Looking through some of my Venezia pictures, we had glass on the Inaugural Transatlantic. Maybe they have been coming back for a while (May 23 at least)
Cruise lines contract for enormous amounts of food well in advance. They aren't impacted by spot price changes at your local Walmart. Port fees and taxes are not commodities.
Not on Glory a few weeks ago, but I guess they are coming back. Anyway, you can pick up fresh glasses (Plastics?) on Lido and have a constant supply in your cabin.
This is also shown on the AU website
Taxes, Fees & Port Expenses are subject to change and Carnival reserves the right to collect any increases in effect at the time of sailing even if the fare has already been paid in full.
Guessing too high puts them at a competitive disadvantage compared with a cruise line that cuts it closer. Right now Carnival refunds port charges and fees for missed ports. Royal only does so if they collected too much to begin with and have a surplus. I can see Carnival moving to something similar and perhaps not refunding anything. At the end of the day, I see this costing the consumer more money.
But the numbers can change. If you reprice a cruise, the port taxes and fees often change and not always lower. That would be a violation as I read it.
But does it really? The "optional" costs vary greatly - drink packages or individual drinks, shore excursions, specialty dining, bingo, gratuities, etc., etc. You still won't see the total cost of your vacation.
I suspect it could fall under the taxes part of the law and they can do as they please. As in match the competition. I wouldn't be surprised if Carnival adds additional "optional" fees which are exempt - e.g. you want to change cabins, a price reduction, we are going to charge a fee for this, a fee for that.
As Carnival doesn't release numbers like that, it falls under the 150% of statistics are made up.
Will be interesting, because all Carnival can do is estimate the port taxes and fees. They can't control them.
Or any possible fuel surcharges in the future.
It seems like much ado about nothing for cruises. Only first time cruisers night not know about port taxes etc.
You can cancel for any reason. The normal cancellation penalties would apply and the insurance would reimburse for those. The rest Princess would refund to the the source of payments. If you used gift cards, they would put the money back on the gift cards. Your only loss would be the cost of the insurance.