Taxes, fees and port expenses of $87-100 for a 2 night cruise???

[MisterBill99]

I was considering booking a 2 night sailing on Silhouette on 1/18/19 prior to our Edge sailing. The price is down to $209 with resident/senior discounts, but the "Taxes, fees and port expenses" are $87! The only stop is Nassau, so I'm wondering whether costs of docking the ship in Port Everglades are somehow being separated out from the normal fare and being charged to the passenger. Checking other 2 night sailings I discovered that some (generally out of Miami) are over $100! Now, of course I know that they'd have to recover those costs anyway, but there are 7 night cruises with taxes/fees that aren't much higher than $100 and the 14 night Equinox sailing on Reflection, also out of Port Everglades, is only $113.81 for the entire cruise! I can't believe that Nassau is charge that much per passenger and breaking it out like that makes the cruise almost 50% higher than it would appear to be at first.

 

So does anyone know how to break down the $87 charge for 2 nights with a single port?

Edited November 8, 2018 by MisterBill99

[jimzgoldfinch]

Hi,

They would probably been the same if for example it was a 4 day cruise with 2 sea days.

 

Read this https://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/articles.cfm?ID=2031

 

[Islandbuoy]

It's the Bahamas tax. Quite high and a dis-proportinate  share of a short cruise cost.

[bananawindnj]

American Ports are also expensive. Example: 9 day out of Baltimore next year stopping at Charleston,Port Canaveral, Miami and Nassau totals $190 per person taxes. Offsets any deal you can get.  

Panama Canal  taxes on trips are now ridiculous also.

 

[MisterBill99]

2 hours ago, bananawindnj said:

American Ports are also expensive. Example: 9 day out of Baltimore next year stopping at Charleston,Port Canaveral, Miami and Nassau totals $190 per person taxes. Offsets any deal you can get.  

Panama Canal  taxes on trips are now ridiculous also.

 

Yes, I just paid $334 in taxes for my Panama Canal cruise. While on the cruise they told us that the ship has to pay some outrageous amount ($380k?) to transit the canal and I'm sure that was spread across passengers in the port charges/taxes. And apparently the charge is the same even if the ship only does a partial transit since they use the same locks twice.

[tunaman2011]

Greetings

 

There is also a nice shiny new cruise terminal for Celebrity at Port Everglades.  Someone needs to pay for it.

 

Good Sailing

Tom

[cruising cockroach]

Panama canal charges are high because cruise ship lines (and/or their pax) want to go through at a particular time and will pay for the privilege, and the canal authority knows it.  If a ship can drop anchor and wait when the canal is not busy, the transit fees can be a lot lower (as in  small fraction of the prime time cost).  Just like buying TV ad time for Super Bowl vs. after-midnight local channel.

[Orator]

2 minutes ago, cruising cockroach said:

Panama canal charges are high because cruise ship lines (and/or their pax) want to go through at a particular time and will pay for the privilege, and the canal authority knows it.  If a ship can drop anchor and wait when the canal is not busy, the transit fees can be a lot lower (as in  small fraction of the prime time cost).  Just like buying TV ad time for Super Bowl vs. after-midnight local channel.

They need to pay the charge for a guaranteed time for Canal passage. They could be waiting up to 3 days if they didn't pay the charge. That's what the Captains on my last two Canal cruises told me.

[cruising cockroach]

1 minute ago, Orator said:

They need to pay the charge for a guaranteed time for Canal passage. They could be waiting up to 3 days if they didn't pay the charge. That's what the Captains on my last two Canal cruises told me.

 

Exactly, the canal authority knows it and charges accordingly.  Just like buying Super Bowl air time.

[MisterBill99]

4 hours ago, Orator said:

They need to pay the charge for a guaranteed time for Canal passage. They could be waiting up to 3 days if they didn't pay the charge. That's what the Captains on my last two Canal cruises told me.

 

4 hours ago, cruising cockroach said:

 

Exactly, the canal authority knows it and charges accordingly.  Just like buying Super Bowl air time.

 

Right, but it was a relatively small piece of the overall charge, something like $50k for the guaranteed reservation and $50k for daylight transit out of $380k total.  They also pay per passenger, based on the ship's capacity. The enrichment speaker we had on our sailing was excellent.

 

Found a slide on this page showing the per passenger rate is $138.

 

https://gcaptain.com/new-panama-canal-toll-structure-coming-in-2016-infographic/

Edited November 9, 2018 by MisterBill99

[MisterBill99]

5 hours ago, tunaman2011 said:

Greetings

 

There is also a nice shiny new cruise terminal for Celebrity at Port Everglades.  Someone needs to pay for it.

 

Good Sailing

Tom

 

Given that Edge is sailing on the same day this cruise ends, we won't be using the new terminal.

[tunaman2011]

11 hours ago, MisterBill99 said:

 

Given that Edge is sailing on the same day this cruise ends, we won't be using the new terminal.

I haven't seen details of the agreement between Celebrity and the port authority but Celebrity may have agreed to a per head rate for all sailings that spreads the cost of the new terminal among all Celebrity ships not just the ones that use the new terminal.

[MisterBill99]

15 hours ago, tunaman2011 said:

I haven't seen details of the agreement between Celebrity and the port authority but Celebrity may have agreed to a per head rate for all sailings that spreads the cost of the new terminal among all Celebrity ships not just the ones that use the new terminal.

 

I think you're grasping for excuses here. FWIW, the taxes/fees for the 2 night Miami cruise were even higher (and yes, I know they built a new terminal there as well). 

Edited November 10, 2018 by MisterBill99