I agree to a certain extent but when there's a lack of consistency and, in fact, knowledge from NCL staff it makes it tricky to know what charges to expect. Whether its a cruise or any other type of holiday, I don't think its a stretch to expect people to want to have a rough idea of what its going to cost.
I had a call yesterday from our Cruise Consultant who told me she couldn't give me a full explanation of how/why the VAT is charged. To be clear, I absolutely was not making any complaint, just asked for an explanation to understand it better. Her understanding was that it only applied in Spanish waters and she didn't think it would be charged in France. She had apparently just come from a meeting which was covering the topic as they have had lots of correspondence about it.....the upshot being that they "are trying to iron out the kinks". When we discussed future cruises she finished up by saying "hopefully it'll be resolved by then and VAT won't be an issue". Price hikes incoming I imagine!