NCL Prima refuses to pay back missed port of call taxes.

[ontheweb]

Just now, schmoopie17 said:

I'm a tinsmith...I make my own cans.

Did you have to buy the tin, or are you also a miner?

[schmoopie17]

I'm a miner...a tinsmith...and a worm procurer.

I'm also a joker...and a smoker...and a midnight toker.

Jack of all trades...

[dbrown84]

16 minutes ago, schmoopie17 said:

I'm a miner...a tinsmith...and a worm procurer.

I'm also a joker...and a smoker...and a midnight toker.

Jack of all trades...

Schmo knows......

[reveur15]

6 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

They don’t “owe” you anything to be “paid back”. Your paying a flat fee for the cruise, and it is not itemized to a point where you could attribute something to a specific port. 
 

At the end of the day, it is a few dollars (USD) and this is a big fuss over nothing. If we miss a port (and we do on almost half our cruises), and get a few dollars (USD) in OBD, we’re happy. If we don’t get anything, we don’t care. 

I dont agree, if I buy a Cruise to visit 4 ports and i only get 2 or 3, I consider that they should refund me an amount bigger than Just port taxes because IMO the value of that cruise is much less.

[RD64]

30 minutes ago, reveur15 said:

I dont agree, if I buy a Cruise to visit 4 ports and i only get 2 or 3, I consider that they should refund me an amount bigger than Just port taxes because IMO the value of that cruise is much less.

Read your cruise contract - this is nothing new! Despite the fact they you do not agree to this - you did agree when accepting the cruise contract. All cruise lines are the same.

[BirdTravels]

47 minutes ago, reveur15 said:

I dont agree, if I buy a Cruise to visit 4 ports and i only get 2 or 3, I consider that they should refund me an amount bigger than Just port taxes because IMO the value of that cruise is much less.

Have you read the contract you signed. They owe you nothing. You agreed to that. So, if that is what you directed the cruise line to do, why would they do anything else???

Edited September 30, 2023 by BirdTravels

[BunnyHutt]

2 hours ago, RD64 said:

Read your cruise contract - this is nothing new! Despite the fact they you do not agree to this - you did agree when accepting the cruise contract. All cruise lines are the same.

While all cruise lines are the same with regards to boilerplate contracts, YMMV and are not consistent amongst and within cruise lines when changes occur. 
 

I was booked on a Cuban cruise on Royal Caribbean for July 2019. And, as my luck usually goes, Cuba was shut down to tourism less than a month before I was supposed to sail. Royal owed us *nothing* as this was a change in government policy but the fact of the matter is, everyone on that ship booked because of itinerary. Those who opted to keep their bookings and cruise to Mexico instead received substantial refunds. To this day, my friend and I are still scratching our head on the cruise line’s math as we fully believe we were refunded a lot more than we were expecting. 

[ontheweb]

13 hours ago, schmoopie17 said:

I'm a miner...a tinsmith...and a worm procurer.

I'm also a joker...and a smoker...and a midnight toker.

Jack of all trades...

And you have revealed your true identity, Steve Miller.

 

Saw him and his band in concert years ago at Bethel Woods (the site of the original Woodstock concert) with Joe Cocker as the opening act.

[ontheweb]

11 hours ago, reveur15 said:

I dont agree, if I buy a Cruise to visit 4 ports and i only get 2 or 3, I consider that they should refund me an amount bigger than Just port taxes because IMO the value of that cruise is much less.

We booked a cruise for its itinerary which included 8 ports and only got 6. (But still a great cruise.) I think we got $14 and change each as a credit for I assume port fees. On one of the ports cancelled pre-cruise, I had bought excursions from NCL before the cruise. It was hard enough to get that money back to my credit card as the phone rep at first thought I was asking for money to compensate for the cancelled port. She kept telling me the contract allowed them to do that. She finally figured out I was asking for the excursion payment back and since it was more than 48 hours before the excursion was scheduled if we had made the port, I was entitled to the refund.

[ontheweb]

13 hours ago, schmoopie17 said:

I'm a miner...a tinsmith...and a worm procurer.

I'm also a joker...and a smoker...and a midnight toker.

Jack of all trades...

And I'm a Space Cowboy.

 

[DrSea]

I don't understand how it can be legal for any cruise line to keep the port taxes and fees for a port/country that I don't go to. 

[julig22]

32 minutes ago, DrSea said:

I don't understand how it can be legal for any cruise line to keep the port taxes and fees for a port/country that I don't go to. 

It isn't. But they are pooled so if they underestimate overall taxes, no refund on individual ports.  Alternatively they could legally charge you extra if they miscslculate. Would you prefer that option?

[Liljo22]

24 minutes ago, DrSea said:

I don't understand how it can be legal for any cruise line to keep the port taxes and fees for a port/country that I don't go to. 

Port fees and taxes are fees charged to the cruise line not passengers.  The cruise lines are adding extra charges to help recoup their expenses.  They are going to have to pay the full amount whether or not they collect those fees from the passengers.  It would only be illegal if this was a tax billed directly to the passenger ie sales tax on drinks that the cruise line doesn’t pay to the local government.  

 

 

[DrSea]

1 hour ago, julig22 said:

It isn't. But they are pooled so if they underestimate overall taxes, no refund on individual ports.  Alternatively they could legally charge you extra if they miscslculate. Would you prefer that option?

They can't charge more for port taxes and fees after final sale. I think it's in the contract, but my state has laws preventing that from happening (per my friend who is a lawyer).

