Came across this on last NCL cruise, this was their response when complained. Got all tax refunded. Sailed from Barcelona.
Dear
We understand your concern in regards to the taxes that have been charged during the cruise and appreciate you did not expect to pay an extra amount on the drinks you ordered. Unfortunately we were not made aware of that issue during the cruise and only learned of it when the first guests contacted us after the end of the voyage.
We have now received feedback from our head Office as well as from the colleagues on-board confirming the mistake. This sailing has been considered an intra EU sailing starting and ending within the EU and only touching EU ports of call. For such sailings the respective national VAT is applicable, but only for purchase sales - so e.g. if guests for example didn’t have a drinks package either pre-paid or complimentary and pay per drink, then these costs were subject to Spanish VAT for the whole duration of the cruise. By mistake also guests with included drinks packages were charged with the Spanish VAT, which shouldn’t have happened. We realized that indeed there has been misleading and incorrect communication on-board and you can be assured that different steps were taken in the meantime to avoid similar issues on future sailings. We already received feedback that a proper debriefing of the situation has been conducted. We fully appreciate the frustration this situation during the cruise caused and we sincerely apologize for this highly negative Impression.
I have reviewed your final invoice and found that you have been incorrectly charged for an amount of 142,30 USD. In order to refund you, would you please provide us with your bank account number and sort code? A refund back to the credit card is not possible.
Kind regards,
Mariano Calzada
Guest Relations Executive
