Sticky Buns Everyday; Riviera

[hondorner]

I doubt either the cruise line or the shop on board gets to keep the processing fee. They didn't do any processing! They just forward the amount to the processing agency.

 

It's just like the earlier rumors that the cruise line kept the foreign transaction fee; also not true.

[LHT28]

Why would a Country impose a VAT charge if they do not get it ??

It would be unlikely the cruise line gets to keep it

 

I gave up trying to get the small amount of VAT back from some of these Countries..not worth my time in most cases

 

YMMV

 

Lyn

[ORV]

I doubt either the cruise line or the shop on board gets to keep the processing fee. They didn't do any processing! They just forward the amount to the processing agency.

 

It's just like the earlier rumors that the cruise line kept the foreign transaction fee; also not true.

 

I would think if a company,(the boutique) collects a tax, then passes it along to a government by payment (something similar to when a business here in the U. S. collects sales tax, then forwards it to their state government) then I would call that processing. Unless there's another word for it. Maybe handling. I do know that telephone and utility companies in the US can charge an additional fee for the collection of certain fees & taxes.

 

I believe the Global Blue company that they use to do the refunds certainly gets a fair share of it. My wife took care of the paperwork on this as it was her purchase. I don't know if it stated any fees on the paperwork or not.

 

Here's what I know for sure, the VAT was 22%. We got back about 11%. I don't know who kept the balance.

[roothy123]

Well, my county legislated a tax on bags. Sellers of products (including food) are required to charge 5 cents for each bag they give a customer. There are some exceptions due to factors such as perishable vs. non-perishable, paper vs. plastic etc., but generally it applies to anything that is sold and carried out in a bag. (You can bring your own bag and refuse a bag to avoid the tax.) The vendor gets to keep one cent per bag and he/she forwards the remaining 4 cents to the county government. I thought that was a pretty good deal for the sellers, considering that in the past they had to purchase bags for their customers and now the cost is reduced by a cent per bag!

 

The whole thing confuses people from the neighboring counties (and some people in this county!!), as they don't understand why they are charged a 5 cent bag tax at Subway and no bag tax at McDonalds. At least the tax is pretty straight-forward: If you're given and accept a bag that is subject to the bag tax, you are taxed 5 cents. For the Spanish/Italian/whoever may be next VAT tax, I suppose it might be a nightmare for the cruise lines to administer, as there are different things that affect the tax (if you start in Spain, if you go outside the EU, etc.) Also, do you stop charging when the ship gets to international waters, or decide on a simpler method of determining when the tax applies? For our recent cruise, Oceania made an upfront announcement that on days X, Y and Z, 10% Spanish VAT tax would be charged on alcohol. We were not "in Spain" every single minute of those days, but at least it was a clean and easy system that everyone could understand and prepare for! I can just imagine the havoc that may have ensued if the 10% alcohol tax had been charged for early diners at Polo, but the later diners had no tax imposed!

Edited September 8, 2014 by roothy123

[pretenda]

Yum to almost EVERYTHING on the O ships! :)

 

I found myself going nuts on Sushi on our last cruise for lunch AND breakfast... I was trying very hard to not gain the "freshman 15"... Well, that attempt failed by day 5 as I figured "what the heck?" There's just too much good food. And truth be told, they make some great bacon for breakfast... Scrambled eggs, not so much...

 

Ironically my biggest weakness is the little sandwiches they put out in Baristas. I spend a lot of time in the library/computer/coffee area working on my travel blog, etc. on O class ships and those little yummy bites are just TOO "handy" and quite plentiful (favorite is the tuna salad)!!! :rolleyes:

 

DH would not walk from the pool area to the elevators on the port side just because those milkshakes are way too tempting! We all have our vices I guess. :)

 

Point of the story - you paid for it - enjoy it. We always go on a strict low cal diet and double our exercise for a month post-cruise. So easy to put it on, so hard to take it off!

 

So true can appreciate all of that. :) 2 weeks to go!

[travelglobetrotter]

I'm not usually interested in breads or sweet buns or rolls, but tried the sticky buns on Marina 2 years ago, after reading posts on CC, and I loved them! They lived up to all the raves, and I enjoyed them when offered.

 

However, last year, again on Marina, I was totally disappointed in them, to the point of listing them on the mid cruise review. The chef responded to try them again the next day, and they were worse. The recipe had clearly changed, and the buns were drenched in honey, very soggy, and with just pieces of pecans, not the whole nuts. While I saved a lot of calories by passing them up, I missed the sticky buns experience, and hope our Upcoming B2B on Riviera will offer the original recipe again. Otherwise, I'll just have the occasional chocolate croissant, so messy, but so good. Marlene