Refund of Port Charges etc. after Cancelling or No Sho

[Hblanton]

Hey, does anyone have any experience with this? So you paid the full freight for your cruise. The fare included various port charges, taxes and whatnot. Then you either have to cancel (and maybe get a refund based on when you cancel) or end up not being able to take the cruise. If this happend to you, did you get paid back the port charges and other taxes for the cruise you didn't take?

 

A related question is whether you have had port charges refunded when due to weather or other issues a port was skipped over and not replaced with something else.

 

I'm just trying to figure out what policy is, and what has acutally happened in these circumstances.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Traveler353]

Each cruise line handles it differently. Did you have specific sailing in mind?

[fideauxdon]

We had to cancel a Panama Canal cruise on the HAL Westerdam in September, one day before sailing, and the Port Charges were refunded.

[cherylandtk]

In general, there are no refunds from the cruiseline for an individual cancellation outside of the published cancellation policy. The taxes and fees are considered part of the fare, and the ship is still going to the ports and will still pay fees.

 

When an entire ship has to cancel a port, some lines (not all) offer a flat rate refund OBC of a portion of the port taxes since the ship did not go there and did not have to pay the port fees on that itinerary.

[Keith1010]

In most cases when the ship has to cancel the port they will refund the port fees. As noted above normally as an on board credit which can be that amount or sometimes more. Again, this will vary by cruise line.

 

Keith

[paul929207]

We were on the Tahitian Princess in October and November. We skipped Port Victoria in the Seychelles Islands due to the threat of pirates. We were given a refund (to our on board account) of the port charges.

[Hblanton]

I'm not looking at a particular cruise here, but am doing some general research (comparing various refund policies/practices across industries.) I'm particularly interested in anyone who has had personal experiences with this.

 

Thanks a ton. Or mabye 122,000 tons (like the Solstice...)

[njhorseman]

We've received credit to our on board account for missed ports. When we had to cancel a cruise we did not receive a refund of port charges from the cruise line. However, we were reimbursed by our trip cancellation insurance for the total fare, including port taxes and fees.

[smeyer418]

In the past I have said no refund when you cancel a cruise(other than you own insurance). However I have been told that some guests report refunds by some cruise lines of port fees. I think one said it was HAL but I am not sure and I have never canceled after the penalty period so I can't tell you for sure. Call the cruise line and see what they say and let us know and if you do cancel let us know what they actually do...

[Krazy Kruizers]

We had to cancel a cruise once -- got everything back.

 

And we also had the situation where on a coupe of cruises ports were missed due to weather -- got those port charges back on our account on the ship.

[Bonnie J.]

Last year we were on a B2B, Carnival. We were behind Hurricane Hannah and in front of Ike. We were credited with $25 for each port we couldn't go to, Eastern & Western, including Cayman.

[fideauxdon]

We had to cancel a cruise once -- got everything back.

 

I'm assuming that you were outside the cancellation Penalty window. I believe that the questions here are discussing those folks who had to cancel at the last minute, like I did, and received their fees back from the cruiseline. Check my earlier post.