossing restriction since we were taken off the arrival? Again; when I asked this of ATC they said 'no; as long as arvad had an altitude associated with it.' he apparently expected me to cross at 12;000 without being told to do so without any other clarification or communication after being removed from the STAR. We then verified to him that we are now cleared to descent to cross arvad at 12;000 ft. All else was normal. I write this in order to receive feed back and clarification for standardization and safety sake.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier arrival into SEA experienced confusion with regard to the published altitude restrictions on the STAR and ATC's expectations regarding altitudes after issuing vectors.

Narrative: We were on our descent into Seattle on the Olympia arrival with a clearance to descend via the arrival. A few minutes later we were taken off the arrival and given 'proceed direct ARVAD' by Approach Control without any new altitude restriction. I queried Approach Control that we were not given a new altitude when taken off the arrival and he said; 'None was required since ARVAD has 12;000 posted on the STAR.' SHOULD WE NOT HAVE BEEN GIVEN A NEW ALTITUDE CROSSING RESTRICTION SINCE WE WERE TAKEN OFF THE ARRIVAL? Again; when I asked this of ATC they said 'no; as long as ARVAD had an altitude associated with it.' He apparently expected me to cross at 12;000 without being told to do so without any other clarification or communication after being removed from the STAR. We then verified to him that we are now cleared to descent to cross ARVAD at 12;000 FT. All else was normal. I write this in order to receive feed back and clarification for standardization and safety sake.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1039672
Time
Date	201209
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	SEA.Airport
State Reference	WA
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737-700
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Descent
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

Air carrier arrival into sea experienced confusion with regard to the published altitude restrictions on the STAR and ATC's expectations regarding altitudes after issuing vectors.