[DrSea]

2 hours ago, Liljo22 said:

Port fees and taxes are fees charged to the cruise line not passengers.  The cruise lines are adding extra charges to help recoup their expenses.  They are going to have to pay the full amount whether or not they collect those fees from the passengers.  It would only be illegal if this was a tax billed directly to the passenger ie sales tax on drinks that the cruise line doesn’t pay to the local government.  

 

 

So how is it legal to charge me the port taxes and fees and not refund it if they don't go to the port? Doesn't make sense. 

[julig22]

1 hour ago, DrSea said:

They can't charge more for port taxes and fees after final sale. I think it's in the contract, but my state has laws preventing that from happening (per my friend who is a lawyer).

Sure they could if they wanted to, although they would have to change the contract. Just like they are allowed to charge a fuel surcharge if they need to. That's already in the contract.

[DrSea]

12 minutes ago, julig22 said:

Sure they could if they wanted to, although they would have to change the contract. Just like they are allowed to charge a fuel surcharge if they need to. That's already in the contract.

Please point to where it says that in the contract. 

 

That's like saying that the cruise fare went up after you paid, and they are asking you to pay more.

 

My state has consumer rights that prevent that from happening, regardless of what the contract says. 

[julig22]

1 hour ago, DrSea said:

Please point to where it says that in the contract. 

 

That's like saying that the cruise fare went up after you paid, and they are asking you to pay more.

 

My state has consumer rights that prevent that from happening, regardless of what the contract says. 

Not sure what the "that" is that you are referring to. Increased taxes are not in the contract, fuel surcharges still are as far as I know, although I don't know that they have ever been implemented.

Fuel surcharges, increases in taxes are definitely NOT the same as increasing cruise fare. Separate line items for a reason.

Highly doubtful that your state consumer rights would apply if taxes increase and NCL chooses to pass on that increase, per the terms if the contract

[KeithJenner]

9 hours ago, DrSea said:

I don't understand how it can be legal for any cruise line to keep the port taxes and fees for a port/country that I don't go to. 

When you book a cruise you don’t get charged $x for port 1 and $y for port 2. They estimate what the total port charges will be for the entire cruise, divide that by the expected number of passengers and charge you for that estimated amount.

 

When you actually cruise the amount that it costs per passenger will vary based on the actual port charge and the number of passengers. For some individual ports the charge may be higher than they estimated and for some others it may be lower. Obviously, if you didn’t actually visit that port then it will be zero (unless there are cancellation or no show fees I suppose, I have no idea whether that happens).

 

If the net difference means that customers were undercharged then NCL will swallow that difference. If they charged too much then often (I suspect not always) they will refund. For example, we got a $22 per passenger refund on our last cruise despite getting to every port. I believe that was due to port charges.

 

What they won’t do is refund for an overcharge at one port if there are undercharges at others. They look at the total for the cruise. As they billed you for the total rather than per port they are quite entitled to do that.

[ggTexasGal]

Here is the link for fuel supplement: https://www.ncl.com/cruise-faq/fuel-supplement

[DCGuy64]

13 hours ago, DrSea said:

They can't charge more for port taxes and fees after final sale. I think it's in the contract, but my state has laws preventing that from happening (per my friend who is a lawyer).

Have your friend who is a lawyer explain to you how contracts work. If you signed the contract, you agreed to the terms. It can't be illegal to have the terms of a contract enforced when you agreed to it. Fuel surcharges, port fee issues, VAT, etc. are all covered there. Nothing illegal about them.

[RD64]

13 hours ago, julig22 said:

Not sure what the "that" is that you are referring to. Increased taxes are not in the contract, fuel surcharges still are as far as I know, although I don't know that they have ever been implemented.

Fuel surcharges, increases in taxes are definitely NOT the same as increasing cruise fare. Separate line items for a reason.

Highly doubtful that your state consumer rights would apply if taxes increase and NCL chooses to pass on that increase, per the terms if the contract

Re fuel surcharges, if Carnival is considering it, you have to know that they are not the only ones thinking about it.

 

https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2023/10/carnival-fuel-surcharge-not-off-the-table/

[DrSea]

16 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

Have your friend who is a lawyer explain to you how contracts work. If you signed the contract, you agreed to the terms. It can't be illegal to have the terms of a contract enforced when you agreed to it. Fuel surcharges, port fee issues, VAT, etc. are all covered there. Nothing illegal about them.

You can't sign contracts that break the law. It isn't how the law works. 

 

My point, NCL can't keep port taxes and fees if you miss a port. But keep defending NCL and let them keep your money. 

[hallux]

6 hours ago, DrSea said:

My point, NCL can't keep port taxes and fees if you miss a port. But keep defending NCL and let them keep your money. 

The counterpoint is that NCL doesn't give you an itemized breakdown of the port taxes and fees - you don't know what portion of that is for which port.  I've been on cruises where NCL DID refund something if we missed a port.  Again - if they over estimated the number of passengers that would be on board they UNDER estimated your portion of the port fees and taxes.  If a port is missed in that case then you would likely not get a refund of port fees and taxes.

[DCGuy64]

7 hours ago, DrSea said:

My point, NCL can't keep port taxes and fees if you miss a port. But keep defending NCL and let them keep your money. 

Yes they can and it isn't illegal. But if you feel you've been wronged, you're within your rights to hire and pay an attorney to sue NCL. I'm defending NCL because I believe they've done nothing wrong. And yes, they CAN keep my money. My wife and I sailed with them last December on a transatlantic cruise that had only two stops, both of which were cancelled. We never even dreamed of accusing NCL of breaking the law, or even violating a contract. They did, as a kind gesture, give us each $100 in OBC, but even that wasn't required. Do what you feel is right, but NCL isn't in the wrong, sorry.